Yeah, I know. Watching election results come in on Tuesday night was painful, even if you live in one of the red states that did well overall, like Florida.
It wasn’t great for us here in North Carolina. We, of course, lost the Senate seat to former Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, but the writing on the wall on that one had been there for a while. We have 14 congressional districts, and going into Election Day, Republicans held 10 of them, with most considered “safe.” Now, we may be looking at a situation where the roles are reversed, with Democrats possibly going 10-4 depending on what happens in CD3, CD5, and CD7. Those three are currently held by the GOP but are too close to call. Rep. Virginia Foxx in CD5 may end up losing her race by less than 100 votes.
N.C. Republicans lost the state house, and in some races, the margin was less than 300 votes. Recounts undoubtedly will happen in some of them. Looks like we’ll barely hold the state senate thanks to one senate race where the Republican incumbent leads by under 300 votes.
In the aftermath of elections like this one, among the questions asked by the losing party are: Where did we go wrong? What could we have done better? What’s the way forward?
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers, but here are two things I feel will be saving graces for Republicans over the next couple of election cycles:
1) Democrats are destined to overplay their hand. Collectively, they always do, and it usually backfires at the ballot box eventually. Once the House flip was called Tuesday night, some of them were already taking to social media, making threats about subpoenas and advising Trump administration figures to “lawyer up.” So much for the “top priority” for Democrats being affordability. As has always been the case, it’s about getting revenge on President Trump for 2016. Democrats are the true one-trick ponies or, in this case, donkeys.
2) A fair amount of moderate-ish Democrats were elected in state legislative and congressional districts that Trump previously carried by comfortable margins. Look for some of them, perhaps a substantial amount, to not always toe the party line, and keep some of the inevitable attempted Democrat excesses in check.
I mean, there were U.S. House flips here in N.C. where the Democrats won by just a few thousand votes (and, pending the ones mentioned above, maybe by only a handful of votes). Some of these people, especially those in southern states, will understand that they weren’t given mandates by the American people to unleash the TDS.
To switch gears a bit, something happened to me last night that never had happened after previous election cycles where we didn’t do well. Normally, after a bad election night, though I’m disappointed, I can sleep it off and not let it consume me too much.
But last night (early this morning) I went to bed with and woke up with an awful headache. Stomach problems were also thrown into the mix. I’m sure some of it was food-related, but I feel most of it was stress- and shock-related. Not that I didn’t expect us to have a bad night, but I didn’t expect the catastrophe that unfolded here at the state level and nationally. It was like a gut-punch: conservatives and Republicans have worked so damned hard over the years to achieve what we have, and in one night, everything changes, and the future is suddenly more uncertain than ever.
I spent most of the morning sleeping, resting, praying, calming myself down, and trying to come to terms with it. At some point, a peace about things fell over me. As many others have said, we’ve been here before, when the midterm losses were devastating, and we’ve soldiered through and made epic comebacks.
The next comeback is going to take some time, but we as conservatives will persevere. And we conservative writers, with the gifts bestowed upon us from God, will also help make it happen.
Never give up. We will rise again.
Editor’s Note: Republicans are fighting for election integrity by requiring proper identification to vote. It’s common sense, yet Democrats are spreading lies about the impact of such a measure.
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