erms 2022: What we know and what we don’t know //

As the results of Election Day continue to trickle, it’s still unclear whether Republicans will control the next House or Senate and by how much. It’s clear that Republicans suffered both major victories and major losses in midterm election across the country.

“Some of the biggest wins we saw in Florida. [Gov. [Gov. This is a state Donald Trump carried in 2020, by 3 points,” Noah Weinrich, communications director for Heritage Action for America (the grassroots arm of The Heritage Foundation), says. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.

Weinrich describes Florida as “historically before that, it was seen as a swing country.” It’s the bellwether.

However, Republicans suffered a loss at Pennsylvania’s Senate race where Lt. Governor. John Fetterman, a Democrat defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican.

“So some of our losses were in tight races like Pennsylvania. Dr. Oz lost against John Fetterman. Weinrich said that although I haven’t verified the final margin, it was only by, I think, 2 points or something similar.”

He says, “Now, that was an state that President Trump won very narrowly [and] lost very narrowly for 2020.”

Weinrich joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” for this episode to discuss the victories and losses of Election Day as well as the races still in play at the recording of the podcast. He also discusses key issues that drove voters towards the polls.

Listen to the podcast below, or read the lightly edited transcript.

Samantha Aschieris is joined today’s show by Noah Weinrich. He is Heritage Action’s communications director. Noah, thank you so much for being with us.

Noah Weinrich: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having us.

Aschieris: Of course. Let me talk briefly about Election Day. As of this recording, we don’t have all the results. However, I want to talk about some of the major wins that were recorded for conservatives.

Weinrich: Yeah, absolutely. There were some big wins for conservatives. It’s not a secret that there were also some huge losses.

We saw some of the biggest wins in Florida. [Ron] DeSantis won by 19% over [Charlie] Crist. This is a huge margin.

This is the state Donald Trump carried by 3 points in 2020. It was historically considered a swing state. It’s the bellwether. [George W.] Bush won the 2000 election by a few hundred votes or a few thousand votes. For months, we didn’t know the result. It looks like Florida is now a ruby-red state. This is due to DeSantis’s effective political machine and his policies.

[Marco] Rubio also did well. In a very competitive race, Rubio won by about 16% over Val Demings. Anna Paulina Luna, a House Candidat down there, did a fantastic job. Very conservative candidate. She did an excellent job. She won.

Florida was the bright spot in a mixed bag evening.

New York had its bright spots. Although Lee Zeldin didn’t win the governorship, it was still a stretch. He was 5 points behind Kathy Hochul, which is remarkable in a state such as New York. She won by 60% the last time, but she got only 53% this time.

Aschieris: Wow.

Weinrich That is a great achievement. Four Long Island seats were also won by Republicans. This is quite impressive. A seat in New Jersey also flipped. There was also a seat in Virginia. You could see a lot of pickups in these swing suburban counties along the Eastern Seaboard. It was quite impressive. Elsewhere -Monica De La Cruz Hernandez in Texas. It was a great pick.

It’s still too soon to call in some of these races, such as Arizona and Nevada. Unfortunately, we’ll be waiting for results for days. Georgia is the same. It will be a runoff.

I will admit that for a long period, the pundit classes predicted that [Raphael] Warnock would win. They didn’t believe in Herschel Walker. They laughed at him. He was within a point of Warnock. He’s going to runoff. This is quite impressive.

Brian Kemp won the state by 8 points, I think. This is a huge win. It’s a rejection of the idea that Georgia has gone completely purple.

We saw governors win across the board. I don’t believe there was a Republican incumbent governor who was not elected. People believed that Kevin Stitt would be unseated in Oklahoma. He won by double digits.

Same in the Senate. No incumbent republicans were forced to resign. People thought Mike Lee was going to have a problem dealing with Evan McMullin. He did not. He won by double, double digits. He defeated Mandela Barnes, his Wisconsin challenger, by Ron Johnson. Ted Budd, a North Carolina senator who was not incumbent, but was representative, won easily over Cheri Beasley.

There are many statewide victories and some significant conservative victories. The map was not perfect.

Aschieris, and you brought up Warnock. This is actually his second runoff. He was also in a Senate race against Kelly Loeffler in January 2020, as our audience may recall. It’ll be interesting. The runoff seems to be in December. I don’t recall the dates.

WeinrichIt’s early Dec.

Aschieris: December. It’s December. It’ll be a fascinating race to watch. We’ll be keeping everyone informed and tracking the results. We also broke down some of our losses to conservatives.

Weinrich Some of the losses that we saw were in tight races like Pennsylvania. Dr. [Mehmet] Oz lost against John Fetterman. I haven’t checked the final margin but it was, I believe, only 2 points or something similar. This was a state that Donald Trump won narrowly in 2016 and lost narrowly in 2020. This was always going to make it a close race.

The polls had Oz down several points up to a few weeks prior, or the two weeks before the election. He gained ground only in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, the polls were not accurate. However, they were within the margins of error. He lost by a narrow margin.

