--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, November 9th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For this morning after the midterm show, I'm joined by my colleague Gideon Resnick, who's been covering the midterms for us over the last few weeks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hey, Gideon. How's it going?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I am okay. I know that you are team no sleep. You stayed up all night watching results come in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I should say we are talking about the state of play as of 10 a.m. Eastern. And there's still a lot that we don't know.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, I mean, you know, we knew that going in, right? It's long been expected that we'd wake up this morning and there would be a lot of outstanding races. And that is certainly true.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So no one should be surprised by that. What we should be surprised by is that as of early this morning, we really cannot say for certain which party will take control of the Senate or even the House.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And that is pretty remarkable given what we were seeing just a few days ago.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, and it's also become clear that the so-called red wave of Republican victories didn't really materialize.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, absolutely. And you can look at previous midterms for examples of what, you know, waves tend to look like.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republicans lost 40 House seats during Trump's midterms. Democrats lost about 63 under Obama in 2010, 52 under Bill Clinton in 1994.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So these represented relatively big backlashes to the party and president in power. And what we can say right now is that doesn't appear to be happening here at all.
--:-- Shamita Basu: OK, so let's talk about where Democrats did well. In Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro beat Doug Mastriano in the governor's race.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: John Fetterman defeated Mehmet Oz to flip that Senate seat in Pennsylvania, which was a huge pickup for Democrats.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's a little bit of Fetterman's victory speech from last night.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We held the line. I never expected that we were going to turn these red counties blue, but we did what we needed to do.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah. And as you said, you know, flipping the seat is a critical part of the Democratic effort to keep the Senate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Pennsylvania was also a state where Biden actually campaigned, which was relatively rare this cycle.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Obama went there as well. So this was big. This was a big push from the Democratic Party.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some others that Democrats were talking about throughout the evening. A bunch of candidates that were considered in danger in House seats ended up defending those seats, thinking of people like Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: These were House seats that were really targeted by the Republican Party as potential pickups.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And when Republicans were looking at the national outlook throughout the evening, their chances of flipping a lot of these seats were really dwindling.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, and I add to your list with some Democratic incumbent governors who managed to hold on to their seats.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The AP called the race for Tony Evers in Wisconsin Gretchen Whitmer held on in Michigan And Kathy Hochul ended up winning in New York
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Right. And there was definitely a lot of conversation about that Hochul race. She did end up winning by a relatively small margin.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There may be some trouble for down-ballot Democrats there. But more on that in the days ahead.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Democrats are breathing some sigh of relief, I suppose.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okay, let's move on to where Republicans did well. Governor Greg Abbott held on in Texas, defeating Beto O'Rourke.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Governor Brian Kemp beat Stacey Abrams in Georgia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Republicans had a big night in Florida. Ron DeSantis beat Charlie Crist in the governor's race by a wide margin.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Marco Rubio beat Val Demings in the Senate race.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, neither of those are big surprises. But I mean, Gideon, you and I are old enough to remember when Florida used to be seen as a swing state.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, I mean, I think that's an understatement, if anything. You know, both of these incumbents, as you said, were favored to win.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But I think the margins here were really surprising to people.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: DeSantis, for one, may win by nearly 20 points once all the votes are counted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And one place in Florida that a lot of political analysts were pointing to is Miami-Dade County.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So in 2016, at the presidential level, Hillary Clinton won around 63 percent of the vote there.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That is how blue that county once was. It was what gave Democrats a fighting chance, sometimes an opportunity to win the state.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So this year, DeSantis is on track to win it by a double digit margin.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So that is a really significant shift.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if down the line, Democrats think more seriously about how much time and money they are really willing to invest in the state of Florida in the future.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's stay with Ron DeSantis for a minute here. Of course, he is widely considered the frontrunner to challenge Trump for the party's nomination in 2024.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's a little bit of his victory speech from last night.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After four years, the people have delivered their verdict. Freedom is here to stay.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, so what the crowd is cheering there is two more years, two more years, not four.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Clearly some appetite to see DeSantis run for higher office.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And again, all this is happening while Trump is reportedly talking about his own 2024 bid and pretty openly going after DeSantis in a notable way recently, nicknaming him Ron DeSanctimonious, for example, saying other things even worse, I won't repeat here.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So there seems to be a pretty clear rivalry already underway there.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I hearing a lot of talk already People are quick to want to understand how Trump endorsements affected different candidates Where did he help Where did he hurt So what are we seeing from Trump endorsed candidates How did they do last night
