Maine Had A Wave

Republicans in Maine did a lot of losing yesterday. Eric Brakey tried taking out Angus King and got 35.2% of the vote for his effort. Chellie Pingree was reelected to the House with 58.9% of the vote. Republican Mark Holbrook took just under a third of the vote-- 106,750 (32.3%). And in the second district, the race is too close to call, although it looks like Democrat Jared Golden may well replace Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin. The Democrats also took control of the state Senate, winning at least 21 seats in the 35-seat chamber, and increased their majority in the state House, with at least 81 of the 151 seats. And... the day after termed out Governor Paul LePage announced he's had enough of Maine and is moving to Florida, the voters chose Democrat Janet Mills to replace him. She took 310,493 votes (51.1%) with Republican Shawn Moody, the Republican in the race, taking 261,353 votes (43.0%) In all, a very bad day for the GOP.

So no one should have been surprised today when she took one look at Trump's immediate steps to end the Mueller investigation and tweeted her disapproval:

Too late; the damage is down. She voted to confirm Kavanaugh and she cuddled up with Trump enough to make normal Mainers sick (literally and figuratively.

But now she's concerned? Was she not paying attention for the last coupla years? Who, oh, who could have guessed Trump would interfere with the investigation? Or that there is a single normal Trump would hesitate to break? Susan Collins is concerned. She's going to be a lot more concerned when she's on the ballot with him in 2020.

And what about Trump's threats today to "have" the Senate "investigate" Democratic members of Congress if any committees start investigating him, probably the top reason why millions of voters decided to replace Republicans with Democrats in the House. The New York Times reported that Trump said he would adopt a "warlike posture" towards the House Democrats if they did. "They can play that game, but we can play better because we have a thing called the United States Senate and a lot of questionable things were done between leaks of classified information and many other elements that should not have taken place... I could see it being extremely good for me politically because I think I’m better at that game than they are, actually, but we’ll find out."

It doesn't seem like any other Republicans are concerned about that or that Trump fired Sessions half a day after the midterms and replaced Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with a stooge, Matthew Whitaker, to "oversee" Mueller and his team. Don't recall Whitaker? He was the one who wrote an OpEd last year claiming that if Mueller looked into the Trump crime family finances he would be "dangerously close to crossing" a red line.

Into the Swamp by Nancy Ohanian

Not Much Of A Wave, But The House Did Change Hands, So There's That

Devolution of the Star Child

Democrats winning the House means there will be an effective check on Trump's worst authoritarian tendencies. It also kills the Republican Party's ambitions to repeal the Affordable Care Act and further eviscerate the social safety net. So how many seats did the Democrats pick up? We don't know yet because so many seats-- and not just in California-- are still uncalled. Here's my best guesses on how this turns out-- state by state.

Alabama

Nothing happened; nothing ever happens.

Alaska

And Don Young was reelected, after a brief scare from Alyse Galvin, an independent running as a Democrat, whatever that means.

Arizona

A quasi-Democrat, New Dem Ann Kirkpatrick won the Tucson-based seat Martha McSally gave up and, as expected, Sinema's Phoenix seat was won by former Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton. He won't be any good, but he'll be a lot better than Sinema. So that's one upgrade.

Arkansas

The Little Rock seat, where the DCCC hoped to elect some Blue Dog-- and spent half a million in the attempt-- was a bust. Republican incumbent French Hill hung on in the R+7 district, beating Clarke Tucker 128,211 (53%) to 108,835 (45%).

California

CA-01- GOP incumbent Doug LaMalfa beat progressive Democrat Audrey Denney 110,236 (56.1%) to 86,137 (43.9%)

CA-04- GOP incumbent Tom McClintock beat Democrat Jessica Moore, 120,601(55.3%) to 97,345 (44.7%)

CA-10- This one is too close to call but, with all precincts reporting Jeff Denham leads Democratic challenger Josh Harder 56,701 (50.6%) to 55,414 (49.4%), and it may be a week or so before we know who won.

