{"id":171,"date":"2014-12-27T15:48:02","date_gmt":"2014-12-27T23:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=171"},"modified":"2015-01-05T14:20:16","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T22:20:16","slug":"takeaways-from-the-2014-mid-terms-leading-into-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=171","title":{"rendered":"Takeaways from the 2014 mid-terms leading into 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we finish the year and prepare to head into 2015, here are some thoughts about the mid-term elections in early November and how it will impact the political landscape for the next two years and, in particular, the 2016 presidential race.<\/p>\n

Two years after his re-election, Obama\u2019s party suffered a humiliating defeat at the ballot box.\u00a0 Just as it was in 2010, when the Republicans took over the House of Representatives, the Democrats were trounced in the mid-term elections.\u00a0 This time, the GOP not only gained more seats in the House but took over control of the Senate for the first time during Obama\u2019s presidency.\u00a0 For the second time, many of the voters who carried Obama to victory in 2008 and 2012 stayed home when his party was on the ballot but the man himself was not.<\/p>\n

With the Louisiana runoff complete and all but one of the photo-finish recounts finished, the final numbers are in: the Republicans have a 246-to-188 advantage in the House (one House race in Arizona is still too close to call, with the GOP candidate holding a 161-vote lead out of 219.247 total votes).\u00a0\u00a0 In the Senate, the Republicans flipped 9 seats to take control with a 54-to-46 majority.\u00a0 At the same time, in the race for the Governors\u2019 mansions, the Republicans won 24 out of 36 races, the Dems just 10, with one Independent and one close race still contested.\u00a0\u00a0 Especially stunning were the three gubernatorial wins in Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts, and nearly in Connecticut.\u00a0\u00a0 In those same four states, voters elected 31 Democratic House members and only 9 Republicans.<\/p>\n

Here are some takeaways from the November shellacking:<\/p>\n

Even with one party controlling both houses of Congress, I would not<\/span> expect any meaningful progress in providing a more functional government in 2015.\u00a0 The Republicans will pass a bunch of bills that Obama will not like and will veto.\u00a0 Nothing meaningful will happen on immigration reform: Obama likely killed that possibility by taking executive action to delay deportation of 5 million illegal immigrants (who wouldn\u2019t have been deported anyway), even though he said for years that he didn\u2019t have the authority to do it.\u00a0 The thing that might<\/span> happen is some sort of comprehensive tax reform if the GOP is clever about it and crafts something that the Democrats and Obama won\u2019t find too odious.<\/p>\n

Unlike in the previous few election cycles, the Republicans ran a collection of solid, mainstream candidates in the open Senate seats.\u00a0 In both 2010 and 2012, as the Tea Party became a force in the Republican party, Tea Party-backed candidates defeated more centrist opponents in the GOP primaries and blew a couple of winnable seats.\u00a0 Delaware\u2019s Christine \u201cI Am Not a Witch\u201d O\u2019Donnell, Nevada\u2019s Sharron Angle, Missouri\u2019s Todd Akin, and Indiana\u2019s Richard Mourdock all lost easily winnable seats because they were just way too far to the right.\u00a0 O\u2019Donnell was kooky, Angle was far too anti-immigrant and Akin and Mourdock made ridiculous comments about abortions in the case of rape.\u00a0 In 2014, the Grand Old Party did not run any weak candidates and nearly pulled a sweep of the close races, losing only two close races to popular incumbents in New Hampshire and Virginia.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Party in the November 2014 election is a party that is missing from the vast central part of the United States.\u00a0 If you look at the map of the incoming 2015 House of Representatives, you\u2019ll notice that the \u201cblue\u201d congressional districts are concentrated in five areas: the biggest American cities, the West Coast, the Northeast, southeast Florida and south Texas.<\/p>\n

Here is where you can find the 188 Democratic congressmen who will serve for the next two years:<\/p>\n