I know that a lot of people were primarily concerned with the candidates in their own backyards on Election Night, or with what happened in the House as a whole, or whether Democrats actually ever stood a chance of winning the Senate, and those are all valid things to be thinking about as we transition into a new Congressional makeup.
After all, no matter how many times you say it, people tend to forget that seats in the House are always up for grabs every single election — all 435 of them. Many of the Senate seats that Democrats were still holding in Trump states were won before he ever came along, since those terms are for six years. People who write political news (like yours truly) can’t help but know this stuff in advance, though, and so I was actually pleasantly surprised at how few Senate seats the Democrats did lose.
All in all it was a good night for Democrats, despite the emerging narrative that there somehow wasn’t the “blue wave” that was hyped, perhaps because some of the more famous candidates didn’t win their races — Beto, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams. But look at how close they came! I personally think Gillum should withdraw his concession and ask for a recount, Beto did exceedingly well in one of the reddest states in the nation, and Abrams was very, very obviously the victim of serious election tampering by the corrupt governor-elect, Brian Kemp.
So what WAS I excited about? I like metrics. I like seeing how many women, or veterans, or members of the LGBTQ community are elected, and just across the board those groups did phenomenal in the midterms. But the other metric I was most curious about definitely did not fare as well: Republicans publicly endorsed by Donald Trump.
I write about 26 hours a day, and edit the other 10 hours, so there just wasn’t much chance of a side project of me tracking the winners and losers. But almost first thing this morning, I stumbled across a tweet thread that did exactly that for me (and you), and It. Is. GLORIOUS.
Trump has endorsed 11 Republicans running for Governor, 31 House candidates and 13 Senate candidates and I’ve screenshot every one of them and will let him know every one that loses.
— Ally Maynard (@missmayn) November 7, 2018
If you’re adding those up in your head, it’s 55, so you can just move on to the good stuff. You can pull up that tweet and read the entire thread, but let me just break it down for you with some highlights, because Ally did a little color commentary for almost everyone:
Trump-backed candidate, Leah Vukmir, has lost to Tammy Baldwin, the only out lesbian in the U.S. Senate. Womp womp @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/tgkVEs0Ifl
— Ally Maynard (@missmayn) November 7, 2018
Trump-backed candidate, Keith Rothfus, has lost to Conor Lamb and Democrats flip the district blue. @realDonaldTrump called this race a “must win.” pic.twitter.com/X3Vd2IlfUQ
— Ally Maynard (@missmayn) November 7, 2018
Trump-backed candidate, Kevin Yoder, has lost to Native American and openly gay attorney Sharice Davids in Kansas’ 3rd District. #MAGA @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/c4oqGjnoHn
— Ally Maynard (@missmayn) November 7, 2018
Trump-backed candidate and disgraced Vice Chairman of the bogus Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, Kris Kobach, has lost to Laura Kelly in the race for Kansas Governor. @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/0YguFJWv0f
— Ally Maynard (@missmayn) November 7, 2018
The list goes on and on, and in the end, only 45 percent of the candidates that Trump publicly backed actually won their respective races. Which is funny, because he thinks something else entirely happened on Election Night:
Those that worked with me in this incredible Midterm Election, embracing certain policies and principles, did very well. Those that did not, say goodbye! Yesterday was such a very Big Win, and all under the pressure of a Nasty and Hostile Media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018
Not so much, Mr. Trump.
Featured image via screen capture
