Good to see Tim Ryan concede graciously with his speech. Republicans are being taught a lesson - democracy matters and abortion rights matter. You can lose even if the majority of voters stand with your policies or party. DeSantis and Kemp won decisively. If republicans try to keep the big lie alive, they will further erode their chances and you will see more split ticket votes.
If we can hold off Kari Lake, that would be great for defeating Trumpism. But even if she wins, it was not a good night for republicans. In a midterm, with inflation… Biden’s legislative victories, demeanor and the republicans overturning Roe while pushing lies and showing total subservience to Trump has hurt them three elections in a row now, and they’ve never seemed to understand Trump never had a majority of voter confidence from the start, and it gets worse for republicans each time he is on the ballot, either directly or indirectly.
This should have been a 20 seat pickup for republicans. Instead, they’ll be lucky to hold power at all, with no real referendum on the Biden admin that is convincing.
*Edit - You seriously have to wonder how many races republicans could have picked up if there hadn’t been so many COVID deaths.