With their rejection of an anti-abortion ballot measure in yesterday’s election, voters in Kentucky joined the majority of voters in at least three other states where abortion was on the ticket.
Michigan, California and Vermont all saw the passing of ballot measures that codifies the right to abortion in their state constitution. For Michigan, this means an anti-abortion law passed in 1931 will not go into effect.
Voters in Montana were asked to decide on a law that would declare an embryo or fetus a legal person with rights to medical care, essentially criminalizing abortion. The measure seems close to being rejected, though the results of the measure have not been called.
In a statement, Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that the election showed “an unmistakable repudiation” of the overturning of Roe v Wade.
“From Kentucky to Michigan to Vermont to California, Americans want their right to abortion protected,” she said.
“Across the country last night, we saw an unmistakable repudiation of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. From Kentucky to Michigan to Vermont to California, Americans want their right to abortion protected.” —Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights
— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) November 9, 2022
The AP is calling a ballot measure in Kentucky that would have denied constitutional protections for abortion in the state. About 53% of voters rejected the measure, which would have changed the state constitution to say it does not protect the right to abortion or funding for abortion care.
Kentucky, which has a Republican-controlled general assembly, has a near-total ban on abortion in effect. The ban will still be in effect even with the rejection of the ballot measure, but its failure to change the state constitution means the state’s supreme court can decide whether the state’s constitution includes a right to abortion. The court is expected to hear arguments for a lawsuit against the state’s abortion ban later this month.
The New York Post, in its front page this morning, crowned Florida Ron DeSantis as “DeFuture” – perhaps a blow to Donald Trump, who once considered the newspaper his favorite.
Geoff Duncan, the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, said he expects the state’s Senate race to go to a runoff.
Having looked at the figures, he told CNN that he expects the midterms race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, who are locked in a neck and neck race with 49.4% and 48.5% of the vote respectively, to be too close to call.
Georgia requires a majority to win statewide office, which means if neither candidate passes the 50% threshhold there will be a runoff on 6 December.
With the Senate race so close, this could mean a long wait for control of the chamber to be decided.
Duncan also said that the midterms marked a “pivot point” for the Republican party and that former president Donald Trump is “turning from a movement to a distraction”.
In their newsletter this morning, Punchbowl News paints the scene of how House Republicans were taking the election results in DC as they were coming in:
To give a sense of how much of a shock this was to the Washington political establishment, consider this – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s team and allies were spread across two downtown hotels, ready to celebrate victory and their new majority. The DCCC had no public event or party scheduled.
But McCarthy’s Election Night bash ended up as more of a ghost town than celebratory party. For hours, dozens of GOP staffers milled around an open bar, nervously sipping drinks while watching Fox News. Next door in the ballroom, a stage emblazoned with “TAKE BACK THE HOUSE” remained empty.
When McCarthy finally emerged just before 2 a.m., he said “it is clear that we are going to take the House back.” McCarthy led off by hailing GOP gains in New York and prematurely claimed that the party had unseated DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney in the 17th District. That race hasn’t been called yet, although Maloney is trailing GOP challenger Mike Lawler by several thousand votes.
This is Lauren Aratani taking over for Martin Belam. It’s just after 7am here in New York, and Americans are waking up to some surprising midterm election results as ballots were counted overnight. The red wave that was predicted by many did not come to fruition, with Democrats winning some key races in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas.
Control of the House and Senate are still up in the air, but what seems to be clear is that the election was a disappointment for Trumpism. On Fox News last night, Marc Thiessen said that results were “an absolute disaster for the Republican party” as it embraced Maga.
Matt Lewis, a columnist for the Daily Beast, noted that the red wave seems to be more of a ripple, and that it was “a pretty good election night for normal Republicans, when compared to the more extreme MAGA Trumpy Republicans”.
What this means for the future of Trumpism – or the man himself, who is slated to make an announcement next Tuesday – is still unclear. Perhaps some Republicans are quickly getting the hint: JD Vance, who won a Senate seat in Ohio last night and who Trump stumped over the weekend, did not mention the former president in his victory speech.
J.D. Vance did not mention Trump during his victory speech tonight, @AlliemalCNN confirms.
