The Midterm Report: You win some, you lose some
Sometimes old sayings ring true: You win some, you lose some.
That’s what the Democratic Party learned in the 2022 midterm elections. They lost the House but kept the Senate, gaining a seat before losing another in recent days.
While Republicans continued to hold the majority of governorships across the country, they barely clung onto it, with Democratic governors now serving in 24 states.
The Republican Party’s razor-thin majority in Congress sits at 222-213. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will need to secure 218 votes to reclaim his role in the upcoming session.
The final Congressional race was made official Monday, more than one month after the Nov. 7 election day. Right-wing GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert narrowly won re-election by a margin of less than 600 votes against Democratic candidate Adam Frisch after a mandatory recount.
This week also marked a monumental moment in the current session of Congress, with President Joe Biden signing the Respect for Marriage Act into law.
“Now the law requires that interracial marriage and same-sex marriage be recognized in every state in the nation,” Biden said Tuesday.
Democrats emerge victorious in final Senate race
Incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock was narrowly re-elected in a senate race against one of the most controversial Republican candidates of the cycle, former NFL player Herschel Walker.
Walker, who did not release his medical records during his campaign, faced even more allegations of abuse in the final days leading up to the Dec. 6 run-off.
The Daily Beast, which broke past stories of Walker’s alleged abuse, reported that another woman who previously dated him came forward. The woman told NBC News that Walker pressed her head against a wall, grabbed her throat, and threw a punch that barely missed her.
Walker found himself making gaffe after gaffe, even saying “erection” instead of election in a FOX News interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Instead of telling an audience of supporters about why he had the winning plan to serve as a U.S. senator, Walker talked about feeling uncomfortable watching kids’ shows alone, admitting he “rents the neighbors kid” to make it less weird.
To make things even more bizarre, Walker also gave a campaign speech, saying that despite vampires being “cool people,” he’d rather be a werewolf because they can eat vampires.
Despite claiming to own a company worth $70-$80 million per year, Walker admitted under oath that it brings in less than $2 million per year. He also lied about owning chicken processing plants; he only licensed his name to them.
Walker has lied about owning the country’s largest upholstery business, being the valedictorian of his high school, and completing his degree at the top of his class at the University of Georgia. (According to CNN, Walker never graduated from university, after leaving school to enter the NFL.)
Kyrsten Sinema leaves Democratic Party
The celebration of Warnock’s re-election proved to be short-lived. The fourth African-American to serve as a U.S. senator’s victory was followed days later by a Democratic senator announcing they’re leaving the party.
Kyrsten Sinema’s decision could jeopardize the Democratic senate majority in 2024, with an uphill battle to maintain the chamber expected due to the number of toss-up seats expected to benefit Republicans.
Synema, who was first elected in 2018, became the first openly LGBTQ+ U.S. senator in history. After experiencing homelessness as a child, Synema went on to become a social worker.
But Synema’s legacy in the Senate will likely be her opposition to the end of the filibuster to further voting and women's rights issues in Congress, as well as voting against raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
Sinema’s office has assured reporters and the White House alike of her plans to continue caucusing with her Democratic colleagues in the Senate.
Her departure from the Democratic Party has been labeled the “most meaningless” in Senate history by MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell.
Sinema will become the third independent U.S. Senator in the next session of Congress, joining Bernie Sanders and Angus King, who all caucus with the Democratic Party.
The race for 2024
The next session of Congress hasn’t even started, and the race for the 2024 presidential election is already heating up.
Liberterian Chase Oliver announced early this month he would begin a presidential exploratory committee. Oliver, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2020, is best-known for being responsible for Georgia’s Dec. 6 run-off, after earning over 81,000 votes in the November election.
By earning two per cent of the vote, Warnock was unable to secure 50 per cent, dragging out the final midterm race at a cost of more than $10 million in taxpayer funds in Atlanta alone.
After defying Republican allies and campaign advisers, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump announced his third presidential bid.
Nearly one month after launching his campaign with a rambling hour-long speech, Republican front-runner Donald Trump has yet to hold any public events.
"So far, he has gone down from his bedroom, made an announcement, gone back up to his bedroom, and hasn’t been seen since except to have dinner with a white supremacist," a 2020 Trump campaign adviser told CNN last week.