CA-21- David Valadao successfully defended his seat against a weak challenger, TJ Cox, betting him-- in a disgracefully low turnout election-- 35,416 (53.7%) to 30,577 (46.3%). This is a 73% Latino district. The Democratic Party needs to do some work here.

CA-22- Devin Nunes beat conservative Democratic challenger Andrew Janz 75,111 (55.8%) to 59,528 (44.2%).

CA-25- Democratic challenger Katie Hill seems to have edged far right GOP incumbent Steve Knight 83,662 (51.3%) to 79,545 (48.7%).

CA-39- Republican Young Kim looks like she's beating ex-Republican self-funder and lottery winner Gil Cisneros-- the DCCC's worst recruit-- in the open Orange County/L.A. seat 74,904 (51.4%) to 70,928 (48.6%).

CA-45- Mimi Walters is ahead of Katie Porter 94,998 (51.7%) to 88,765 (48.3%) with all precincts reporting; a major disappointment.

CA-48- Harley Rouda looks like he beat Putin's favorite congressman, Dana Rohrabacher. With all precincts in, Rouda has 91,750 votes (50.7%) to Rohrabacher's 89,068 (49.3%).

CA-49- It looks like Democrat Mike Levin will replace Darrell Issa, having won the San Diego/Orange County seat and beating weak GOP candidate Diane Harkey 76,135 (52.4%) to 69,031 (47.6%).

CA-50- Out on bail, proud bigot Druncan Hunter showed what his constituents are made. They reelected him 82,379 (54.3%) to Ammar Campa-Najjar's 69,244 (45.7%). Revenge will be when he goes to prison and Darrell Issa steps in to "represent" them.

I'll leave the 10th district out of this and guess that the Democrats have picked up 3 seats, less than anyone expected.

Colorado

The only strongly contested House race, for the suburban Denver 6th district (PVI is D+2), was won by conservative Democrat Jason Crow, who beat GOP incumbent Mike Coffman 144,422 (53.1%) to 120,674 (44.3%).

Connecticut

The only seriously contested House race was for the open 5th district, where Democrat Jahana Hayes beat Republican Manny Santos 140,886 (55.9%) to 110,946 (44.1%).

Delaware

See Alabama

Florida

That was pretty miserable and we looked at it district by district last night. The Democrats picked up two very blue districts that had been in GOP hands. That was all.

Georgia

Nothing happened in the congressional races. [UPDATE: Oops!]

Hawaii

See Alabama

Idaho

See Alabama

Illinois

Illinois voters came through for the Democratic Party by winning 2 Republican-held seats. Sean Casten beat Peter Roskam 156,346 (52.8%) to 139,667 (47.2%) and Lauren Underwood beat Republican incumbent Randy Hultgren 142,261 (51.9%) to 131,819 (48.1%). Abby Finkenauer ousted Rod Blum 50.9% to 46.0%. And Cindy Axne beat David Young 49.0% to 47.5%.

Indiana

Nothin'

Iowa

Although Steve King managed to hold on-- far more narrowly than he ever expected-- the Iowa delegation goes from 3 Republicans and one Democrat to 3 Democrats and 1 Republican.

Kansas

The DCCC lost with their Blue Dog recruit, Paul Davis, despite having spent-- between themselves and Pelosi's PAC (and Bloomberg's PAC)-- $4,161,728. But Congress will get its first transsexual woman, Sharice Davids ousting Kevin Yoder in KS-03-- 164,253 (53.3%) to 136,104 (44.2%).

Kentucky

The only serious race in the state was a disappointment. Although Amy McGrath outperformed 2016 levels by 19 points, she failed to oust Andy Barr, who beat her 51.0% to 47.8%.

