Goddamn, That Was Satisfying

It started quickly, with Georgia’s Senate race being called for Jon Ossoff 18 minutes after polls closed, and never let up. One by one precincts returned blue. The map was bluer than you’ve ever seen. Places went blue that haven’t gone blue in a lifetime. It was bluer than a Lenny Bruce set. By the time it was called in Michigan for Abdul El-Sayed at 1:00 a.m. EST and Steve Kornacki was propofol’d and dragged off air for the night, both the House and the Senate were firmly in the hands of the Democrats, a blue wave not seen since the post-Watergate midterms of 1974, and for many of the same reasons.

If a race held any uncertainty, it broke left. The long-held dream of blue Texas is here, and resoundingly. The North Carolina House, redistricted last year by Republicans to safely go 11-3 in their favor, is going to end up something like 10-4 Dems. Washington D.C. elected a democratic socialist mayor. Michigan elected the nation’s first Muslim Senator, New Hampshire our first openly gay man. It is hard to overstate how complete and far-reaching this blue tsunami was. Alabama elected a transgender woman to the House. One Maryland county’s candidate for sheriff barely campaigned—he says he hates public speaking—and bought no ads, and won.

Democrats largely stayed on message and campaigned smartly on the real things people care about—the economy—but that Maryland sheriff race best illustrates what was actually being voted on. This was a nationwide referendum, on Republican rule and on Donald Trump. And it turns out that while voters may be prone to touching a hot stove, they will not keep their hands on the burner for ever.