On their first day back in the Capitol after comprehensive defeats in last week’s midterm elections, Republicans were divided into two camps: those who saw the catastrophe coming, and those who did not.
“I told you exactly what was going to happen. Over and over and over, I told you,” said West Virginia senator Jim Justice. “I said really and truly, if you weren’t concerned and you were a Republican, you were living in a cave. That was my exact words.”
“No one anticipated the magnitude,” said congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio. “I mean, you can’t tell me that the guy that ran as a Democrat for senator in Mississippi thought he was going to win.”
While Scott Colom hasn’t officially been declared the winner in Mississippi’s knife-edge US Senate race – a state that has not sent a Democratic to the chamber since 1982 – there was indeed plenty of evidence before the Tuesday vote that Republicans were in for it.
Not only does the party in power historically suffer defeats in midterm elections, but Donald Trump’s approval ratings had cratered with voters, even on issues that he had previously polled well on, while Democrats had surged in both special and off-year elections.
Nonetheless, few pollsters or political analysts were publicly forecasting the 54-seat Senate majority and 254-seat House majority Democrats won – both of which may expand even further as ballot counting continues.
“People are mad, and they have a right to be mad. They’re disappointed, and they feel like we haven’t delivered, and we deserve exactly what we got,” said Senator John Curtis of Utah. His state is deeply red, but last Tuesday Democrats managed to break the Republican supermajority in the state house of representatives by gaining at least 14 seats – a feat repeated in legislatures across the country.
