Long post ?
President Trump made a good bet that firing up his base, which intersects with the pre-existing Republican Party, was the best path for boosting Senate candidates in deep red states. BUT
the Senate seats Republicans picked up were always tough holds for Democrats and they actually won by smaller margins than Trump did in those states (in some cases much smaller margins). Republicans didn't even play in several Dem-held seats that should have been competitive.
Look, for example, at Missouri, where Trump won by 19 points, and Hawley won by 6 points, or North Dakota, where Trump won by 36 points and Cramer won by 11 points.
What should worry Trump more than anything is that Republicans lost Senate AND gubernatorial races in the three states that were the keys to his electoral college majority -- Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic governor Wolf won re-election by 17 points and Sen. Casey won by 13 points against one of Trump's favorite candidates ? Lou Barletta ? in a state Trump campaigned in repeatedly.
In Michigan, Democrats won the governorship by more than 8 points, and Stabenow won re-election by more than 5 points.
In Wisconsin, Republicans were non-competitive against Tammy Baldwin, who is no less liberal than Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. And Democrats won the governorship by a whisker.
That doesn't mean that Trump can't win those states in 2020, but it does mean that it would be political malpractice if his team doesn't start figuring out a fix for the Republican problems there RIGHT NOW. Similarly, Democrats have to figure out how to solidify themselves.
Let's take a look at some of the Republican-leaning states where Republicans won. Mike DeWine took Ohio by 4+ points, about two-thirds of Democrat Sherrod Brown's margin in the Senate race. Trump won Ohio by more than 8 points. In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds hung on by 3 points in a state Trump won by nearly 10 points. It was a bloodbath for Republicans at the House level, where Democrats now control three of the four House seats and didn't miss a fourth by a ton. Many others like this across states .
In the House, GOP picked up two seats and Democrats are poised to pick up more than 30. That's a wave (a flip and almost all in one direction)
More important, it wasn't limited to a type of district or a certain region. Sure, you can say "suburban," but there are a lot of different types of suburbs. They include wealthy New York bedroom communities, Oklahoma City suburbs and heavily Hispanic areas of TX, FL & CA
It's hard to find a silver lining for Republicans in the House other than that they didn't lose more ? and there are still a number of outstanding districts to come in. In order to win a majority, Democrats had to find ways to win in districts that were Republican bastions
Because the result was expected, it's easy to forget how big some of the upsets are . All of this is to say that the American political landscape changed a little bit last night. It wasn't a massive sea change that broke the fever of division and partisanship. But it did go mostly in one direction.
Republicans are rightly relieved that it wasn't worse for them. But try to find a place on the map where they expanded their footprint. It's hard. Then look at where Democrats expanded their footprint. It's a lot easier.
History suggests that the likely outcome of this midterm would be a recession from the strength of the president's party in the last election, and that's what happened. But it didn't have to be the outcome given the strong economy
If you cut through the spin, this was a pretty decisive victory for Democrats. They picked up a lever of power at the federal level, won some important governorships and still have a filibuster in the Senate -- and Rs started this cycle thinking about getting to 60.
This will become more apparent as time goes on. But even in Trump's tweets about the House this morning, it's abundantly clear, he knows what he lost last night. The question is whether he'll figure out how to win it back in two years.