Mike Allen at Axios has described the midterms as “Trump’s awful night”. In today’s Axios AM email, Allen writes:
Former president Trump is facing waves of blame after key Republican candidates lost in midterms. Regardless of the reality with Republican primary voters, Republican elites – and other anti-Trump Republicans – sense blood in the water. There’s an increased likelihood of a larger, more boisterous primary field competing against Trump in 2024.
Many of former president Trump’s handpicked candidates were defeated or struggled in otherwise winnable races — a lineup of underachievers.
Trump’s planned rally at Mar-a-Lago next Tuesday, where he’s expected to announce a 2024 presidential campaign, now won’t come after a Republican landslide. Instead, it will follow an election where Democrats have a solid chance to hold or even expand their hold on the Senate — and where Republicans fell way short of their expectations for a sizeable red wave.
Trump constrained his party’s coalition in states where he showed up. Trump’s promotion of candidates outside the political mainstream – or celebrities without political experience – proved to be costly for Republicans.
Some historic firsts were made in the midterms. Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been elected as governor of Arkansas, making her the first women to govern the state.
Arkansas governor-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during her election night party. Photograph: Will Newton/AP
Democrat Becca Balint became the first woman and the first out gay person to represent the state of Vermont in Congress. Vermont has the distinction of being the last state to send a woman to Congress.
Vermont elects first female and out gay member of Congress – video
And at just 25, Maxwell Frost has taken Val Demings’ seat in the House, to become the first person to represent Gen Z up at the Capitol.
Maxwell Frost, middle, poses with supporters during a victory party in Orlando. Photograph: Stephen M Dowell/AP
Here is how my colleague Nicola Slawson has summed up the elections for today’s edition of our First Thing newsletter, which should be hitting in-boxes around the world soon:
Democrats have reason for cautious optimism this morning, as some of their endangered candidates appear likely to emerge victorious in the midterm elections, but Republicans still enjoy a narrow advantage in the battle for control of the House of Representatives. The Senate is too close to call, with the race in Nevada coming down to the wire and Georgia likely to go to a runoff in December.
Election forecasts had favored Republicans in the final days of campaigning. The president’s party typically loses seats in the midterms, and Joe Biden’s low approval rating, combined with concerns about the state of the US economy, had lowered Democrats’ expectations.
But some key races were tilting toward Democrats, including one of the biggest prizes of the night: a ferociously contested Senate race in Pennsylvania between Mehmet Oz, a Republican backed by Donald Trump, and the Democrat John Fetterman, who has been battling to assure voters he is fit for office after suffering a stroke.
“We held the line,” a teary Fetterman said, declaring victory in a speech to supporters early this morning.
Who will win control of Congress? With many races still too close to call, control of Congress – and the future of Biden’s agenda – still hangs in the balance. Outcomes of some closely contested elections are not expected for several days, or even weeks. But the early results already returned one certainty: the election is not unfolding as Republicans had hoped.
Niall Stanage at The Hill reminds us that however the House eventually breaks, any Republican majority is going to be narrow at best. He writes:
As of 3:30am ET, there was still no projection from any major news organization that Republicans would take the House at all. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy evinced confidence in that outcome, telling his audience, “When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority.”
He may be proven right in due course. But the mere fact that it is still in doubt points to how disappointing a night this was for the Republicans.
Just as importantly, even a narrow Republican majority would pose serious challenges for McCarthy, even if he is confirmed as Speaker. In that scenario, the most hardline members of the GOP conference would have very significant leverage – and they are certain to use it.
Stanage also flagged up that two stars of the Democratic party failed again, which will be hard to take:
Stacey Abrams lost to Brian Kemp in Georgia and former representative Beto O’Rourke went down to Greg Abbott in Texas.
The two results were expected – both candidates had lagged by significant margins in polling. But still, each candidate had been seen, not so long ago, as a bright and rising star in the Democratic party.
Their luster is badly dimmed now, given that Tuesday marked Abrams’s second successive loss to Kemp, and O’Rourke’s third setback after losing a 2018 Senate race to Ted Cruz and abandoning an underwhelming bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
'Standing is what matters': Stacey Abrams concedes in Georgia – video
