--:-- Noelle King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noelle King: The 2022 midterms. What happened? Definitely not a Republican wave, that's for darn sure. Republicans expected a rout last night because the party in power often gets shellacked in the midterms. It happened in 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018. And there so far has been a notable Republican win in Congress. J.D. Vance, now senator-elect in Ohio. Really, I cannot say thank you enough. Also, Herschel Walker looks to have forced a runoff in Georgia. That's a sort of win. But thus far, the only flipped seat in the still-up-for-grab Senate went to the Democrats and John Fetterman. I'm not really sure really what to say right now. My goodness. And the House. It will almost certainly break for Republicans, but the maps are not awash in red. A lot of incumbents held on.
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--:-- Noelle King: Coming up on Today Explained, 2022 midterms. What happened? Support for this show comes from ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into, don't you know? That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform. Didn't know that. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data, workflows, and AI, connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters most. I've never met an AI agent. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at servicenow.com.
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--:-- Noelle King: It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King, Vox, senior politics correspondent, Andrew Prokof. What happened in the 2022 midterms?
--:-- Andrew Prokof: So the much anticipated red wave does not seem to have materialized. Instead, the results that have been called so far show a very close contest. It shows probably Republicans still being the favorites to take over the House of Representatives, though many outcomes remain uncalled. And the Senate is very close, perhaps a slight Democratic edge, but we don't really know because several key races, there's still too much votes left to count.
--:-- Noelle King: So the Republican closing message focused very much on the economy, which pretty much all polls showed that voters were not very happy with. And higher prices on everything are costing Nevada families plenty. And so is Catherine Cortez Masto. And a secondary theme of theirs was crime. Many ads focused on purportedly rising crime rates. Families nervous about their safety, yet Mandela Barnes called for releasing half of Wisconsin's jailed inmates.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Democrats, meanwhile, ran on defending Joe Biden's record, but they had an assist, which was rather unusual as far as midterm elections go, which was the Supreme Court's decision to overturn federal abortion rights protections this summer. It's offensive to see someone like Blake Masters talking about taking away our rights. Absolutely no abortion. You make it illegal and you punish the doctors. No abortions, even in the case of rape and incest.
--:-- Noelle King: Let's talk through some of the races, starting with the Senate races, which at this moment, we don't know who will control the Senate, but it's tense. What are the big takeaways so far? Where were your eyes last night and where are they this morning?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So the biggest win for either party so far was in the Republican-held open seat contest in Pennsylvania. Democrat John Fetterman was called the winner over Republican Mehmet Oz. I never expected that we were going to turn these red counties blue, but we did what we needed to do. And that is very important for Democrats' Senate math. They came into this election with the narrowest possible majority, not even really a majority. They have 50 seats and Republicans have 50. So Democrats control the chamber with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
--:-- Noelle King: So a net flip of even one seat would have given Republicans control of the chamber. But by picking up the Republican seat in Pennsylvania, that gives Democrats a little cushion. Now, Republicans need to flip two seats to take over the chamber. And that is still possible for them, considering the races that remain not yet determined. But it's a little difficult, more difficult than just flipping one seat would have been.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: There are still a few important races that we are waiting on that have not yet been called. Two of the most important are Nevada and Arizona. Both of these feature Democratic incumbents who are facing competitive races. In Arizona, that's Mark Kelly. In Nevada, that's Catherine Cortez Masto. And so the way the Senate math works is that now that Democrats have picked up the Pennsylvania seat, if they win both Arizona and Nevada, that's enough for a Senate majority.
--:-- Noelle King: So the party is hoping that they can pull out wins in both of these seats. At the time we recording this Mark Kelly is ahead in Arizona and looking pretty solid there though again lots of votes remaining to be counted lots of mail votes remaining to be counted. And that could take a while. In Nevada the Republican Adam Laxalt was currently ahead. But again a lot of mail ballots will be counted very slowly over the next couple days. And it remains entirely plausible that Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democrat, will end up on top once all those votes are in.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Tell us about Georgia really really really tight race in Georgia and uh it's gonna go to a runoff yeah it looks likely to go to a runoff at this point still hasn't been called uh last i saw rafael warnock the democratic incumbent was around 49.5 percent of the vote and he needed to hit 50 percent to avoid a runoff. But, you know, Democrats are happy with this outcome because the Republican, Herschel Walker, had actually been leading in the final polls in the race, and they were anticipating that the big question was whether Walker would win outright or whether a runoff would ensue.
--:-- Noelle King: Andrew, let's talk about the House. There were, of course, many more House races. And it looks at this moment, and I'm being very careful with my language, like the House will break for the Republican Party. We don't know for certain. What are the big takeaways in House races so far?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So the big takeaway, as I see it, and again, all this is preliminary. There are a lot of races that haven't been called. But incumbents seem to have done quite well. There are very few incumbents who lost, and the ones who did lose, most of them lost because of redistricting, because the districts they had previously represented were changed, perhaps made more Republican or more Democratic, essentially presenting them with a different electorate to appeal to, and some of them lost because of that.
