Happy Hanukkah

I saw a tweet last night that said Election 2018 was not Christmas, it was Hanukkah.

The reason is that on election night, Democrats felt...OK.  When Indiana Senate flipped, that was a holy crap moment.  Then more and worse news came in from Florida, Georgia and Texas, Montana and Arizona looked bad, the House wasn't an emphatic a win as some might have hoped.

But over the last few days, some interesting things have been happening.  A number of close House races in California, New Jersey and elsewhere have flipped to Blue.  Tester pulled out the win in Montana.  Last night, Krysten Sinema pulled into the lead in Arizona.

And in Florida...well, it's Florida, isn't it.  The Senate race seems destined for a recount and perhaps the governor's race as well.  Georgia could head to a run-off.

The Republicans are dusting off the "voter fraud" playbook, because counting all the votes is fraud now, I guess. I mean, it worked in Florida in 2000, why not run that play again.

If Sinema holds on and Nelson somehow wins Florida, that means the Democrats will have lost Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota, but won in Nevada and Arizona.  Despite an unfavorable map, they managed to hold their losses to a single net seat.  That puts the Senate in play in 2020, when Maine and Colorado races where Democrats should be favored, and North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, and, yeah, I'll say it, Texas could all be targets. (They will likely lose Alabama.)

The bad results in Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota means that there is no map that gets Democrats to 60 seats in 2020, should a secondary wave sweep Trump and Republicans out of office.  But it means that they will have majorities that could pass decent budgets and potentially allow Puerto Rico and DC to become states.