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--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Election Wire. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley, and this is Election Wire.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And I'm Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
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--:-- John Bickley: All right, Cabot, we waited a few days for this episode to let some more of the results come in. Some of the states are still counting now, even more than a week later. First, let's start with the Senate map. Where do things stand now?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, we do have a more clear picture of where the Senate is compared to the House. Remember, Republicans came in expecting to gain anywhere from 52 to even 55 seats, but that did not materialize, not at all. As we stand right now, Democrats have retained control of the Senate. They're at 50 seats, and they could end up with 51 when all is said and done down in Georgia.
--:-- John Bickley: All right, so what happened with the Senate? How did we get here?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So Democrats essentially won all of the seats they needed to win, and then some to retain their majority. All of their incumbents, including vulnerable ones like Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democrat in Nevada, as well as the incumbents in Arizona and New Hampshire, all of them came out on top. And they also won the all-important race in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman defeated Dr. Oz. And that seat, it's worth pointing out, was a pickup where they replaced outgoing Republican Senator Pat Toomey.
--:-- John Bickley: Right, that pickup in Pennsylvania, that's one of the reasons it was so important for the Democrats and so much money was dedicated to that race. Yes, that was the most expensive race in the entire country. And so that made it even more devastating for Republicans that they lost.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, Republicans did take races mostly that they were expected to take, correct?
--:-- John Bickley: Right. So we'll get to the final vote tallies later, but Republicans did come out on top in Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, which again, they were expected to win in all of those. So as things stand right now, Democrats are at 50, Republicans are at 49. So Democrats will have control. Even at 50-50, they've still got Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Okay, so you mentioned Georgia. That's the race that's yet to be determined. It's gone to a runoff now set for December 6th. We have Herschel Walker, the Republican, and Raphael Warnock, the Democrat. What happened there? Tell us about the race and what to expect.
--:-- John Bickley: So polling showed Republican Herschel Walker with a slight lead coming into election day. But in the end Warnock ended up winning by just under a point. Now what important here is that neither candidate got to the all 50 percent which in Georgia means that we heading to that runoff on December 6th. So you going to be hearing a lot about this race over the next three weeks. And because of that runoff Democrats now have a chance to get to 51 seats.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And getting to 51 would not only give Democrats more sway over important Senate committee placements and enable them to confirm more federal judges easier, but it would also take away leverage from moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Remember, they've really been a thorn in the side of Democrat leadership because they could single-handedly hold up legislation with their votes because Democrats had to have all 50 members on board.
--:-- John Bickley: So 51 seats in the Senate would take away some of that leverage from those moderates. And how do we expect the Republicans to perform in a runoff in Georgia? What does the historical data tell us there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So historically, Republicans have done well in statewide runoffs in Georgia. If you take away the 2020 Senate runoffs, which a lot of people view as an outlier because President Trump was telling Republicans in the state not to vote because of election integrity concerns, but take that out. Republicans have won seven of the last eight state runoffs. One of the big factors is that there are more registered Republicans in the state than Democrats, which helps in a runoff where there are only two choices.
--:-- John Bickley: And also in this race, Republicans are optimistic because Chase Oliver, the libertarian candidate who picked up two points will no longer be on the ballot come December 6th. And Republicans are hoping that that 2% goes for them, or at least it does not show up for Warnock, and that they're hoping that the Libertarian voters will be more likely to lean towards them when all is said and done.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: We've also seen some mobilization from the parties to high-profile Republican governors have already gotten involved in the Senate race, correct?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, not only has more money come pouring in from Senate leadership packs and around the country for Walker. But we've also seen some high-profile names like Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, essentially telling Walker, we'll do anything we can to help you just tell us where to go. So definitely coalescing happening right now for Walker in Georgia.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Okay, so that's going to determine how much control Democrats have. Now, what about the House? Where do we stand now? There's been a lot of slow counts coming in, but we have some numbers that are solidifying. What are we looking at?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, remember, Republicans coming in, they were expecting to pick up 35 to 40 seats in the House. They were hoping and expecting a red wave, even a red tsunami. But that did not happen. Ended up being more of a red trickle, if that. Like you said, votes are still coming in from a few districts, especially out in California. But Republicans are projected to take the House by the slimmest of margins. They barely got to that 218 mark that they needed for a majority.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And that small majority is important because it means there's no room for dissension among House Republicans if they want to get things passed. They've got to have total agreement among members, which obviously can be difficult sometimes.
--:-- John Bickley: All right, so they have the majority. What will Republicans do with the control of the House? Practically speaking, what does this majority mean?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, first off, it means no more Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It looks like Republican Kevin McCarthy will be set to take over as House Speaker. Earlier in the week, Republicans held a preliminary vote and he came out on top. But there are still some rumblings that it's going to be a more drawn out leadership battle. So keep an eye there on who Republicans nominate to some of those key positions.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, Republicans will also have power to launch investigations. They've been clamoring to have that oversight power from the House that will give them the power to investigate the DOJ the FBI Hunter Biden things like that. So they will gain committee power. But beyond that and perhaps most importantly in the grand scheme of things they be able to put a hold on a lot of the agenda items from President Biden just because of the fact that they control the House.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the days of President Biden passing sweeping multi-billion dollar packages through Congress with ease are likely over. He's going to have to be much more limited in what he gets through. Could we see something positive here in terms of basically forced bipartisanship? I like that term, forced bipartisanship. I like that you're going for optimism. It does seem like this sort of kind of split chamber could breed more bipartisanship.