--:-- Noelle King: But the bigger picture in the House is that Democrats' majority was so small as it is that a mere five seats flipping would have been enough to give Republicans a majority. And because of all the redistricting changes, it looks like Republicans are on track to do that. But again, Democrats in competitive races in these House contests were surprisingly resilient. If you go down the list of which were the toss-up Democratic-held seats, they are overwhelmingly holding on so far.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: All right, so we've got the Senate, we've got the House, and then there were a lot of very crucial governor's races. What are the results of those indicating so far?
--:-- Noelle King: So generally, incumbents in competitive contests, again, did quite well. We saw Ron DeSantis reelected in Florida, Brian Kemp reelected in Georgia on the Republican side. It looks like the reports of my political death have been greatly exaggerated. But on the Democratic side, again, there was a long list of Democratic incumbents or Democratic held open seats that were believed to be in real danger of flipping to the GOP. And so far, they really haven't.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: We saw Tony Evers, the incumbent Democrat in Wisconsin, was reelected. Holy mackerel, folks. How about that? Kathy Hochul in New York. I want to speak directly to New Yorkers. Tonight, you made your voices heard loud and clear. As well as Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Janet Mills in Maine, Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico. There was a big win for Democrats in the open seat contest in Pennsylvania, where pretty far right Republican candidate Doug Mastriano was on the ballot. But the Democrat Josh Shapiro won it pretty handily. Tonight, you, the good people of Pennsylvania, you won. Opportunity won. A woman's right to choose won.
--:-- Noelle King: Andrew, we're recording this interview just after eight o'clock in the morning. What don't we know yet? What are the big outstanding questions?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I think the biggest, most consequential question is whether Democrats can hold on to the Senate. After that, it is the House, but that looks pretty strongly leaning toward Republicans at this point, but we can't say that for sure. And then a few key governor's races. I think the Arizona governor's race is a pretty important one that has not yet been called. Again, a pretty far-right candidate, Carrie Lake, was running against Democrat Katie Hobbs, and Lake was expected to win. She had pulled ahead in polls, but Hobbs was currently leading in the count last I saw.
--:-- Noelle King: So, Andrew, sum up these midterm results so far. Democrats outperformed history and expectations with a surprisingly resilient midterm performance. Republicans still appear to be on track to take the House, but it is not the red wave that many in the Republican Party hope for and many analysts expected.
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--:-- Noelle King: That's Adio. And the question you'll be asking yourself is, why go anywhere else? Burlington is your answer. And the question you'll be asking yourself is, why go anywhere else? Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained, a show on which my co-host Sean reminded me, we never actually predicted a red wave. However, Andrew Prokop of Vox, a lot of smart, informed people did because... All the polls seem to be pointing there. And then in the summer, there was a shift. And that shift, it does seem to closely match the timing of the Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court. We saw this play out in special elections at the time when Democrats ended up doing surprisingly well.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: It seems like Dobbs was pretty seriously effective at motivating Democrats to turn out and perhaps at motivating even swing voters against Republicans. We did see in some ballot measures, the pro-choice position triumphed in Michigan. And even in Kentucky, there was a pro-life ballot measure up and it seems to have failed. And I think a lot of this connects back to how typically the party in power suffers in the midterms because of something called thermostatic public opinion shift, that the voters act kind of like a thermostat.
--:-- Noelle King: This is a concept in political science, and they view policy as being too liberal or too conservative, and they seek to correct that in the midterms. But the Dobbs decision was really notable, one of the most dramatic conservative policy shifts in a very long time, and it happened under a Democratic president. So that may have scrambled this typical pattern because now you have voters who do not like this policy change, thinking perhaps the Republicans have gone too far and that they need to keep Democrats in power.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: A couple months ago, Mitch McConnell himself came out and said the Republican Party in these upcoming midterms essentially has a problem of candidate quality. And we're hearing a lot about that today and how that played into what voters did last night. So essentially, former President Donald Trump attempted to play in several of these competitive Republican primaries backing candidates who maybe had nontraditional political profiles or had a history of extreme views simply because he believed they would be loyal to him.
--:-- Noelle King: And McConnell would have just preferred, you know, a generic kind of normal Republican in a lot of these races. But he, Trump, for the most part, got his way. And these candidates, most of them appear to be headed for defeat. We already saw Dr. Oz lose in Pennsylvania. Blake Masters appears to be in trouble in Arizona. Herschel Walker may be headed to a runoff in Georgia. So it does look like Republicans were hampered by this.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: But I do have a caveat here, which is that Republicans underperformed all over. It wasn't just in these big high-profile Senate races, and it wasn't a dramatic underperformance in these races as compared to, say, how Republicans were doing in competitive House races. What I take away from that is that it's not just a problem of nominating a set of, you know, weirdos in certain contests. It's more that there is an issue with the Republican Party brand having alienated potential swing voters.
--:-- Noelle King: And because of that, because the party did not moderate after the Trump era and make more of an effort to win over those swing voters, the GOP did not feel they really had to make much of an effort to do that this year. They could just run on the economy and win. And it looks like that wasn't enough. Voters were still punishing them for being the party of Donald Trump.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: The place where a red wave did happen last night was in Florida. We could say a small wave or a ripple because it's just one state. But Ron DeSantis ran away with the governor's race. Thanks to the overwhelming support of the people of Florida, we not only won election, we have rewritten the political map.
