A red reaction? Perhaps. A red wave? Definitely not. Despite two years of appalling leadership by the Biden administration and an ultra-radicalized Democratic Party, election results for what was touted by the likes of Newt Gingrich as possibly the biggest Republican victory in a century have been disappointing, to say the least. Not only has the GOP so far failed to pick up the net one seat required to take control of the Senate, they actually lost an open seat in Pennsylvania, and, as of this writing, look likely to pick up just one more Senate seat, in red-leaning Nevada, leaving them likely one Senate seat short of control. Meanwhile, the GOP has yet to wrest control of the House from the Democrats, and the electoral math at the time of this writing suggests that, in the end, they may fall one or two seats short of the coveted 218. And even should they prevail, they will almost certainly command an even thinner minority than the five-seat margin the Democrats currently enjoy. As a visibly disappointed Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC news late last night, when the contours of this election were first becoming clear, “definitely not a Republican wave, that is for darn sure.”
No matter how the contest for House and Senate control shakes out in the coming days and weeks (the critical Georgia election has already triggered a runoff), bragging rights go to the Democrats. After all, despite two years of rising inflation, extreme radical social-justice posturing, relentless attacks on the half of America that supported Trump, destructive energy policies, and all-around executive ineptitude, the Democrats not only bid fair to hold onto their razor-thin control of the Senate, they managed to get Pennsylvania’s incoherent John Fetterman elected over Trump-backed Mehmet Oz, flipping that crucial Senate seat, and both defended and flipped a significant number of House seats that they were expected to lose. Meanwhile, GOP darling Mayra Flores, who turned heads last June when she won a special House election in one of Texas’ most blue districts, was promptly unseated by Democratic challenger Vicente Gonzalez, putting an end to a short-lived fairy-tale candidacy and calling into question the widely circulated narrative that Hispanics are abandoning the radicalized Democratic Party in droves.
As for the notorious “Squad” members led by the likes of AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar, they not only cruised to re-election but also added significantly to their numbers with the election of at least four more like-minded young Marxists masquerading as progressives and social-justice warriors. In Texas, Greg Casar won resoundingly in a Democratic district stretching from San Antonio to Austin. The “labor organizer” was endorsed by AOC, who touted his credentials as a supporter of open borders. In Florida, Maxwell Frost, who was born in 1996 and claims to be the first Generation Z member of Congress, has pledged to “end gun violence, win Medicare For All, transform our racist criminal justice system, and end the climate crisis.” Frost’s website touts his anti-gun and pro-abortion activism, including his successful lobbying of President Biden and congressional Democrats to end the Hyde Amendment, which until 2022 prohibited the use of federal funding, such as Medicaid, to pay for abortions. Summer Lee, a self-proclaimed “dedicated organizer, activist, and advocate for social justice” and Pennsylvania state legislator, successfully flipped one of 11 GOP-held seats. And in Illinois, Delia Ramirez, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, has pledged “to fight for the rights of all working families struggling to survive, whether it be housing justice, fully funding public schools, women’s reproductive rights, or Medicare for all.”
At the state level, well-funded Democrat Josh Shapiro easily defeated Doug Mastriano for the Pennsylvania governor’s seat, while MAGA favorite Kari Lake trails lackluster gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs in Arizona at the time of this writing. Democratic Kansas governor Laura Kelley, meanwhile, despite being regarded as a top Republican pickup opportunity in a state won handily by Trump, defeated Republican challenger Derek Schmidt in a closely contested race that, like so many others this election, ultimately broke the Democrats’ way.
On the other hand, the GOP made gains in some unexpected places, picking up seats in New York State, including a district on Long Island won by Democrat Tom Suozzi by 17 points in 2020. The winner, openly homosexual Republican George Santos, triumphed over openly homosexual Democrat Robert Zimmerman, marking the first ever congressional race pitting two openly homosexual candidates against one another. Also in New York, Republican Michael Lawler won a historic upset victory over incumbent Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney, a prominent Democrat who led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In once-purple Florida, the GOP now enjoys a large majority in the state legislature, and governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Marco Rubio were re-elected by resounding majorities. Utah’s Senator Mike Lee, one of the Senate’s most reliable constitutionalists, was re-elected for a third term despite strong opposition from some in Utah’s RINO establishment and a non-endorsement from fellow Utah GOP Senator Mitt Romney. In Wisconsin, incumbent GOP Senator Ron Johnson, a staunch opponent of Covid vaccine mandates, survived a strong challenge by Democrat Mandela Barnes, while former Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden flipped Wisconsin’s 3rd congressional district red for the first time in 26 years.
One possibly significant outcome of the underwhelming GOP performance is the chorus of voices now blaming Trump for the poor showing. Several prominent Trump-endorsed candidates, such as GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, lost embarrassingly, while the only candidate that Trump badmouthed immediately prior to the election, Florida’s Ron DeSantis, posted an overwhelming win and is now being touted as the favorite for the GOP nomination in 2024. Meanwhile, Georgia Republican governor Brian Kemp, with whom Trump feuded over the 2020 election results, defeated perennial radical Democrat candidate and all-around malcontent Stacey Abrams for the second time. While we hate to give the mainstream news media too much credit, it is undeniably true that Trump’s seeming inability to ever take the high road in any public controversy has alienated many on the Right, not all of them RINOs and neocons.
Of course, partisan differences are not nearly as significant as the bipartisan assault on limited constitutional government that has been going on for several generations. While it has become more and more generally true that the Democratic Party is the principal refuge for radical Marxists, leftist agitators, and corrupt ward-heelers who do not scruple to deliver the vote in swing districts by fair means or foul, it is by no means true that the Republicans, left unsupervised, can be depended upon to reverse the flood of leftist usurpations. Too often Republican-controlled Congresses and White Houses do little more than maintain the status quo until the next electoral onslaught of radical leftists drives them back into hiding.
With the outcome of this election still very much in doubt, it is premature to draw too many conclusions. But it is genuinely shocking that two years of extreme radicalism, ineptitude, and outright war on the American economy has moved so few voters. The fact that one of the worst presidential administrations in American history would have so many supporters should give every discerning American pause for thought regarding where we stand as a nation and where we are likely to go in the near future. If the elections of 2022 are any indication, America is now rushing headlong down the proverbial road to serfdom, fueled by broad-based ignorance of our history and founding principles, indifference to our slow-motion economic collapse, and fierce resentment of the moral restraints that once made a free republic possible. Unless we correct our course quickly, we are likely to have more such electoral surprises in store in the next several election cycles — until the stranglehold of Marxists over our cultural and political institutions is complete, and elections become completely moot.
May we rediscover the road to freedom before it is everlastingly too late.