Louisiana

See Alabama

Maine

With 84.5% of precincts reporting, Poliquin is leading Jared Golden 121,727 (46.0%) to 121,337 (45.9%). The state has ranked choice voting so I'm guessing Jared Golden will be replacing Poliquin in the House. We should know in about a week. Under the new system--and this will be the first federal election it will be used in-- adopted by Mainers in two statewide ballot questions, the people who voted for independents Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar will have their the second and third-place choices redistributed to either Poliquin or Golden and the totals will be retabulated until one of the candidates receives at least 50 percent of the vote. Poliquin has already said he might challenge the results of the election in court if ranked-choice voting system costs him the election, as is likely.

Maryland

The DCCC allowed a crooked multimillionaire, David Trone to buy the open 6th district seat for $15,983,172 of his own, having lost the 8th district in 2016 after he spent $13,414,225. Other than that... See Alabama.

Massachusetts

Lori Trahan (D) won the 3rd district open seat with 61.9% and the other open seat (MA-07) was won by Ayanna Pressley, who ran unopposed.

Michigan

There were 4 hot races. First and foremost, the open MI-13 seat (Detroit) was won in a massive landslide by progressive champion Rashia Tlaib-- with 85.5% of the vote, despite a last minute attempt by the venal Detroit establishment to derail her. Haley Stevens won the open MI-11 seat winning massively in Wayne County and well-enough in the Oakland County part of the district. She beat Trump-endorsed multimillionaire Len Epstein 52.1% to 44.9%. New Dei Elissa Slotkin ousted GOP incumbent Mike Bishop in MI-08 (running up a gigantic majority in Ingham County while holding down losses in the Oakland and Livingston county parts of the district) 50.6% to 46.8%. The DCCC, though, was foiled in it's attempt to beat Tim Walberg in MI-07 with Blue Dog Gretchen Driskell. She lost big in Monroe and Jackson counties, the two biggest, while not doing well enough in Washtenaw and Eaton to overcome Walberg's majorities. He beat her 158,885 (53.8%) to 136,410 (46.2%). The only other Michigan district that looked alive was Matt Longjohn's race to replace Fred Upton. Although Longjohn won Kalamazoo by a lot he fell short in Allegan, Van Buren and Berrien counties by too much. Upton beat him 147,437 (50.2%) to 134,069 (45.7%)

So... +2

Minnesota

There was a lot of action here. First off, Tim Walz ran for governor (and won) but left a tough seat for Dems-- MN-01, which has an R+5 PVI. It's too close to call but doesn't look good. Republican Jim Hagedorn is leading Democrat Dan Feehan 146,202 (50.2%) to 144,891 (49.8%). New Dem Angie Craig beat Republican incumbent Jason Lewis 52.8% to 47.2% and another New Dem, Dean Phillips, beat Erik Paulsen, also a GOP incumbent, The PVIs of the 2 districts are R+2 (Craig) and D+1 (Phillips). Keith Ellison-- who elected Attorney General in a very rough race, beating Doug Wardlow 49.0% to 45.1%-- is being replaced by Ilhan Omar, a super progressive, who beat Republican Jennifer Zielinski 267,690 (78.2%) to 74,437 (21.8%). Crooked Blue Dog Collin Peterson hung on again, 52.1% to 47.9% but Republican Pete Stauber beat Democrat Joe Radinovich 50.7% to 45.2% in the open 8th district. Radinovich ran up a big majority in St Louis County, but not enough to offset Stauber's majorities in the 3 smaller counties, Crow Wing, Chisago and Itasca. It's an R+4 district. So we see two Blue to Red flips in Minnesota and Red to Blue flips, cancelling each other other. Net Zero.

Mississippi

See Alabama

Missouri

Nada. As expected, Cort VanOstran couldn't pull off an upset win in the R+8 district, not even winning the St. Louis county parts of the district. Ann Wager was re-elected 51.3% to 47.1%. He should try again in 2020.

Montana

Although Tester held the Senate seat, about 20,000 people who voted for him forgot to vote for Kathleen Williams. She lost to Greg Gianforte 236,379 (52.0%) to 205,911 (45.3%).

