And the Winner Is? 🌻🌻🌻 💙💙💙

Still Counting:  Much to the chagrin of the usual set of election deniers who’d prefer that all elections be declared, for their candidates of course,  by midnight of election day, votes are still be counted.  In Alaska and Maine, House and Senate races won’t be settled until ranked voting calculations are completed and Georgians won’t know if their senator is one-time football player Herschel Walker who believes that “America is the best country in the United States” or incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock until next month’s runoff election is completed. About the only thing we know right now is that Democrats have retained control of the Senate and that the House, still more likely to go red than blue, remains up for grabs.  Despite the remaining uncertainty, fresh off the wedding of his younger daughter, the Former Guy still plans to announce his 2024 presidential run this week despite pressure from some leading Republicans and advisors to refrain from doing so at least until after the Georgia runoff.  Insiders report that when the FG wasn’t spinning on the Mar a Lago dance floor, “Truth” trashing Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine “Coco Chow,” turning the very white Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s name into another anti-Asian ethnic slur, labeling the election stolen, or unloading on Florida’s Ron Sanctimonious, he was signing off on placards and the invitation list for his Tuesday night announcement gala. No doubt that New York Representative Elise Stefanik is on the list as she’s already endorsed his run. The FG’s  lawyers were also busy this weekend, they filed a lawsuit seeking to block his testimony in front of the House January 6^th Committee, the testimony that he previously said he was eager to give. Former Chief of Staff John Kelly was also uncharacteristically loquacious this weekend, he told the NY Times that the FG repeatedly asked him to “get the IRS on” former FBI guys James Comey and Andrew McCabe both of whom were subsequently audited. Of course, the FG, who is still fighting to block the release of his own IRS filings, denies he would ever do such a thing.  Yeah, right.

The Senate:  Over the weekend, with the help of Nevada’s powerful Culinary Workers union, incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto eked out a narrow victory over her challenger Republican Adam Laxalt, the candidate whose family dislikes him so much that they supported Masto. Her victory, together with incumbent Senator Mark Kelly’s more comfortable win over his challenger Blake Masters, means that the Democrats will retain Senate control.  That doesn’t mean that the Warnock-Walker run-off election is any less critical.  A Warnock victory will mean that Democrats won’t have to enter into another power sharing agreement with Republican leader, or leader for the moment, Mitch McConnell, making it easier for Democrats to get their judges, including any possible SCOTUS seat, confirmed.  In addition, a 51-seat majority also takes veto power away from outlier Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema both of whom, together with red state Democrat Jon Tester, are up for reelection in 2024, an election cycle that will be more difficult for Senate Democrats. As to McConnell, following the lead of the Former Guy some of his “colleagues” are calling for him to put off a leadership vote, part of their effort to shove him aside.  Ironically, one of those challenging him is Florida’s Rick Scott who still hasn’t accounted for over $100 million of the money he raised in his role as Republican Senate election chairman and who is also partially responsible for his party putting up so many poor-quality candidates.  One more thing, kudos to below the radar Michigan Senator Gary Peters who headed up the Democrats Senate campaign. He and President Biden are this cycle’s winners.     

The House:  Depending on who’s counting, Republicans are two or three seats away from obtaining the 218 seats they need to take control of the House.  MSNBC’s annoying Chiron projects that the Republicans will ultimately end up with 219 seats plus or minus 4, whatever that really means. Should the Republicans prevail, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy is likely to become Speaker, but even that’s not certain.  At least ten members of his caucus have said that they won’t vote for him, but it’s not clear who they would vote for and it’s also not clear that should he win, and he probably will, that his Speakership will last any longer than that now iconic British head of lettuce. Qevin will have to make promises to a lot of lunatics, including folks like Margie Q ,Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert should she survive, to get the leadership spot and that’s not going to turn out well for anyone. One sign of how hard the Republican contingent will be to manage is that by comparison with some of his colleagues, Gym Jordan is now seen as a rational one.  Ugh.  Should the Democrats pull off a miracle, it’s highly likely that Nancy Pelosi will remain Speaker because she’s likely the only one who has the chops to keep a 218-seat majority in order.  That’s not to say that Democrats don’t have outliers of their own to deal with, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and some of the other members of the leftist “squad” aren’t easy to manage nor are Texas’ anti-abortion Democrat Henry Cuellar and Maine’s studiously centrist Jared Golden, who still needs to prevail in a ranked choice “run-off,” but Pelosi’s a proven force of nature while McCarthy is a wet obsequious noodle. And one more wrinkle in this process, if history is any guide, one or more House members might not make it to January because death doesn’t take a holiday nor does the Justice Department, you know those guys who we keep hoping will indict the Former Guy, maybe this week even.     

Governors:  One Gubernatorial race still hasn’t been decided.  Arizona Democrat Katie Hobbs has a shrinking lead over election denier, FG style TV wackadoodle Kari Lake.  The question now is whether Hobbs’ lead, currently around 26,000 votes, will hold up given that outstanding ballots are expected to lean Republican.  At this point, Hobbs remains a slight favorite, but it’s too early to count Lake out and, in any case, Lake will squawk, challenge, and sue if she loses.  Surprisingly, at least one other election denier/insurrectionist has conceded.  Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano, who lost decidedly to Democrat Josh Shapiro, surprised many, including Shapiro who said that he didn’t really care if Mastriano conceded because voters decide elections not candidates, conceded yesterday.   While Democrats defended and picked up some governorships, they lost Nevada where Republican Sheriff Joe Lombardo beat Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak. And fortunately for small “d” democracy, Democrats prevailed over election denying Secretary of State candidates meaning that though voter suppression isn’t going away. and gerrymandering remains a bigly problem, voters who show up will stand a good chance of having their votes counted.  

And:  There’s a death watch going on at Twitter where Elon Musk continues to act erratically, most recently taking on a battle with Democratic Senator Ed Markey while also still cutting and losing staff.  The cryptocurrency market which I’ve never really understood is undergoing another meltdown, this one triggered by the bad behavior of someone named Sam Bankman-Fried better known as SBF who appears to be going for this year’s Elizabeth Holmes/Adam Neumann award. Also, things appear to be going south for Putin as well but he’s one that should never be counted out because, at least so far, he’s defied all reports of his imminent demise and anyway he’s uncannily good at forcing defenestrations.