Your Midterm recap.
Hi babes –
I just wanted to let the dust settle a bit after the midterms before writing you a little recap. I find that politics, especially lately, can be super emotionally draining. All of the ups and downs, the uncertainty, and the vast feeling of helplessness in a world full of crises. That said, I wanted to take a chance to explain where we are at and what things will look like moving forward.
WHAT WERE THE BIGGEST TAKE-AWAYS?
- The Democrats flipped a record number of seats for the House of Representatives. They needed to flip 23 to take control and they flipped 38 seats. Democrats also flipped 7 governor seats.
- But Republicans will maintain control in the senate where THEY flipped 2 seats.
- There will be a record number of women serving in congress starting in 2019!
- One of the MOST EXCITING pieces of news was that both young people and women showed up to the polls bigger numbers than EVER before! Given the high stakes relating to gun violence, dreamers act, and new women’s movement, our demographic NEEDED to show up. And we did. We helped make a change!
WHY ARE THESE THINGS IMPORTANT?
The Trump Administration was already struggling to get legislation through congress and now they are going to have a much bigger road block with the Democrats in power. BUT the Senate will still be Republican controlled with a few new faces.
A KEY PLAYER:
The media is SWOONING over Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. She is smart, well-spoke, fired up, energetic, poised, young, beautiful, a minority-female intersectionality with a HECK OF A STORY! Can you tell I am obsessing over her myself?! Major girl-crush right here.
This young woman was literally bartending and waiting tables at a restaurant barely making New York rent and would vent to customers about her far-left ideologies. Eventually, one of them convinced her to run for congress.
Despite being incredibly radical and a self-proclaimed socialist, Ocasio-Cortez out-ran a 10-term congressman who was seen as a shoe-in. After a very heated election, the results came in and on election night, he played the guitar and sang to her “Baby you were born to run!” by Bruce Springsteen as his concession speech.
Who knows what she will do next! We will be watching.
OKLAHOMA SPECIFIC RESULTS:
The two most significant wins were governor and District 5.
Despite the fact that the state as whole lost faith in Mary Fallin by the end of her time as governor, we elected the candidate she endorsed. Stitt, the governor elect, has close ties to the Trump administration who helped campaign for him. He boasts a self-built business and has promised to overhaul our state budget to weed out unnecessary spending, rather than raising taxes. We will see if he can throw our drowning state economy a life raft!
Kendra Horn, winner in the fifth district was one of the 26 flips. She beat out a Republican incumbent. He was widely criticized by the Republican party for losing his seat but he explained the defeat in noting that District 5, smack dab in the middle of downtown/midtown OKC, has a lot of younger people and families than it did when he ran before.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The Democrats will now need to elect someone to the position of Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi has had the job before but Democrats are wondering if it would be better to have new leadership given the tumultuous current political atmosphere. However, President Trump endorsed Pelosi for the job, despite having criticized and ridiculed her in in the press, speaking engagements, and on Twitter. Being such a tenured congresswoman (she has been congress for 30 years!), it’s hard to imagine someone opposing her for the job. It would definitely cause further internal friction between Democrats.
Certain special elections are also ongoing but for the most part, everyone’s attention will now shift towards the 2020 presidential election. WOOF! I know, it feels like we just got through one of those huh? The 2016 elections noted an unprecedented level of drama, partisanship, and overall weirdness. It was actually pretty bizare in a number of ways.
HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED?
Register people to vote. Research who might run for Prez, congress, or your local government. Get involved with one or two of the campaigns that pop up. They will teach you everything you will need to know about getting involved and it will help you keep an ear to the ground about what’s going on and help you have an avenue to making any changes you want to see in your area!
Have questions? Always feel free to use our “contact” page as a way to ask questions. Always here to help you #keepcurrent.
Xx,
Antigone