What a rebuke. Let's break in all down:
For once, gerrymandering backfired for the GOP. What transpired Tuesday night was the "blue wave" analysts predicted, if not necessarily the tsunami that progressives had hoped for. (A blue deluge, perhaps.) For the first time in my lifetime, New England won't have a single Republican US Senator; a GOP slam-dunk states like Mississippi was still a toss-up as I wrote this. Every elected official that has been brown-nosing President Trump for the last couple of years was put on notice.
The most pleasant surprise was Texas. Every state has their own unique mindset, and Texans are historically lower-case conservative and fiercely independent. They're not stupid, either: Greg Abbott shipping immigrants by the busload to Chicago and New York; Ken Paxton's philandering and flagrant corruption; the erratic power grid, among other issues rotting away at the Lone Star State. Alas, they're stuck with Ted Cruz in the senate for another four-plus years. One fears, however the lame-duck GOP in the state house will gut the governor's powers before Gina Hinajosa swears in.
No matter what transpires over the next two years, Democrats will be cut at the knees: the "big, beautiful" federal budget cuts go into effect on January 1st. It's a deliberate effort by the GOP to pass the buck on their pettiness, groveling and ineptitude. Additionally, the aging and uninspiring Chuck Schumer will probably get one more run as Senate Majority Leader, and the equally unexciting Hakeem Jeffries will probably be the next Speaker of the House. That's not an endorsement for Bernie Sanders, necessarily; he's 85.
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