Many were anxious for this mid-term election, hoping that we could fight back against voter apathy and push back on this administration's attacks against equality.
While the gains were not as great as some might have wished for, and there are still votes to be counted, in some cases recounted, the general consensus is that we have gained some measure of checks and balances against the attacks on human and environmental rights.
Currently in the House, there are 225 Democratic seats, 33 being flipped to 197 Republican seats, with 3 being flipped. The Democratic Party currently controls the House, which will affect Chairs and Committees. The Republicans still control the Senate with 51 seats, 3 being flipped to Democratic seats at 46, one being flipped. On the Governor front, there are still a majority of Republican Governors, 26 with 1 being flipped. But Democratic Governors increased to 23 with 7 being flipped. Additionally, there were numerous local seats that increased a Democratic presence.
Mother Jones addressed some of the battles against equality in an article, Racists, Demagogues, and Other Wildly Divisive Politicians Who Lost Last Night. MJ addressed candidates who lost who had restricted voter rights; attacked labor unions, public education, and teacher shortages; a candidate who refused to sign same sexmarriage certificates; a candidate who who denigrated women, longing for the ability to call them "sluts", and people of color; and a candidate who said Diversity was “a bunch of crap and un-American".
The Washington Post wrote, Republicans pay the price for racism and xenophobia. "Not all of the Republican anti-immigrant cranks lost, but enough of them — Rep. David Brat (R-Va.), Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach, and Senate candidates Lou Barletta (Pa.) and Corey Stewart (Va.) — got rejected that it might serve as a warning."
The Post continued with acknowledgement to the increased diversity in the candidates that did win. "Finally, Republicans pay a price for cultivating white racism in another respect: Their House and Senate delegations become less and less diverse, while Democrats go in the opposite direction. On the Democratic side, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman to win a House seat; Ayanna Pressley will be Massachusetts’s first black female House member; Ilhan Omar from Minnesota is the first Somali American to win a House seat; Deb Haaland from New Mexico and Sharice Davids from Kansas are the first Native American women elected to the House; and Omar and Rashida Tlaib from Michigan are the first two Muslim women to win House seats. Democratic women also flipped governorships in at least four states (Maine, New Mexico, Kansas and Michigan). Democrats elected the first openly gay men to serve as a congressman from New Hampshire and governor of Colorado."
Though this election is mostly completed, the battle is far from over. The effectiveness of exposing inequality, rasicm, bigotry, anti-science, climate deniers, class warfare, fascism, attacks on our Free Press and voting obstructions needs to continue, we have a continued battle for 2020.
As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor: it must be demanded by the oppressed."
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