Last night, the East coast polls began closing at six and almost immediately things turned south in Florida. Within an hour of the polls closing there all statewide races were called for the Republicans, plus three former Democratic congressional seats got flipped (due to gerrymandering), but then things changed. Through the rest of the night, for as long as I managed to stay up and then afterwards, on through the night, things continued to jell. Races that were a foregone conclusion were called for the favorite, while closer races mainly moved from the too early to call category to the too close to call. After eleven, I tuned out when the MSNBC quant called the House as best that he could. He predicted that the Republicans would win 219 seats (only 218 are required to take the majority) ±13. Talk about hedging your bets.

Today, the morning after quarterbacking was in full swing. With few exceptions, virtually all incumbents were reelected. Where there was an open seat that seat still mostly went to the former incumbent’s party. There were a few exceptions. Today is our trash day and Lauren Boebert is getting kicked to the curb. John Fetterman won, bucking all trends. Well maybe not, Fetterman’s victory looks like the keystone race in the night’s rebuilding of the fabled Democratic Blue Wall. Locally here, there was no joy. There are still many races that have not been called and likely will not be for days or weeks to come.

This election’s postmortem looks like it was a Democratic victory. Even if the Dems eventually do lose the house, it will not be by much. Last night was certainly no shellacking. It also looks like the Ds will hold the Senate and maybe even pick up a seat. Exit polls point to three reasons for this Democratic better than expected showing, women voters (Roe, Roe, Roe the vote), young people showing up and of course Trump, the orange elephant in the room. My favorite post-election tweet is, “Before: Rs threatened violence if Trump indicted. Now: after last night’s Trump debacle, Rs ask what is taking Garland so long?”