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The “blue wave” may not have crested at the heights some on the left had once dreamed of, but in a midterm election that shattered turnout records going back at least half a century, Democrats managed to secure the House of Representatives for the first time in 10 years—and now possess a check on President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. Beyond that expected (though, at times, not guaranteed) outcome, Election Night 2018 had more than a few surprise results, from history-making candidates to ballot initiatives that could have massive implications for the 2020 presidential election—toward which more than a few of last night’s candidates will be turning their eye.
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Turnout for What: Sometimes a record is broken—other times, it is shattered into a million pieces. Voter-turnout across the country neared levels normally seen in presidential election years, with early reports indicating an estimated 113 million Americans cast ballots—which would be the first time the midterm total exceeded 100 million. It would also match the high-water mark for biggest percentage in a midterm since 1966, when 49 percent of voters turned out. That massive turnout was good news for representative democracy, but not great news for some underprepared polling stations from Georgia to Florida to New York City, where lines stretched for hours and malfunctioning voting machines prompted lawsuits to extend voting hours.
Hear Them Roar: A record 277 women ran for Congress and governor as major-party nominees across the country in 2018, and at least 116 have won so far, the highest number of women elected to Congress in American history. Among them: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx superstar who upset one of Democratic Party’s most powerful incumbents, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress last night; Kansas State Senator Laura Kelly defeated Kris Kobach, formerly Trump’s “voter fraud” point man, to become the state’s third female governor; and Sharice Davids of Kansas, an Army veteran and former MMA fighter with a law degree from Cornell, became the first lesbian Native American elected to Congress.
Expanding the Franchise: One of last night’s most potentially consequential outcomes may have nothing to do with who controls Congress. In Florida, a resounding 64 percent of voters supported the passage of Amendment 4, a ballot measure that restores the right to vote to most of the approximately 1.5 million people in the state who have been convicted of a felony. In a state that Trump only won by 113,000 votes in 2016, and that is one of only four states that permanently bans convicted felons from voting after being released from prison and completing probation, the addition of more than a million voters to the rolls has the potential to change the calculus in a state that has decided more than a few presidential elections.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which supported the bill in the face of staunch Republican opposition, called Amendment 4’s passage “one of the largest expansions of the franchise in our nation’s history.”
Trump’s Blame Game: The president had publicly dismissed the possibility of a “blue wave” bringing Democrats into power in Congress, but as The Daily Beast reported before last night, Trump and his aides had been getting “spooked” in the final days of the campaign. As early returns came in last night, the White House put out a defensive statement lauding the president for “fueling an extraordinary ground game geared toward defying midterm history.” But some Republican concession speeches laid defeat at the president’s feet, blaming his hard-right final press on immigration for turning off the moderate and independent voters they needed to stay in power. In his concession speech, Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado told the crowd: “I knew if it became a referendum on Donald Trump, I couldn’t win.”
Trump, for his part, thinks things went off without a hitch—or, at least, he tweeted so.
Blast From the Past: One small-town figure with a countrywide reputation finally concluded her three-year-long 15 minutes of fame last night. Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who ignited an enormous legal conflagration after she refused a same-sex couple a marriage license in 2015, lost her campaign for re-election as Rowan County clerk to a Democrat.
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