Nebraska

The great progressive hope for Nebraska, Kara Eastman, was betrayed by the DCCC at every turn because they hated that she beat their favorite Blue Dog in the primary. Because of them, Don Bacon keeps his seat with 51.6% of the vote. I always say, the Democrats would do better if there was no DCCC.

Nevada

This actually was wave-country with Nevadans electing a Democratic governor and replacing Dean Heller with Jacky Rosen in the Senate-- as well as wins for 2 Democrats (in open blue seats), fending off Trumpist nut Danny Tarkanian in one and plain old nut Cresent Hardy in the other. Steven Horsford will be back in Congress, as will socialite Susie Lee (New Dem). Net Zero.

New Hampshire

As expected Chris Pappas, an openly gay Democrat, beat Eddie Edwards an openly black Republican-- 53.7% to 44.9%-- holding the open Carol Shea Porter seat. Net Zero.

New Jersey

NJ-02 is sending the state Senate's most conservative Democratic member to Congress. Blue Dog Jeff Van Drew won with a much smaller majority than anyone expected-- just 52%, winning all 4 counties in the district.

NJ-03 is too close to call but GOP incumbent Tom MacArthur leads Andy Kim 136,408 (49.8%) to 134,093 (48.9%). MacArthur, a multimillionaire put $1.4 million of his own into the race.

NJ-07- Tom Malinowski edged GOP incumbent Leonard Lance by about 7,000 votes, 50.5% to 48.0%, winning the two biggest counties, Somerset and Union, while losing the Morris County and very red Hunterdon parts of the district.

NJ-011 was an open seat flip, with Blue Dog Mikie Sherrill beating some Republican guy 56.2% to 42.7%. She outraised him $7,574,500 to $1,388,799. On top of that, Bloomberg's Independence USA PAC, which supports right-of-center Democrats, kicked in $2,216,132 and Pelosi's PAC kicked in another $1,591,971. The NRCC and Ryan's SuperPAC ignored the race.

Net: +4

New Mexico

Rep. Stevan Pearce ran for governor (and was defeated handily), leaving open the 2nd district. The DCCC backed a conservative Blue Dog, Xochitl Torres Small, and with 95% of the precincts counted, she's losing to Republican Yvette Herrell by about 2,000 votes, 50.5% to 49.5%. [UPDATE: With that last 5% counted... Xochitl Torres Small became Congresswoman-elect Xochitl Torres Small. The final vote: 99,441 to 96,715... 50.7% to 49.3%.]

New York

Let's start with Long Island. The DCCC backed a conservative multimillionaire, Perry Gershon for Lee Zeldin's seat. Gershon self-funded to the tune of $1,843,746, spending almost a million dollars more than Zeldin. The SEIU and Pelosi put about $700,000 in to help him but he lost with 46.4% of the vote. Next door in Peter King's district (still under the protection of Steve Israel), Liuba Grechen Shirley, a progressive, did slightly better without any outside spending at all. She took 46.7%. Too bad the establishment hates progressives so much. Shirley might have won with that $700,000.

NY-11 was kind of a shocker. No one expected Blue Dog Max Rose to beat GOP incumbent Dan Donovan-- but all the negativity from the primary thrown at Donovan by Michael "Mikie Suits" Grimm, hurt Donovan badly enough for Rose to take him out 52.8-46/8%. Rose ran up a huge majority in the Brooklyn part of the district but also won, narrowly, in the Staten Island part. Nate Silver:

NY-19 was another surprise flip. Voters reacted badly to all the racism the GOP injected into the race and Antonio Delgado beat Republican incumbent John Faso 122,644 (49.8%) to 117,029 (47.6%).

NY-21- Republican Elise Stefanik was reelected 56.7-41.8%.

NY-22- Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi narrowly bested Trumpist incumbent Claudia Tenney by about a thousand votes, 50.3% to 49.7%.