--:-- Noelle King: Let's talk about DeSantis and how much he won by and why he won by that much.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Sure. As of Wednesday morning, DeSantis was leading his Democratic challenger by about 19 percentage points. And I'm not sure how much to credit this to DeSantis personally, because Marco Rubio is leading his Democratic challenger by about 16 percentage points. So it looks generally just like there was a red wave in Florida and that the state is moving in a direction quite different from the national trend.
--:-- Noelle King: But here in Florida, which had been the premier swing state, even Jim DeFede of CBS4 here, the local powerhouse political reporter says this is no longer a swing state. Florida is red. We actually already saw that in 2020 when across the country, Joe Biden did better than Hillary Clinton had in 2016, but not in Florida. Florida actually moved to the right between 2016 and 2020, and that move has continued in 2022. It really looks like Florida is no longer a swing state anymore.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Republicans have cemented a pretty solid advantage there. Still, you know, whether you credit this to DeSantis or not, it certainly looks good for him as he's weighing a possible presidential run in 2024. Donald Trump was the big specter hanging over this race in Florida this governor race and of course many others.
--:-- Noelle King: Did Ron DeSantis win with Donald Trump help or without it? He did not ask for Trump endorsement this year and Trump did not offer it. Trump is not feeling too positively towards DeSantis lately because of this pending potential presidential run.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Let's see, there it is, Trump at 71, Ron DeSantis at 10 percent. He issued like a kind of creepy warning that I know Ron DeSantis better than anyone except maybe his wife and basically telling him to watch out if he chose to run for the presidency.
--:-- Noelle King: But I think the broader story here is that Trump's candidates performed poorly. He did endorse J.D. Vance in Ohio and J.D. Vance won. He endorsed Ted Budd in North Carolina's Senate contest, an open seat race, and Ted Budd won. But those were red-leaning states, and those weren't some of the most competitive races. In actual competitive, truly swing state contests, Trump's candidates do not appear to be doing well.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I don't want to ask you to prognosticate too much, but if Donald Trump's candidates did not do particularly well, do you think the Republican Party is going to change its position positioning on Donald Trump maybe be less enthralled to him there will be conversations about that to be sure but you know at the end this comes down to the voters it wasn't just you know Trump pulling the strings to make these candidates become Republican nominees he made his case to the voters and voters sided with him.
--:-- Noelle King: So unless the GOP voters' confidence in Donald Trump as a winner, as the leader of their party, as the person who can deliver victory in 2024, unless that confidence is really shaken, then regardless of what the party elites think, Trump still might be on track to become the GOP nominee again if the voters just keep sticking with him.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Andrew, we know that even if the Republicans win the House narrowly, which at this moment it looks like they will, they will still have won. The Republican Party has talked loudly about this possibility, of course. And so if they do end up winning the House, what can we expect in Congress? What do our politics look like now?
--:-- Noelle King: Well, so the Democratic legislative agenda would be dead. The Republican House would never pass a progressive or a liberal bill that Democrats would be super enthusiastic about. And then the question would be whether they can actually manage to find agreement on governing the country, on funding the government, on raising the debt ceiling. That's going to be a really big showdown. And it's not clear the new Republican majority will be willing to really deal on this matter, but we'll have to see how it plays out.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Then, of course, the other big issue is investigations. Republicans will now have subpoena power if they control the House. And so they want to really rigorously investigate both the Biden administration and the Biden family, specifically his son Hunter and Hunter's business interests. Hunter is already under Justice Department investigation for tax issues related to his foreign work. But Republicans want to turn up the heat and try to unearth more Biden scandals with investigations in the House.
--:-- Noelle King: As we went into Election Day, we had analysts saying that democracy itself was on the ballot. We were told to prepare for problems with voting. We were told to prepare for candidates refusing to concede. It was nerve-wracking. What of that bore out? What happened?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Overall, it seems like democracy performed pretty well in these midterm elections. You know, there were reports of some problems in certain areas with regards to voting or machines malfunctioning or so on. That's always the case. And for the most part, it seems like those issues were addressed professionally.
--:-- Noelle King: The election deniers, the people who really aggressively claim that Biden was not the true winner in 2020 and that they would use the power of their office if elected to try to prevent a Democrat from allegedly stealing the election. Those candidates do not seem to have performed very well, which could be scored as a win for democracy.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And we don't know how, you know, the war of words over this outcome will play out. It's possible we could still see candidates refusing to concede. It's possible, perhaps likely, that we could see Donald Trump delegitimizing the elections and claiming without evidence that there was fraud. But overall, it was an encouraging night for democracy. And that's not about just which party wins. It's about whether this system works and whether the specific people elected have promised to uphold and protect the system next time.
--:-- Noelle King: Today's episode was produced by Hadi Muagdi and Miles Bryan with an assist from Amanda Llewellyn. It was edited by Matthew Collette and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. And it was engineered by both Afim Shapiro and Paul Robert Mounsey. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
