On Tuesday night I stopped blogging at 8PM, mostly because all the news coverage was all about the stunning Republican landslide. The idea of Republican control of the Senate, even without the 60 vote filibuster proof majority, troubles me.
It’s been a few days and I’m starting to feel a little more hope. While things on the national level didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, things in California generally went well. We re-elected California Governor Jerry Brown for a 4th term. By all accounts he’s done a remarkable job of reversing the downward slide we experienced from Arnold Schwarzenegger and he was able to win re-election with little campaigning.
Two years ago Scott Peters narrowly unseated incumbent Brian Bilbray. The race was so close that it took 10 days after the election to be sure Scott won. A congressman faces his toughest re-election after his first term and this was no exception. From Scott’s first day on the job Carl DeMaio, a former city council member, announced his intention to run for Scot’s seat in 2014. The race was neck and neck and on election night Carl was winning the counted votes by 752. On Wednesday night it was reversed and Scott was ahead by 861 votes. At this point all the votes cast on election day and most of the mail in votes had been counted; all that was left were the mail in votes that were dropped off on election day and provisional ballots.
Frankly this time last night I was pretty optimistic. Most mail in ballots skew Republican and were mailed in early. I’m not sure I’m proud of this but most people who wait until the last minute vote Democrat. I also believe that most provisional ballots would skew Democrat.
In any case I was pretty anxious waiting for the results. I was hoping that Scott’s momentum would continue and afraid it would reverse. The results were so good I had to check a few places to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Scott’s lead went from 861 votes to 4,491 with somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 votes left to count.
In my mind this finishes the election. For the sake of simplicity I’ve rounded the number up from 4,491 to 4,500. If there are 15,000 ballots left to count, Carl would have to win 9,750 of them. If there are 10,000 ballots left to count, Carl would have to win 7,250 of them. Either way it’s a hard hill to climb.
On the Republican side I’m impressed that Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham beat back challenges from the tea party (I refuse to link or capitalize). I’m hoping that will make moderate Republicans more willing (or less fearful) to actually work with President Obama.
Finally, I read an excellent column by David Broder who speaks eloquently about the reality that Republican demographics are diminishing. Almost nobody who has recently become an American citizen or has recently become old enough to vote thinks their future lies with the Republican party. I think David is right and I’m happy to think so.