(Dobbs) Something To Celebrate. Lots To Celebrate.
Not a best case scenario, but not worst case either.
No, it is not too early to celebrate.
At this writing, many races remain undecided, control of the Senate could still flip and even more likely, control of the House. But if you’re not part of the Trump Party, it’s not too early to take heart in what we’ve seen so far.
Our world has not imploded.
A few days ago, Trump’s spokesman Taylor Budowich boasted, “At this point, the entire Republican Party, from fundraising, to data, to get-out-the-vote, is on Donald Trump's shoulders and together they will deliver massive GOP victories come November 8.” He probably thought that making that promise was a safe bet, because historically in midterm elections, the incumbent president’s party usually loses, sometimes big-time. But those “massive victories” for Trump’s party didn’t happen. As I wrote on Saturday, despite discontent with President Biden, it hasn’t translated to a massive shift of Democratic voters backing Republican candidates.
Maybe most notably, in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman of the Democratic Party, even with questions about his abilities to serve after suffering a stroke, beat Mehmet Oz of the Trump Party for the United States Senate.
Oz has conceded. It is not only a repudiation of Trump himself, who campaigned for Oz this past weekend, but it flipped a Senate seat from the Republicans to the Democrats. For good measure, Trump also went to bat over the weekend for Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, one of the foremost election deniers among this year’s Trump Party candidates. But Democrat Josh Shapiro beat Mastriano— more like, shellacked him.
That’s the kind of thing that gives me hope, because while some of Trump’s acolytes won, just as many lost, or at least for the moment, are losing. Sure, election denier J.D. Vance won the Senate in Ohio, but unlike the Fetterman victory next door, all he did was keep the seat in the same party’s hands. Meanwhile, Trump Party candidates lost their races for the Senate in New Hampshire, and for the statehouse in Michigan, in Wisconsin, and thanks to Josh Shapiro, in Pennsylvania.
In Arizona, Donald Trump held rallies three times this year to boost the gubernatorial campaign of another election denier, Keri Lake, who has called herself “Trump in a dress.”
At this moment, “Trump in a dress” trails the Democratic incumbent in a dress, Katie Hobbs. Only about two-thirds of Arizona’s votes have been counted so far though— and characteristically, of course, Lake already has hinted at fraud— so things could change, but there has been no slam-dunk for the Trump Party. Likewise, although Arizona’s Senate race has not yet been called, incumbent Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, has a five percentage point lead at the moment over yet another rabid election denier, Blake Masters of the Trump Parry.
That’s the kind of thing that also gives me hope. My greatest hope there is that those leads last.
And although it’s yet another race still in the “undecided” column, the former bar owner and gun-toting Trump Party Congresswoman from western Colorado, Lauren Boebert, with almost 95% of the votes counted, is still slightly behind Democrat Adam Frisch, a former city councilman from Aspen. The front page of today’s Denver Post ran a picture of Boebert and her husband last night, praying.
May their prayers go unanswered. Hope springs eternal.
And come on, if you take an overall look at these outcomes and you’re not part of Trump’s MAGA movement, you have to admit that there is no small satisfaction in seeing that once again, Donald Trump is a confirmed loser. There are reports from his inner circle that this morning he was “livid,” even “screaming at everyone.” One sure bet is that our former narcissist-in-chief is screaming at everybody but himself. After all, how could it be Trump’s fault? He had just called over the weekend for “a humiliating rebuke” of Democrats. In other words, a so-called “red wave.”
And he did everything he could to make it happen, spending more than two-and-a-half million dollars from his fund-scamming PAC called “MAGA Inc.” in the closing days of the election to put his favored Senate candidates over the top in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia. But they have lost in Pennsylvania, are losing in Arizona, and Georgia is a tossup (and it’s confirmed, it will have to be decided in a runoff in a month).
We cannot overlook the fact that House is still up for grabs, and so is the Senate. But no matter how that all plays out, the red wave of “massive victories” didn’t happen. Late night comedian Stephen Colbert called it more like “a pink trickle.”
The future is still going to be rough, at best. But that’s still a whole lot better than what it would have been at worst. Which is why I celebrate.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
How long will it be before Oz moves out of Pennsylvania?