The Midterm Elections, Tomorrow

According to FiveThrityEightPolitics, the likelihood that the Republicans will take control of the senate is over 75%.

For the Democrats, all the way down to the wire, the news isn’t good. At all. On the eve of the elections new reports came in suggesting that they may have the information on where James Foley, the journalist now famous due to his tragic beheading by members of ISIS, was, but did not attempt to use it until too late.

It has been like that all the way along, ever since election night, 2012, things have steadily gotten worse for them. In theatre we have both the comedies and the tragedies. In the comedies everybody lives, and everyone is happy. In tragedies everything goes wrong, and everybody dies. What started out as a huge Democrat Victory, a near comedy, with Obama pummeling his opponent and taking a second term, has ended out its two year run as a looming tragedy, with bad news on every hand, approval ratings through the floor and bad news through the roof, from broken websites to resigning cabinet members, one of whom was voted in contempt of congress.

There are 36 senate seats in play, and a number of them are a tossup. The Republicans are ten seats down, but would need to only gain six seats to flip the senate, while they already hold the house, and are not expected to lose it. While every one of the 435 house seats are up in the air, as it is every two years, most of them land repeatedly in the hands of the same party that threw them up.

Of course, while in some ways numbers can mean everything, this is politics, and numbers can also mean nothing. There is no certainty in this game. Anything can happen. The Republicans could gain ten seats, or lose ten. The rules do not preclude it.

Tomorrow the long campaign, which was the most expensive midterm campaign in history, will be over. We will know if Americans want the Democrats, or if they are ruing their decision of two years ago. Either way, the Democrats certainly did write a comedy. A comedy of errors.

Andrew C. Abbott