Some Early Takes on the Midterms

 Here are some interesting takes from The Bulwark.  I don't think this part is behind a paywall, though they do have paid content.  This is from their free newsletter:

The Knives Are Already Out - by Charlie Sykes (thebulwark.com)

The knives referred to are from Trump: 

• "Of course Trump will claim all sorts of victory, but he had a craptacular night. His candidates underperformed across the country and the GOP was reminded that he is an electoral boat anchor. The former president spent the final days of the campaign lashing out and even threatening Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose apparent interest in running against Trump has puzzled him, according to advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations. The Florida governor didn’t return fire, other than to hold his own campaign event on Saturday, competing with a Trump rally in Miami and further irking the former president."

• • "The Trump-Effect cost the GOP the Governor’s races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Maryland… and that’s just for starters. Arizona’s gubernatorial race is still too close to call."
  • "Yesterday was definitely not the election that MAGA expected. And, as you may have noticed, TrumpWorld does not deal with disappointment well. So expect a lot of Mid-Term Stop The Steal Denialism — especially in Arizona if the Empress of Trollistan falls short."

  • "Speaking of denialism: lots of election deniers won yesterday. BUT . . . voters seemed to draw the line at electing them to key secretary of state positions, where they would have overseen elections."

  • "Democracy may not be dead, after all."

  • • "Liz Cheney had a pretty good night. She had endorsed both Elissa Slotkin in Michigan and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia — and both Democrats won close races."

    • "Next year is going to be pure hot pulsating Hell for Speaker (?) Kevin McCarthy. He had predicted a 60-seat GOP surge. In the end, it may be fewer than 15 seats." 

    • From bulwark contributor Mona Charen:  "The nightmare we dreaded was a red wave, crested with Trump-anointed lickspittles and morons. If that had materialized, the takeaway this morning would have been Trump’s unshakable dominance of the GOP, and the country would have marched, as if to the scaffold, to the Trump 2024 announcement.   That did not happen and the relief is overpowering.Yes, some horrible candidates won, and a few more may yet succeed. But the red wave is looking more like a small toxic spill. The voters of Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Hampshire, and Michigan, among other places, apparently weighed more than inflation in their calculations, and that gives a fighting chance to those who hope to right this listing ship."

    • From Amanda Carpenter:  "What happened last night was both ordinary and utterly amazing.

      I’m not talking about the fact Democrats had surprising wins. It’s that Republicans appeared to have easily accepted their losses."

      "After two full years of enabling, indulging, and pandering to 2020 election conspiracy theorists, it appears that without Donald Trump on the ballot, Republicans will, by and large, concede their races when the votes don’t tally up in their favor. Although several key races remain too close to call, and nutty candidates like Kari Lake and Lauren Boebert, who are still waiting for results, could challenge their losses, that position is not the norm."

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    • The whole article is worth reading; especially check out the tweet by George Conway at the end.  

    • (Didn't mean to put all the bullet points in, but I didn't know how to get rid of them.)