With the Saturday night call of the Nevada Senate race for Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democrats are assured of maintaining control of at least one chamber of Congress. At the moment, they have a 50-49 advantage, which can grow to 51-49 if Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia wins his December 6 runoff election against Republican Herschel Walker. This is literally the bare minimum acceptable result for the party, the nation, and the world. The Democrats will rue not managing to get over the top in the Senate elections in North Carolina, Ohio and, especially, Wisconsin, but they did not lose control, and that’s exceptionally good news. They will have two new Senators in Peter Welsh of Vermont, who replaces Pat Leahy, and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who replaces Republican Pat Toomey.
The Warnock-Walker runoff may seem to hold little importance now that it won’t be determinative of which party runs the Senate, but there is actually a big difference between a 50-50 Senate with ties broken by the vice-president, and an actual majority 51-49 Senate. Most obviously, in a 51-49 Senate, the Democrats will have majorities on each of the committees, which makes it easier procedurally to advance their agenda to the floor. It will be less time consuming, for example, to confirm the Biden administration’s nominees, including to the federal bench. It also makes is possible to move items that are opposed by a single Democratic senator, so Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will see their veto power diminished. As you can see, aside from the national embarrassment that would result from seeing Herschel Walker in the Senate, we have more concrete reasons for hoping that Warnock is victorious.
On the House side, there is still a tiny sliver of hope that the Democrats will hold their majority. Many people are treating this as a giant victory, and it’s easier to see why. Aside from the expectations leading into the midterms, which saw a Republican House majority as a foregone conclusion, even a narrow loss will defy historic trends. It’s just very unusual for the president’s party to avoid a wipeout in midterms elections, and the Democrats’ majority was perceived as too small to survive even a trend-bucking good night at the polls. In truth, however, it now appears clear the Republicans, if they hold on and take control, will only have done so due to a more effective and aggressive gerrymandering effort.
Yet, however good people feel about beating the odds, losing the House, if it happens, will still be catastrophic. The country will be ungovernable. There’s a decent chance the public will understand that the Republicans are to blame for this and it could help Biden get reelected, but the damage may be immense. We may default on our debts.
“A default by the U.S. government would be substantially worse than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, devastating global markets and the economy,” Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist of Standard & Poor’s, predicted earlier this year.
We may struggle to keep the government financed and operational. We may lose the ability to lead any coalition against fascism.
This is really my backdrop for everything, and the cause of my pessimism. The Democrats have much to celebrate, including significant wins in governors’ races and state legislatures, and success in ballot initiatives. But the country is still crippled by the current pathological condition of the Republican Party.
If the Democrats miraculously run the table on the still-uncalled House races and keep their trifecta, I will feel much, much better. If not, I will still feel like these midterms confirmed that the country has gone too crazy to be saved. The Republicans stripped us of reproductive rights and attempted a coup, and they were punished for it. But a sane country would have obliterated them.
Still, I do want to recognize the excellent work so many put into making this a very disappointing cycle for the Republicans.
I get the sense of relief so many feel. There are a lot of unexpectedly good things that happened. But just watching the giddiness of the left wing pundits and news media at how badly the GOP shot themselves in the foot this cycle completely belies just how awful the next two years will be if Republicans take the House. As you point out, the debt ceiling itself has the potential to collapse the entire economy. And the GOP would be just fine with that.
yes the debt limit is the bitch in this scenario. we’ve seen this before and I always want to say f u I’m not going to be blackmailed again. But .. and that is likely to happen again. Still I want to see the ask again. Social security and medicare won’t do it for me. it means war.
I think the fever in the Republican party is finally breaking.
The house hearings helped.
JFK Jr. not magically showing up on the grassy knoll helped.
The trials of the insurrectionists helped.
Grandpa Joe helped–it’s hard to be outraged by him.
That said, if the Republicans do manage to win the house–McCarthy will cave to MAGA….and that would provide an opening for the Democrats. It may just take one or two to flip. I’m guessing there are more sane ones in the Republican party who do not want to crash the economy (debt ceiling) nor cut Social Security. The only way that would happen would be for them to sign on with the Democrats.