--:-- John Bickley: So in order to get anything through both chambers, obviously you're going to have to have something palatable for Republicans and Democrats. So you might see some more reaching across the aisle than we've seen over the last few years. And you're definitely going to see packages that are more limited in size.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, this new dynamic is going to be very fascinating to watch. So let's talk about polls. We've looked at polls a lot in the previous weeks, and we rely on polls because they're one of the only ways to get a sense of the pulse of the nation at any given moment leading up to an election. But we've also seen that they can be very much wrong and all over the place.
--:-- John Bickley: There were certainly some major inaccuracy problems in the polls this election cycle, but they also got some things right. Let's start with what they got right or mostly right. So the race in Georgia was an interesting example of the pollsters mostly being right. What they showed again and again is really oscillating results within the margin of error, showing a back and forth between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock within two points usually of each other.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Warnock ended up with the edge, a very slim 0.8% lead, but he didn't even get to 50%. So a very tight margin going to a runoff now and within the margin of error for most of the polls. We also saw some decent polling in Ohio where at least the pollsters got the right outcome. Most showed the Republican J.D. Vance winning. If you looked at the Real Clear Politics average, Vance was projected to win by about 8%. He ended up winning by 6.6%, again, within the margin of error for most polls and some pretty accurate polling.
--:-- John Bickley: Finally, we also saw a similar development in Wisconsin. Almost every single pollster showed Republican Ron Johnson winning the race by about three points. He did end up winning. It was a closer margin, 1%. So again, about a two-point average and within the margin of error.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But some of the other polls, yeah, they were way off, correct? Some of these races left voters, especially Republicans, feeling very let down based on what they saw Election Day.
--:-- John Bickley: So we'll start with New Hampshire, where Republicans were very optimistic coming in. Incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan was starting to lose ground against Republican Don Bolduc in virtually every poll. And people thought that Republicans had a serious chance to unseat her. Now, the final polling average for RealClearPolitics had Hassan with a one-point lead, but in the end, she ended up winning by 9.2%, so not nearly as close as the polls were showing.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That left a lot of disappointed Republicans. Then to the state of Washington, where incumbent Democrat Patty Murray ended as a three-point favorite in the RealClearPolitics average. Now, again, that was a shock to a lot of people. She was a five-term incumbent, and her opponent, Tiffany Smiley, the Republican, had little political experience. But there were multiple polls showing Murray ahead by low single digits. She ended up winning, though, by 14.2 percent. So an 11 percent discrepancy between the polling and the final results.
--:-- John Bickley: And again, that left a lot of Republican voters feeling let down by what they saw in Washington, not nearly as close as we were expecting. But in Florida it was kind of the opposite Republican support for their candidate was actually underestimated by the polls. The final RCP polling average had Senator Marco Rubio up eight points over Democrat challenger Val Demings. But Rubio ended up winning by 16 points. It was a complete blowout in Florida. And the polls underestimated the total red wave that we saw across the board there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And finally, to Pennsylvania. Now, this one, the discrepancy was not as huge as others. But it was especially disappointing because there were so many polls conducted here. So we were really hoping that they were going to be more accurate. The final RCP polling average had Dr. Oz with a slim 0.4% lead. But on election day, John Fetterman, the Democrat, came out with a clear victory, 4.4%. So the polls definitely underestimated Democrat support there.
--:-- John Bickley: And it's worth noting that there was a lot of early voting, particularly in Pennsylvania, where more than half a million votes had already been cast by the time Fetterman and Oz debated on October 25th. And the early vote was about 70% registered Democrats.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, one of the most notable characteristics of this election was that it was not clear-cut nationally in terms of the success of either party. It really came down to individual states. So first, Cabot, where did Republicans have the most success?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, there were definitely some bright spots for Republicans. It was not all bad news for the right. And for any Republicans looking for reason for optimism, there are two states to look at, Florida and New York. Florida, we've really been viewing it as a purple state for the last few election cycles where it could swing either way. But the elections that just happened last week, they make Florida look like a deep red state.
--:-- John Bickley: We mentioned Marco Rubio beat Val Demings, the Democrat, by 16 points. We also saw House Republicans pick up four seats from Democrats. And incumbent governor Ron DeSantis blew his opponent, Charlie Crist, out of the water by around 20 points. DeSantis only won by 0.4% back in 2018 for his first governor's race. So a massive swing in just four years.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And perhaps most telling of the success Republicans had in Florida was their performance with an influential voter block that they've been courting for years with little success. That is Latino voters. Ron DeSantis won 58% of Florida's Latino vote. Back in 2018, he was at just 44%. So clear progress there that Republicans are definitely going to try to replicate nationally. You know, it really is one of the most notable metrics of the entire election. Florida's truly become a Republican stronghold.
--:-- John Bickley: Now in New York, We also saw some very positive trends for the GOP, not on the big ticket race in terms of final result, but all the down ballot races. Unpack that for us. It'd be good.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, you mentioned the top of the ticket where Republican Lee Zeldin was challenging Democrat incumbent Kathy Hochul. This race was much closer than people expected. We saw a late polling surge from Zeldin. Now, he did still end up losing by 5.8 points. But keep in mind, this is a state that Andrew Cuomo won by 24 points back in 2018. So almost a 20-point swing there in just four years.
--:-- John Bickley: And the performance of Lee Zeldin appeared to really help pick up a lot of down-ballot Republican candidates. Because of that, and also the general unpopularity of Democrats in the state, Republicans picked up four House seats in New York, including knocking off Sean Patrick Maloney. He was head of the powerful DCCC.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So as the dust settles from Election Day, Republican leaders are looking at New York and Florida to see what they can learn and replicate for races in the future.
--:-- John Bickley: Right, I'm sure they are. So Cabot, thanks for all the great information as always.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, that's it for this episode of Election Wire. I'm Cabot Phillips, joined by John Bickley. We'll be back soon with the election news you need to know.