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, it looks kind of decidedly mixed at the moment Some loss in major races others lagged behind expectations.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There are quite a few outstanding key races that I would personally like to see how candidates perform in to kind of fully assess this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'm thinking of a state like Arizona.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But for now, you know, a lot of what you're hearing, as you alluded to, Shamita, is there are people calling it a bad night for Trump and sort of questioning his potency in the party.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So we'll see how much that actually matters going forward.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, that being said, Trump's presence was felt on the campaign trail.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A lot of Republican candidates were repeating his lies about the 2020 election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And The Washington Post has been doing a close job of tracking this. Nearly 300 Republican election deniers ran, and a majority of them won their races.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, it is pretty remarkable every time we talk about these numbers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But, you know, one thing I was sort of keeping in mind looking at this is a lot of these races weren't really so competitive.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So it's not so surprising that so many of them have won.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But, you know, one of the bigger points to make is what Trump wanted from last night in some respects was to have election deniers win races where they would have direct control over the outcome of future elections.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And as of now, that doesn't seem to have worked out for him.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You know, for example, Tudor Dixon lost her run for governor in Michigan.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Doug Mastriano, as we mentioned earlier, lost in Pennsylvania.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So it'll be really interesting to see what happens in places like Arizona and Nevada with some of their other key races.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But I think that's an important thing to keep in mind as we think about all this.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Real quick, let's check in on abortion on the ballot.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Kentucky voters rejected an anti-abortion measure, which is a big deal in a solidly red state.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Also, Vermont, California, and Michigan voters put abortion rights into their constitutions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So a lot of people went to the polls and stood up for abortion rights.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now let's touch on some of the other notable storylines from last night.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There were a lot of firsts.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Maryland elected its first Black governor, Army veteran Wes Moore, who's a Democrat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, was elected as Arkansas's first female governor.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in Massachusetts, State Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, not only became the first woman to lead the state, but she's also the first openly lesbian candidate elected governor in the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: OK, I have one more quick one for you, Gideon.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, go for it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: OK, so Gen Z is now officially a part of Congress.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Democrat Maxwell Frost, who is 25 years old, won his House race in Florida.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Definitely led me to ask some questions about what I was doing at 25.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It was not being elected to Congress but that is quite wild
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okay, Gideon as we wrap up here I feel like there are two questions that people probably have on their minds this morning
--:-- Gideon Resnick: One is so when will we know all the results?
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the second is, how come the predictions about a red wave didn't really come true?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, both are completely fair.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So first on the results question, you know, some of these races, like house races in California, for example, they're going to take weeks, not days.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So even if we know relatively soon which party may control the House, we won't know by how much for quite some time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So again, patience is key there.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And for the Senate, people that were familiar with this in 2020, well, it seems like there could potentially be a repeat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It may once again come down to a December runoff if Georgia goes the way many are now predicting based on how tight that race is.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I should just remind people that we have these results coming in on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We have a nice looking widget that we'll keep on updating as more races get called.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, definitely check that out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And, you know, one more thing, Gideon, to your second question.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It still really is too early to say, you know, who got what right and wrong in terms of predicting this election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But we do have some polling on what people said actually mattered to them after they voted.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So about three in 10 voters said inflation was their top issue.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That was closely followed by abortion.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Most voters that ranked inflation first supported Republican candidates.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Most that ranked abortion first supported Democrats.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Only about one in 10 voters chose crime, immigration, or gun policy as their most important issue.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So this really overall was just a pretty unprecedented midterm election in terms of all of the different things that voters were considering.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Gideon Resnick, Apple News Today editor, thank you so much for joining me.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, thank you.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Before I let you go, a few non-election stories we're following today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: WNBA star Brittany Greiner is being transferred to a penal colony in Russia, her lawyers say.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: She was recently sentenced to nine years in prison for carrying vape cartridges in what the U.S. calls a wrongful detention.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tropical Storm Nicole is close to hurricane strength.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's moving through the Caribbean and expected to make landfall on Florida's east coast tonight or early Thursday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And there's a winner in the record-breaking $2 billion Powerball jackpot.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The winning ticket was sold at a gas station in Southern California, and whoever bought it hasn't come forward yet.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find more election coverage and other stories in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- [Theme music starts playing]