Perhaps a good situation would be a thin majority for Republicans – one seat. Then they can take the blame for things going badly, but at least one of these New York freshman could probably be won over to avoid financial Armageddon. Of course, it will be better if Democrats still run everything.
I’ve been curious about the possibility of flipping a Republican Congressional Rep or two. Surely there are some in the Problem Solvers Caucus who could be approached. Maybe they change their affiliation to Independent and caucus with Dems, and if so, I’m sure they’d exact some sort of price for doing so. But it would be worth trying if nothing than for the sake of sane governance.
We agree, I think, that if (as seems increasingly likely) Republicans win control of the House, then Democrats should try to do some version of what Willie Brown did in the California state assembly in the mid-1990s—maintain control by cutting deals with isolated GOP members.
FWIW, I don’t think that tactic is likely to work, if only because the institutional pressures on the Right are so powerful and so effective at enforcing the party line.
Institutional pressures, and the very real and overt threats of physical harm to themselves and their family from the foot soldiers in MAGA world. Anyone who dares considering cutting any sorts of deals can expect a constant stream of death threats, both overt and implied, and also having regular confrontations with armed fascist thugs. That’s a tactic the GOP is going to constantly rely on going forward. They will, of course, condemn it, while giving a knowing wink of permission to the brown shirts.
Thanks for your comment. Having watched congressional Republicans over the past 14 years (and having watched what Republican primary voters have done to GOP representatives and senators who deviate from the party line), on what basis are you “guessing there are more sane ones in the Republican party”?
With such a tiny majority in a House caucus which would rely on a number of Representatives who won in Districts which had majorities who voted for Biden, I am less fearful about votes on the House floor. Those moderates will need their money men to survive re-election, and the money men most definitely will not want a government shutdown of any kind for any reason.
I am worried about votes a fearful and weak Speaker might refuse to bring to the floor, but I have great doubt that, for example, a Speaker McCarthy could refuse to allow the House to vote on a Bill which, if passed, would prevent the economy from crashing catastrophically for the sake of a goal (cutting Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid) which is INCREDIBLY unpopular. Forcing a debt ceiling crisis is about the only thing I could imagine might cause a few moderate House Republicans to flip and give Democrats control; that is the other reason why I think their Speaker might not dare the risk.
A dark horse concern I have for our side is that Pelosi may not continue on as our Caucus leader, and we would be likely to lose others in her aged leadership team as well. She and her team have done a particularly extraordinary job in this Congress passing Bill after Bill with their very slim majorities. I do not think the next Democratic Caucus leadership team will perform this important duty of wrangling their Members together nearly as well, which would be a big problem in a number of ways. For example, would a Leadership team more sympathetic to the Progressive wing lose moderate Members on key votes the Republican leaders put on the floor, making it harder to stop their dangerous legislative agenda and giving bipartisan cover for The Crazy?
Unfortunately, the outcome of a GOP takeover will still be plentifully bad, with a good legislative agenda dead in the water and the committees running stark raving mad. The best that might be hoped is that their lack of moderation along with their desires to proceed with an unpopular legislative agenda and their refusal to help solve the problems most Americans are facing will make it easier to Democrats to run against them in 2024. We’ll need as many good campaign messages as we can come up with in the next Presidential election, with the Senate map being so rotten and a GOP Presidential nominee who is almost certain to be running on a fascistic agenda.
The country didn’t go crazy quickly and it won’t recover sanity (if it does) quickly. Rick Perlstein has spent the past 25 years researching and documenting how the conservative movement went crazy and pulled the country along with it…and he’s only gotten up to Ronald Reagan’s first election. Since then we’ve had Reagan’s re-election, Iran-contra, the first Iraq War, Newt Gingrich, the impeachment of Clinton, the Bush family hijacking of the 2000 presidential election, the second Iraq War, the Great Recession, McConnell’s “massive resistance” strategy, Trump’s election, the Jan. 6 attempted coup…just to name the highlights (lowlights?).
That’s a lot of crazy. And there are powerful structural forces operating to keep it in place. Defeating the anti-democratic forces that control the GOP will, I suspect, take a decade or more. This year’s election results mean 1) they haven’t won yet, and 2) we get to keep trying.
Makes one wonder if it will ever change, but we have no other option but to fight for a more just and democratic congress, bc they haven’t won yet.