Democrats take control of the House

It's hard for me to feel joy right now, having to accept the defeat of both Beto O'Rourk, in his race against Ted Cruz in Texas, and of Andrew Gillum in his race to be governor of Florida.   Both of these men brought a freshness and a spirit of authenticity and compassion and competence to politics.

I'm also sad that, although Stacie Abrams' race for governor of Georgia is still too early to call, she is trailing pretty badly.   Maybe she will still pull out a win as the metro Atlanta votes get counted.    Abrams is smart, politically adept, knows her way around the Georgia legislature -- and she would be an inspiring first African-American woman ever to be governor of a U.S. state.

However, putting those aside, this was a very good night for Democrats.   As of 11:30 Tuesday night, the Democrats have flipped enough seats to take control of the House of Representatives, with some to spare.

The real significance of this is that, come January, Democrats will control the agenda, the budget, and will become chairs of all the House committees.    And that means that now they will provide oversight and investigative powers, including subpoena power, over the Trump administration.  This is an important constitutionally established function of the House, something Republicans have refused to do with Trump as president.

More about all of this later.   Now to bed.

Ralph

UPDATE:    With 100% of precincts reporting, the Georgia governor's race now has Kemp with 50.8%, Abrams 48.3%, and Metz 0.9%.

UPDATE #2:   Those results do not, however, include all of the absentee ballots nor the provisional ballots.    So it is still mathematically possible for Abrams to win;  but not very probable.