New Hampshire: Maggie Hassan beat Don Bolduc by 8 to 9 points. This was a more difficult loss. He gained ground over the last few weeks, even tied the race. New Hampshire is New Hampshire. It’s more liberal than many other states. New England is quite different from many other states. The voters turned out to be a testament to this. New Hampshire was more concerned about abortion, and Maggie Hassan had the power of incumbency. It was a difficult loss.

Republicans failed to win many governorships, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was a huge loss.

There were also some losses and Republicans lost a lot of House seats. Many of those were already difficult battles. You are trying to remove incumbents. You are trying to flip a county, which is much more difficult than keeping it. There were some really tough losses.

Aschieris He was also the chairman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I read that The Washington Free Beacon reported this was the first time in 40 years that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman has lost his reelection bid.

Weinrich: Yeah, yeah. It’s quite impressive. This is the guy who has to win the House for his entire party and couldn’t even keep his seat. He also lost the House, which is fitting for his tenure as chairman of DCCC.

Aschieris: Yeah. Are there other races that have flipped that were particularly fascinating?

Weinrich : Yes, that’s right. I was just looking at them this morning. I mentioned New Jersey [District] 7. Tom Kean Jr. beat Tom Malinowski. It’s been a swing area. Malinowski has won, he beat Tom Kean by just a few point last time. Kean was able this time to win it. This is Central Jersey, suburban. It has a little bit more of the classic Jersey white-collar Republicans.

Andy Ogles in Tennessee, Tennessee’s 5th [Congressional district], he beat the incumbent. He won there despite the fact that it was redrawn to allow for some changes. He was also a very conservative candidate. He wasn’t running as a moderate to get by. He ran as a serious conservative. He even took a flamethrower to President Joe Biden’s policies at one time. He is a strong man, and he is very passionate about abortion. He used to work for Americans For Prosperity. He’s an excellent choice. He’s going be a great Congressman. It was also a huge win.

Aschieris : I’d like to speak more about some of the policies and issues we saw having the greatest impact on the election. We had a couple of panels discussing the life issue, election integrity, the economy, and inflation for those who were watching our live broadcast on Tuesday. These issues were discussed in detail on Tuesday.

Weinrich: Absolutely. It varied across the country. This is why you saw mixed results. People expected Republicans to win everywhere or lose everywhere. But it all depended on where you were in the country.

Florida was a bright spot. Some of the Northeastern regions were very bright. Even though he didn’t win, Lee Zeldin did better in New York than we expected. The conservative candidates didn’t fare as well in the Midwest and Southwest as we expected. Geography is a key factor in this.

Some of the issues in Florida were COVID lockdowns and parents’ rights. And Gov. DeSantis has shown how to be a conservative governor by doing a great job. Florida’s economy is flourishing. He has stood up for his parents repeatedly. He kept the state open. He passed the Parents’ Bill Of Rights. He is protecting families.

This was an election year in a historically purple State. It would be tempting to try to be a moderate and to tone down. He didn’t. He kept going because he knew conservative policies worked and that if they were implemented, he would be rewarded. He was. That worked out very well.

In Wisconsin, crime was a major issue. This is one of the main reasons Ron Johnson beat his opponent Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Barnes encouraged the protests and even the 2020 riots in a state that had been hit hard.

We all remember the Kenosha and Milwaukee riots becoming violent, deaths taking place, buildings and blocks being set on fire. Barnes, as lieutenant governor, did nothing to stop it. Instead, he advocated the end to cash bail. He saw the riots and declared, “It’s now that criminals can get back on the streets.” Wisconsinans rejected this.

So crime played there in ways that it didn’t in other places with lower crime rates or who didn’t have the same problems protesting or rioting as Wisconsin in 2020.

Arizona’s election integrity was a major issue, in my opinion. They were proved right yesterday.

Blake Masters and Kari lake both ran on an election integrity platform. They ran on the platform that “it should be easy to vote, but hard to cheat.” They need to fix the problems in our electoral system.” And they were called conspiracy theorists and election deniers all the time. Then they shut it down. Kari Lake was particularly adept at shutting down the media narrative.

They knew there were problems with our elections. This was evident in 2020. This is what we are seeing now. It shouldn’t take more than a few days to find out the results of the election. It is also not possible to imagine a scenario where 20% of the vote-counting machines in Maricopa County aren’t working. This is not a conspiracy theory. It’s been widely reported. Election Day was marred by serious problems. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was running for governor. It seems clear that there is a conflict of interest.

There were serious problems during the election. These problems must be fixed, regardless of what happens. They were right about our elections. Not that you’ll hear the media admit it.

Aschieris, Noah: Thank you so much for coming on to give us an update. Tell us what we know about the midterm elections this year. As we continue to learn about the results and the future Congress, we’ll be back on you. We are grateful. Noah Weinrich, Heritage Action’s communications director. We are grateful.

WeinrichThanks for having me.

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