Even in deep blue states like California, the voters rejected one-party rule and sent Republicans to Congress to check President Biden.
Before the election, we warned that a Biden win almost certainly would mean Democratic control of the Senate and the consequent “progressive” or socialist remaking of America into a very different country than the one bequeathed to us by our founding fathers.
That is because, in these politically polarized times, split-ticket voting has become passé, and the Democratic Party has moved further and further to the left in the past decade.
Well, we are pleased to report that in 2020, the American people actually embraced split-ticket voting to a degree that no one anticipated. Consequently, although Trump lost the presidential election, the Republican Party otherwise did quite well. Consider:
- Senate. The Republicans retained control of the Senate, pending the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia, which they are expected to win.
Yet, in the months leading up to the election, Democrats spoke boldly about winning as many as six new Senate seats, eliminating the filibuster, making Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico new states, packing the courts, and sending the GOP into the dustbin of history.
Not anymore. Because of the GOP’s unexpected Senate wins in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, and elsewhere, President Biden will be forced to compromise with Senate Republicans—and progressive plans to enact radical and irreversible changes to our very system of government are now dead on arrival.
- House of Representatives. Republicans gained an astounding 10-15 seats in the House of Representatives. (Some House races have yet to be decided; hence the variability of these results.)
“Republicans in Congress won every incumbent seat and 28 out of 29 competitive seats identified by the New York Times’ Nate Silver,” reports Bethany Blankley in The Center Square.
As a result, the Democrats have their smallest majority in 60 years. Republicans, meanwhile, are well-positioned to retake control of the House in the 2022 mid-term elections.
Equally important for the GOP’s future in an increasingly diverse country: there will be a record number of Republican women in the House, 35, up from just 13 currently; and these new representatives include Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and Middle Easterners.
- Governorships. Republicans won one new governorship (in Montana) and thus control 27 gubernatorial mansions.
In New Hampshire, a blue state in the heart of deep blue New England, independent conservative Chris Sununu was reelected with a resounding 65 percent of the vote.
Sununu is young, whip-smart and a political winner. He has to be at the top of the list for 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls.
- State Legislatures. Republicans retained their lock on most state legislatures: by capturing control of the New Hampshire state house and state senate, while preventing the Democrats from flipping a single state legislative body.
This even though the far left spent huge sums of money to wrest control of the states from the GOP.
The Republicans now control 30 state legislatures, with control of one state legislature split between the two parties and control of another state legislature yet to be determined.
The Democrats, by contrast, control just 18 state legislatures, albeit in three of the largest states in the union: California, New York, and Illinois.
- Ballot Initiatives. Republicans won overwhelmingly in ballot initiatives nationwide, even in deep blue California and Illinois.
Californians, for instance, voted down an effort to repeal that state’s ban on racial preferences, and they retained their state’s cap on property taxes.
They also decisively defeated a union-pushed ballot initiative that would have eliminated independent contractors, curtailed worker employment options, and stunted the gig economy.
Illinois voters rebuffed Democratic Governor, J.B. Pritzker, by voting down a graduated or progressive income tax measure that he had championed.
Coloradans, meanwhile, voted 57 percent to 43 percent for “a simple reduction in the state’s income tax, from 4.63 percent to 4.55 percent,” writes Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.
However, he adds, voters in Arkansas and Arizona approved tax hikes—albeit through political deception and trickery in Arkansas and very narrowly and dubiously in Arizona.
Conclusion. As William A. Gallston sums it up, the 2020 election
was a defeat for Donald Trump but a victory for the Republican Party, which turned back most challenges to incumbent senators, fought off Democratic efforts to flip state legislatures, and made gains in the House.
The American people have voted for divided government and a less divisive tone in national politics.
Amen to that and God bless America. May our nation—and a viable two-party system committed to the Constitution and the rule of law—live long and prosper.
Feature photo credit: Rep.-Elect Michelle Steel (R-California), courtesy of her Facebook page.