NY-24- Another DCCC fuck-up, allowing Republican John Katko to keep his seat against progressive Dana Balter who the DCCC hated because she beat their corporate shill in the primary. Katko spent $2,287,569 to Balter's $1,733,270, with the DCCC only spending $61,809 in the district, By the time Pelosi came in, in the last 2 weeks, with $1,362,976 it was too late in the game and Katko won 53.1% to 46.9%... in a D+3 district where Obama won twice and even Hillary-- after losing to Bernie-- managed to beat Trump 48.9% to 45.3%.

NY-27- Nate McMurray has requested a recount for the 132,402 (49.5%) to 129,594 (48.4%) loss to Chris Collins, currently out on bail. Again, the DCCC's hatred of progressives prevented them from helping McMurray. Collins spent $1,323,723 to McMurray's $490,677 and a DCCC campaign about Collins' arrest by the FBI on insider trading would have easy won the race for McMurray. McMurray's statement this afternoon:

This isn’t even yet a recount. We haven't even had an official count yet. In our democracy, every single vote matters. There are over 18,000 votes that have not yet been counted, between absentee, emergency, and affidavit ballots. If this were Election Day, we would still be holding tight. We will continue to count each and every ballot to ensure every voter in this district is heard.

“With only 2,800 votes separating us, this race is too close to call. There are too many voters who have not yet had their say. We are fighting to make sure every vote is counted because every vote counts.

I believe that the hardworking families of this district are ready to reject the stale and ineffective tactics of partisanship politics, put country before party, and turn the page from Chris Collins’ self-serving chapter in our region’s history. We must finish counting ballots so we can finally get to work to make Washington and fixing a rigged system that both Republicans and Democrats agree is hopelessly broken.

North Carolina

The DCCC had high hopes but lost all three races they got involved with:

• NC-02- GOP incumbent George Holding held his seat against Linda Foreman 51.4% to 45.7%
• NC-09- Blue Dog Dan McCready lost to Trumpist crackpot Mark Harris 49.4% to 48.8%, about 2,000 votes, despite McCready outspending him 4 to 1 and despite about $1.2 million between the DCCC and Pelosi.
• NC-13- Ted Budd beat Blue Dog Kathy Manning 51.6% to 45.5%

North Dakota

See Alabama

Ohio

Nuthin'-- DCCC tried in OH-01 with Aftab Preval but came upon short, 51.8 % to 46.4%. The only other district where there was a real shot given for a Dem was the re-run between Troy Balderson and Danny O'Connor. Balderson beat him 171,757 (51.6%) to 156,863 (47.1%)-- worse than the August special election numbers when less than 2,000 votes separated the two and Balderson won with 50.1% to O'Connor's 49.3%.

Oklahoma

One of the big shocks was Democrat Kendra Horn ousting GOP incumbent Steve Russell 121,013 (50.7%) to 117,725 (49.3%). She lost the Pottawatomie and Seminole parts of the district but did well enough in OK City to retire Russell. At least the wave worked somewhere! Russell was so sure of himself that the allowed her to out-spend him 2 to 1. The only significant outside money came at the last minute from Bloomberg-- $429,664 that put her over the top.

Oregon

See Alabama

Pennsylvania

Hot bed of activity!

PA-01- Massively outspent by Scott Wallace ($11,760,243 to $2,780,210) GOP incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick still held on in this blue-leaning district where Hillary beat Trump 49.1% to 47.1%, beating Wallace 168,841 (51.3%) to 160,098 (48.7%).

PA-05- Mary Scanlon (D) beat Pearl Kim (R) 65.1% to 34.9%, a big flip.

PA-06- Chrissy Houlahan (D) beat Greg McCauley (R) 58.8% to 41.2%, another big flip.

PA-07- Susan Wild (D) beat Marty Nothstein (R) 53.4% to 43.5%, another big flip.

PA-11- One of the best run grassroots campaigns anywhere wasn't enough to overcome the massive GOP registration advantage and Republican incumbent Lloyd Smucker beat Jess King 58.6% to 41.4%. Jess was another progressive who the DCCC refused to help.

PA-17- As expected, the incumbent v incumbent race saw Conor Lamb oust Keith Rothfus by around 40,000 votes, 56.1% to 43.9%, which balanced out the loss of Lamb's old district.

