The counts came in, and they were not close. Democrats won control of the House, called by multiple networks just before and after 10 PM, and the Senate, called at 11:35 when the projections crossed 51 seats, after flipping seven Republican held seats in a single night, Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina. The networks’ own language ran from sweeping to rout. About 70 House races remain uncalled this morning, so the size of the majority is still being counted even as its existence is settled. This page spent a month promising to write this piece from the counts and not before them. Here is the morning ledger, what is counted, what is claimed, what is still open, and how the month’s record reads against the result.
The seven tell their own stories, and several of them are this page’s stories. Kansas elected Adam Hamilton and ended the longest one party Senate streak in the country, a seat held by Republicans since the 1930s, in the state where the president’s closing rally was canceled four days ago. Iowa, the other canceled rally state, sent Josh Turek past Ashley Hinson. Texas elected James Talarico and ended the 32 year statewide drought, on record money and a record early vote. Ohio returned Sherrod Brown to the Senate. Maine chose Troy Jackson over Susan Collins, ending a tenure of nearly 30 years and electing the state’s first Democratic senator since 1995. North Carolina flipped the seat the party’s own Senate fund abandoned in October. South Carolina completed the seven. And the holds mattered as much, Jon Ossoff kept Georgia with 64 percent, Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan, and Chris Pappas won New Hampshire.
The history column filled in one night, and it reads flatly because it should. El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants whose name and faith were the explicit target of the closing attacks this page covered, is the first Muslim elected to the United States Senate. Pappas, in the state whose poll table ID rules changed by court order ten days ago, is the first openly gay man elected to the Senate. And Hakeem Jeffries, reelected last night, is positioned to become the first Black Speaker of the House if his majority elects him. Whatever else the morning’s arguments become, those sentences are now permanent.
The month’s method gets its audit, because this page spent October logging actions over words and the counts just graded the log. The seat the Republican Senate fund walked away from flipped. The state its filings showed it rushing to defend flipped. Both states where the president’s final rallies were canceled flipped. The forecaster whose 12 race move we carried Friday now watches its largest majority since 2009 conditional get tested by 70 open races. The 740 million dollars that could not move the ratings could not move the result either, and the redistricting war’s 1.4 point tilt met the environment this page said it could not absorb. Watch what they do, not what they say, was the whole method. What they did pointed here.
The claims ledger opens next to the counts, because that was always the deal. The president posted overnight that he was not on the ballot, that he would have won in a landslide if he had been, and that Fox News bears blame for the defeats. Those are claims, logged as claims. Chuck Schumer said Democrats won the Senate against all odds, a claim with a count underneath it. The pre narration this page archived, the polls are all fixed, the results will be accepted if they’re honest, the polls will prove historically wrong, now sits beside counted piles in 50 states, and as of this writing no machinery has moved against the national result. The one place machinery was pre positioned is the next paragraph, and overnight it lost its payload.
Alaska is uncalled and defused at the same time. With more than 80 percent of precincts in late Tuesday, Senator Dan Sullivan held 48.3 percent to Mary Peltola’s 47.5, with the other Dan Sullivan at 1.7, and days of rural ballots plus ranked choice tabulation still ahead. The certification suit this page tracked was dismissed Sunday by Judge Sharon Gleason, who found the government lacked standing, with the department vowing appeal. Governor Mike Dunleavy has suggested he might not certify a Peltola victory, Senator Sullivan has declined to rule out supporting a refusal, and the criminal investigation into the second Sullivan’s recruitment remains open, with the prosecutor saying he is not assuming a crime occurred. All of that is real, and all of it now contests a seat rather than the Senate, because the chamber was decided without Alaska. The condition the lawsuit armed, certification blocked only if the Republican loses, no longer touches the majority either way.
Proposition 40 earns its own ledger entry, reported with the same arithmetic as everything else. The California billionaire tax, a measure this newsletter followed through the fall, was trailing 43 to 57 late Tuesday and the coverage calls it headed for defeat, while Proposition 42, the countermeasure built by its opponents to ban wealth taxes outright, led at 55 percent and would nullify the tax even in a comeback. The spending ledger explains the margin. Opponents put 316.7 million dollars into stopping it, including more than 100 million from one man, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, against roughly 20 million from the union that wrote it, and the no side carried Democratic names too, Governor Becerra and former Governor Newsom among them. A measure asking who pays was answered by who paid, and the answer is reported here by the same standard as every other number on the page.
What remains open is a real list, stated plainly. Seventy plus House races, which decide whether the majority approaches the largest since 2009 line, and which settle the fate of the redrawn seat incumbents this page profiled, the Davis class, the cycle’s cleanest map versus environment test. The all time turnout record from yesterday’s piece waits on the West’s by design slow count, with the 54 million early ballots already banked toward it. The governors’ column is still filling, Byron Donalds took Florida for the Republicans. Washington’s sequester demand, the appeal window on Judge Carter’s California ruling, and the promised Alaska appeal are all live. And certifications now proceed on each state’s legal calendar over the coming weeks, which is exactly where this page’s attention goes next, because the courts spent October guaranteeing that calendar and November is when it runs.
The service note still matters this morning. If you voted provisionally or your mail ballot was flagged, the cure window is open now and it is measured in days, your county election site has the clock and the contact, and a cured ballot counts in the final certified totals that the history books keep. Then the ledger closes where the month began. This page logged what the parties did instead of what they said, the money, the feet, the filings, the courtrooms, and last night the counts agreed with the doing. The counting continues in the West, the certifying begins on schedule, and the rule here stays what it was. The receipts outrank the briefs, and starting this morning, the receipts are votes.