Bluenami

Plus: Gerrymandering failures, Supreme Court to rule on Catholic preschool, and more…

Elon Musk, who frittered away $446 million this cycle, is handling it all well:

Down in North Carolina, former Gov. Roy Cooper became the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the state since 2008; Gina Hinojosa, who will become Texas’ first Latina governor, beat incumbent Greg Abbott (and will become the state’s first Democratic governor in more than 30 years); Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton beat Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio.

Republicans had a few small victories across the country, despite mostly being trounced. “Republicans fended off a significant challenge in a Senate race in Florida, with Senator Ashley Moody defeating Angie Nixon, a progressive Democrat,” reports The New York Times. “Byron Donalds, a staunch Trump supporter, was elected Florida’s first Black governor, keeping the Republicans’ hold on that office.”

There were some heartening policy wins. In California, the proposed billionaire wealth tax seems destined for failure, though final results are not yet in. Voters in Washington appear to be affirming the rights of female student athletes to compete only against athletes of their same sex—which libertarians are divided on, but I firmly support.

At press time, ballots were still being counted in Alaska’s crazy Senate race and in Mississippi’s super tight Senate race. More on those results tomorrow, most likely.

Though we shouldn’t overextrapolate, the magnitude of Democrats’ win is enormous. “Democrats flipped House seats in rural North Carolina and central Kentucky, in the suburbs of St. Louis and Omaha, and all along the Texas border,” reports The New York Times. “They seized three seats in Iowa and four in Pennsylvania. They rebuffed redrawn lines in Florida.…Democrats made inroads deep into Republican territory, prevailing in a Kentucky district, for instance, that Mr. Trump carried by 15 percentage points in 2024.” The House majority will be large, though we do not yet know how big, as not all races have been called.

“It’s just a point in time, Bret. Just a point in time. It’s the way it is,” said Trump on Fox News to host Bret Baier last night. “There was a mood in the air, I guess.”

It will be interesting to see whether Republicans—to the extent that they still have power—begin to carve out more independence from the MAGA movement; the degree to which this midterm defeat has implications for Republicans’ 2028 contenders; and if Democrats, once they’re in power, accommodate the far-left socialist flank of the party.

Scenes from Texas: I’m in Texas—my beloved grandmother passed away—and have been astonished by the amount of Talarico fervor I’m seeing, even in more rural areas. He struck me as a weak (and heretical) candidate, but I guess the other guy wasn’t great either. Downtown Austin flipped out when the results were announced:

QUICK HITS

• A good point:

• “I’m more than a little worried about what Democrats might decide a ‘tsunami’ means in terms of how they should govern,” noted Reason‘s Katherine Mangu-Ward in The New York Times. “A big blue sweep doesn’t mean voters love Democrats’ policy proposals; it most likely means they’re sick to death of Republicans.”
• “The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed inclined to rule in favor of a Catholic school that says it has been unfairly excluded from Colorado’s universal pre-K program because it denies enrollment to children of same-sex parents—a policy it argues is protected by the constitutional right to the free exercise of religion,” reports The Washington Post. “St. Mary is among the 34 preschools in the Denver archdiocese that cannot participate in the state’s universal pre-K program because they require that parents sign a statement of ‘Community Beliefs and Commitments,’ in which they agree to accept church teachings ‘increasingly at odds with’ secular culture. That includes agreeing that abortion and same-sex marriage are immoral. The agreements are meant to ensure families who attend are aligned with the preschool’s Catholic teachings. But it also means the children of gay parents are effectively not allowed to attend. That goes against the state’s mandate that schools cannot discriminate on the basis of race, income level and other protected characteristics such as sexual orientation and gender identity.”
• “Data center developers seeking to build dozens of sprawling artificial intelligence campuses across Texas were already dealing with a suspension of approvals under Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott,” reports Bloomberg. “Under Gina Hinojosa, elected on Tuesday as the first Democratic governor of the Lone Star State in more than three decades, they’re facing their worst-case scenario.”

Associate Editor, Reason

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