All in all, Pennsylvania brought the Democrats a net of 3 seats.

Rhode Island

Alabama

South Carolina

Big shocker was Joe Cunningham, without any DCCC help at all, won the first district, from which Mark Sanford had been defeated in his primary big by Trumpist Katie Arrington. An R+10 district, the 538 forecaster gave him a 1 in 10 shot to win. He beat the Trumpist 50.7% to 49.3% stunning... everyone.

South Dakota

nuthin'

Tennessee

nuthin'-- no Democrat doing better than a third against any of the Republicans.

Texas

TX-06- Although Jana Lynne Sanchez took the Tarrant Co. part of the district, she got crushed in Ellis and Navarro counties and lost to Republican Ron Wright for the empty seat in the R+9 district.

TX-07- Big win as Lizzie Fletcher ousted John Culberson, 126,168 (52.3%) to 114,859 (47.7%). Beto's coattails helped hear a lot.

TX-10- Mike Siegel came closer than anyone would have imagined, holding Michael McCaul to a stunning 50.9% win. Hopefully there will be a rematch in 2020, this time without the DCCC poo-poo-ing Siegel's efforts.

TX-23- All precincts are in but it's still too close to call, Republican incumbent Will Hurd leading Gina Ortiz Jones by 700 votes-- 49.1% to 48.8% in this 71% Latino district in which neither party ran a Latino.

TX-31- MJ Hegar fell shot but out-performed 2016 by 19 points, and actually won Williamson County, though not by enough to counter Carter's big majority in Bell. He gets to keep his seat for another cycle, having beat her 50.7% to 47.6%.

TX-32- Big win as Colin Allred ousted Jeff Sessions 52.2% to 45.9%.

Utah

UT-04- With only 68.4% of the precincts counted, it looks like Blue Dog Ben McAdams is beating GOP incumbent Mia Love 51.3% to 48.7% in this R+13 district. Love raised $4,772,004 to McAdams' $2,850,479. Ryan's SuperPAC spent $1,185,474 and the DCCC countered with $213,334.

Vermont

Alabama

Virginia

The Dems flipped 3 seats: VA-10, where Jennifer Wexton ousted Barbara Comstock 56.2% to 43.8%; VA-07, where Abigail Spanberger ousted Dave Brat 50.3% to 48.5%; and VA-02, where Elaine Luria ousted Scott Taylor, 51.1% to 48.9%.

Washington

Dems missed two good opportunities to take out Jaime Herrera Beutler and Cathy McMorris Rodgers but appears to be winning the Dave Reichert open seat (WA-08). With 63.7% of the votes counted Democrat Kim Schrier leads Republican Dino Rossi 104,520 (52.9%) to 92,900 (47.1%)

West Virginia

WV-03- Richard Ojeda fell woefully short against a paper candidate in an R+23 district. Carol Miller (the paper candidate) beat him 56.4% to 43.6%.

Wisconsin

Tragic loss in WI-01-- thank you DCCC, for nothing-- where Randy Bryce was beaten by Ryan-clone Bryan Steil 54.6% to 42.3% after Ryan's SuperPAC smeared Bryce night and day starting during the primary, smears unanswered by the DCCC who were happy to see a progressive and a working class person go down to defeat to a buttoned down terry corporate attorney who will be easier for them to relate to. Although Bryce won Kenosha County anyway, he could never have overcome the humongous majority (R+45) Steil won in red, red Waukesha County, which had been gerrymandered into the district to make it safer for Ryan.

Wyoming

See Alabama.

So... that looks like a net pick-up of 36 seats, possibly two or three more. Skimpy wave.

Revenue Neutral-- Not A Chance... So The GOP Wants To End Medicare, Medicaid And Social Security-- Will Voters Get Even?

