Midterms: How Sweet It Is!

I'll gladly wear egg on my face: I got it spectacularly wrong, and I'm happier than a pig in shit. The Democrats have held on to the Senate while Republicans have not yet taken the House, five days after the vote. 

It's reasonable to portray the election results as a hodgepodge of issues that favoured the Democrats: the desire by independents and others to get out front of and extinguish election deniers and those who deny the fundamental nature of American democracy. For women and some men, abortion and voting rights were also key, as was, as an interesting subset, the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi. All of the above changed the game and made an election that should have been based on presidential incumbency, inflation, the economy and crime one that moved the goalposts to reflect other issues.

So...here I go again with another pet theory: it seems to me that given the fact that Republicans have still not yet won the House outright, it flows from that with each passing day, their odds of winning the House become diminished. These twenty seats that are still in play are incredibly tight and representative of the struggle between Democrats and Republicans. Independents will call the tune in the end, and it's my contention that the Dems could end up still controlling the House. Maybe, just, maybe.

All of the above is important, but nothing is more so than making sure that Trump becomes a spent political force as quickly as possible. I will put it to you that with these midterm results, that Trump has almost no chance of winning the presidency, should he become the Republican nominee in 2024. 

Republicans would do well to go elsewhere and choose someone else as their nominee if they want 2024 to be at least competitive for them. But are they smart and politically sophisticated enough to do it? Perhaps, perhaps not.