The Political Hat

     The election was a game of chicken to see who could be second worst, and Kamala Harris failed and turned out the be the worst, with enough “LIVs” (Low-Information Voters) voting against the status quo, and for the celebrity, with time healing all wounds.

     The worst part of this past election is the sad fact that the political spam text message on people’s phones haven’t stopped. The best part of this election was that I was right about the Presidential race outcome in Nevada while Jon Ralston was wrong.

     Back to discussing the outcome. My overall predictions were right, with the magnitude being off only slightly. Only in some close races, for the most part, was I wrong about the ultimate outcome. I predicted that Trump would win every state that he won save for Michigan, and there I predicted it as being second most likely. My overall reasoning from my predictions stand, but to them must be added two key points: Trump won the “LIV” (Low-Information Voter) vote and the GOP is now reliant upon less reliable voters to win. The former is likely a consequence of running a celebrity against a disaster of a candidate and campaign. Harris’ campaigned against the GOP and Presidential Candidate they wanted to face and not the ones they did face. The Democrats fear-mongering fell flat. However, this is bad news for the Republicans if the Democrats shake-off their addition to the Obama era; America has moved on from Obama while the Democrats have not. Additionally, Trump is a unique personality who could connect with voters.   This is a talent that so far has not been shown to be transferable to other Republicans. The touch of gray on the GOP’s low-propensity voter silver lining is that those voters probably won’t come out to vote en masse for Republicans, perhaps not even for a Republican Presidential Nominee not named Trump. This is compounded by the Republicans believing they have the perfect turn-out operation that was, in reality, sub-par at best. They will sit on their laurels and presume victory down the road unless someone fixes all the problems that are now being inevitably glossed over.

     Yes, Trump won, but it wasn’t the blowout that some hoped for. At time of writing he’s hovering at just above 50% of the popular vote, and is likely to dip below that. He’ll still get a plurality, but it’ll be a thin one of 1½% after all the ballots are counted. In Nevada, he lost Washoe County… a clear sign of things being closer than the national map might indicate at first glance. Nonetheless, a win is a win, and Jon Ralston was wrong.

     In the Senate, as predicted, The GOP picked up West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio. The only possible deviation from your humble author’s prediction is the GOP picking up the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania.   This is one of those close races noted above, and, as of time of writing, has not yet been called by the Decision Desk HQ.

     In the House of Representatives, your humble author didn’t state a prediction, but thought that the Democrats wouldn’t win more than a dozen seats. As of time of writing, there wasn’t much change in the house with the Republicans just barely retaining control.

     As for Nevada, Trump did better than the minimum expected, winning by a few percent. My analysis for my Nevada prediction was always if Democrats could win based on the early voting numbers if the winds were at their back like they were in 2022.   Clearly, the wind was not at their back, at least when it came to how the independent non-partisan voters voted.

     However, despite the Harry Reid machine failing to protect Harris, the down ballot did not go as badly for them. Sam Brown did indeed fail, and did so by 1½% of the vote as of posting. His was a terrible campaign where plenty of people voted for the Libertarian Party candidate, the Independent American Party Candidate, and especially the “None of these candidates” option on the ballot. In the legislature, the GOP did indeed lose a state Senate seat they held in Washoe County, but did appear to pick up a seat (SD11) in Clark County by less than 1000 votes. I predicted that they’d net +1 in the state Senate, but the Republicans’ candidate in the other swing seat of SD6 was destroyed by over 6%. Just maintaining the current numbers, though, it a win for the Republicans since it keeps them out of the super-minority in that chamber, not just for this election cycle but the next since all of the potential swing seats up in 2026 are already held by the Democrats. In the Assembly, the GOP only picked up one seat (AD35), though that does lift them out of their super-minority status in that chamber. Your humble author had predicted 3-5 seat pick-up for the Republicans; there were some narrow losses, so that prediction wasn’t too far off, but still, a loss is a loss.

     The bright spot for Republicans, especially in Clark County, was a clear win for the Clark County Commission (District C), which gives them the first Commission race win in twenty years.   There was also a narrow loss by a few thousand votes in County Commission District A; this should be a target in 2028.

     What is disappointing for Republicans is that these narrow loses happened despite Democrats’ voter registration lead dropping below 10K statewide and many of the Assembly seats also having much better registration numbers than in 2022. All these loses despite the top of the ticket doing well and winning the state for the Republicans for the first time in 20 years ought to give Nevada Republicans pause… which won’t anytime soon due to the political drunkenness from Trump’s victory in the state.

     Neither side will probably learn the lessons they needed to learn, and yet again the game of chicken will be played.