What could make the anti-red wave bigger and higher? Mitch McConnell. He's already the most despised senator in the whole country but now he's running around salivating over the prospect of destroying Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the ultimate, decades-long Republican dream. This is exactly what he and Ryan plotted when they passed the enormous and highly unpopular tax-cut for multimillionaires and billionaires last year. They wanted the deficit to scare people so they could cut essential programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And now McConnell is starting to make his move, even before the election. Listen to his interview (video above) with Bloomberg News.

The GOP plan has always been to blame rising deficits and debt and interest rates on the Democrats' refusal to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

“It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem,” McConnell said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News when asked about the rising deficits and debt. “It’s a bipartisan problem: unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future.”

McConnell’s remarks came a day after the Treasury Department said the U.S. budget deficit grew to $779 billion in Donald Trump’s first full fiscal year as president, the result of the GOP’s tax cuts, bipartisan spending increases and rising interest payments on the national debt. That’s a 77 percent increase from the $439 billion deficit in fiscal 2015, when McConnell became majority leader.

McConnell said it would be “very difficult to do entitlement reform, and we’re talking about Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid,” with one party in charge of Congress and the White House.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, which is the real driver of the debt by any objective standard, may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government,” McConnell said.

Shrinking those popular programs-- either by reducing benefits or raising the retirement age-- without a bipartisan deal would risk a political backlash in the next election. Trump promised during his campaign that he wouldn’t cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, even though his budget proposals have included trims to all three programs.

McConnell said he had many conversations on the issue with former President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “He was a very smart guy, understood exactly what the problem was, understood divided government was the time to do it, but didn’t want to, because it was not part of his agenda,” McConnell said.

“I think it would be safe to say that the single biggest disappointment of my time in Congress has been our failure to address the entitlement issue, and it’s a shame, because now the Democrats are promising ‘Medicare for all,”’ he said. “I mean, my gosh, we can’t sustain the Medicare we have at the rate we’re going and that’s the height of irresponsibility.”

...The Office of Management and Budget has projected a deficit in the coming year of $1.085 trillion despite a healthy economy. And the Congressional Budget Office has forecast a return to trillion-dollar deficits by fiscal 2020.

During Trump’s presidency, Democrats and Republicans agreed to a sweeping deal to increase discretionary spending on defense and domestic programs, while his efforts to shrink spending on Obamacare mostly fell flat.

Republicans in December 2017 also passed a tax cut projected to add more than $1 trillion to the debt over a decade after leaders gave up on creating a plan that wouldn’t increase the debt under the Senate’s scoring rules.

At the time, McConnell told reporters, “I not only don’t think it will increase the deficit, I think it will be beyond revenue-neutral.” He added, “In other words, I think it will produce more than enough to fill that gap.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York responded Tuesday by saying McConnell and other Republicans “blew a $2 trillion hole in the federal deficit to fund a tax cut for the rich. To now suggest cutting earned middle-class programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid as the only fiscally responsible solution to solve the debt problem is nothing short of gaslighting."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement, “Under the GOP’s twisted agenda, we can afford tax cuts for billionaires, but not the benefits our seniors have earned.”

Chuck Todd and his team compiled a list of congressional districts they feel the Republicans are on the verge of losing in the anti-red wave. They started with 6 Democratic-held districts that could flip. One is a sure thing for the GOP: PA-14, an open seat-- Conor Lamb is moving to a safer seat-- where Republican Guy Reschenthaler is absolutely going to beat Bibiana Boerio. The PVI is R+20 and no matter how optimistic you are, R+20 districts are not going to be won by Democrats. Under the new boundaries Obama would have been crushed both times and Trump would have beaten Hillary 62.9% to 33.9%. So, forget that one. As for the other 5... Democrats will certainly hold onto Carol Shea-Porter's seat (NH-01) with Democrat Chris Pappas beating Republican Eddie Edwards. 538 gives Pappas a 7 in 8 chance (87.1%) chance of winning. I don't know why the district is on Todd's list. The 2 open seats each in Minnesota and Nevada make up the rest of the list but I'd say the Dems will certainly hold onto both Nevada seats and probably win one of the Minnesota seats (MN-01 and lose the other one (MN-08.

Then they list the 15 likeliest red to blue flips:

• VA-10- Jennifer Wexton will beat Barbara Comstock
• FL-27- Democrat Donna Shalala, a miserable candidate, will probably beat Republican Maria Salazar, though I'm less persuaded that Shalala will pull it off.
• NJ-02- Blue Dog Democrat Jeff Van Drew will beat Seth Grossman.
• NJ-11- Blue Dog Democrat Mikie Sherrill will beat Jay Webber.
• PA-05- Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon will beat Pearl Kim.
• PA-06- Democrat Chrissy Houlahan will beat Gregory McCauley.
• PA-07- Democrat Susan Wild will beat Marty Nothstein
• PA-17- Conor Lamb will oust Keith Rothfus
• AZ-02- New Dem Ann Kirkpatrick will beat Lea Marquez-Peterson
• CO-6- Jason Crow will likely oust Mike Coffman
• KS-03- Sharice David will oust Kevin Yoder
• MN-02- Angie Craig will oust Jason Lewis.
• MN-03- Dean Phillips will oust Erik Paulsen.
• IA-01- Abby Finkenauer will beat Rod Blum.
• CA-49- Mike Levin will beat Diane Harkey.

Their next category they call "the majority makes," 23 Democrats in toss-up races with recent momentum moving blue. They force probable losses for Andy Barr (KY-06), Scott Taylor (VA-02), Steve Chabot (OH-01), Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), Pete Roskam (IL-06), Mike Best (IL-12), Bruce Poliquin (ME-02), Tom MacArthur (NJ-03), Leonard Lance (NJ-07), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Mike Bishop (MI-08), John Faso (NY-19), Claudia Tenney (NY-22), John Culberson (TX-07), Pete Sessions (TX-32), David Young (IA-03), Steve Knight (CA-25), Mimi Walters (CA-45), and Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48). Then the open red seats, MI-11, WA-08 and NM-02, will fall, respectively, to Haley Stevens, Kim Schrier and Blue Dog Xochitl Torres Small.

This is all without much of an actual wave! So what happens if there is a wave? Todd thinks we'll be saying goodbye to Tom Garrett (VA-05), George Holding (NC-02), Ted Budd (NC-13), Vern Buchanan (FL-16), Rodney Davis (IL-14), Randy Hultgren (IL-14), Will Hurd (TX-23), John Carter (TX-31), Mia Love (UT-04), Jeff Denham (CA-10), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), while open red seats WI-01 will fall to Randy Bryce, KS-02 to Blue Dog Paul Davis, CA-39 to Gil Cisneros, WV-03 to Richard Ojeda, and NC-09 to Dan McCready.

Then there are 16 seats if the wave turns into a tsunami:

• AR-02- Clarke Tucker in, French Hill out
• AZ-06- Anita Malik in, David Schweikert out
• CA-04- Jessica Morse in, Tom McClintock out
• FL-06- Nancy Soderberg over Michael Waltz
• FL-18- Lauren Baer in, Brian Mast out
• GA-06- Lucy McBath in, Karen Handel out
• GA-07- Carolyn Bourdeaux in Rob Woodall out
• IN-02- Mel Hall in Jackie Walorski out
• IA-04- J.D. Scholten in, Steve King out
• MI-01- Matt Morgan in, John Bergman out
• MO-02- Cort VanOstran in, Ann Wagner out
• NY-01- Perry Gershon in, Lee Zeldin out
• NY-02- Liuba Grechen Shirley in, Steve King out
• NY-11- Max Rose in, Dan Donovan out
• NY-27- Nate McMurray in, Chris Collins out
• OH-14- Betsy Rader in, David Joyce out.

There are even candidates with better chances than some of the above, like Ammar Campa-Najjar in San Diego County (who the Muslim-phobic DCCC is keeping off these kinds of lists, even though Campa-Najjar was born and has been a practicing Christian!), and James Thompson in Wichita and Mike Siegel in TX-10.