Official GOP Gloating Thread.

[Keystone Phil]

Possibly better than 2010.

[Lief 🗽]

Definitely worse than 2010. What a complete and total thrashing.

[Badger]

No gloating, we need to be better than that.  This was a hard fought race and kicking dirt in Democrats eyes is unnecessary.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Checkpoint Charlie will send the criminal to the dungeon.

Superb! Benedict Banba will sail to victory!

I, at least, was being sarcastic. I know it's easy to falsely claim that after the fact, but I was.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

If there's one thing that makes me really glad about this election, it's that it totally destroys any argument that CO/VA are solid blue. There were people literally saying that the states were strong lean/safe blue despite the margins still being narrow, and now they can no longer say that.

[traininthedistance]

You guys earned it. It's been mostly Dem victories for the past 8 years (yeah, 2010 was a big wave but there were a lot of GOP f(inks)-ups that year too). Politics is give and take.

Except Dems seem to have a weird structural disadvantage when it comes to state legislatures. That hasn't changed since the 1990s.

That can be chalked up to the fact that the Democrats have become the party that cares about urban areas, and there is a persistent and disgusting bias against urban areas in American politics that dates back since forever– a bias that, due to a combination of cultural factors and the vagaries of geography, is strongest and most damaging at the state level.  (Though it exists all up and down the ladder.)

Anyway, sorry for the derail.  Congrats, blue avatars.

[tmthforu94]

I am absolutely amazed.

Seeing Marquette and Selzer having the GOP do so well got me thinking the other day that the polls may be biased against us this cycle. My hope was that we would perform as the polls suggest, winning 7-8 Senate seats and only having a net loss of 1 or so in the Governors races. Pick up a couple House seats and call it good.

What happened instead...amazing. The Republican ground game is what did this. Here in Kansas, Sam Brownback is not well liked. If you asked every registered voter in the state, his approval rating wouldn't touch 40%. Folks just didn't show up to vote. Roberts won comfortably, and Kobach won in a landslide. I honestly went into today expecting Davis to win by several points and 50/50 on Roberts/Orman.

This won't make me cocky for 2016, though. A whole different ballgame...

[Free Bird]

If there's one thing that makes me really glad about this election, it's that it totally destroys any argument that CO/VA are solid blue. There were people literally saying that the states were strong lean/safe blue despite the margins still being narrow, and now they can no longer say that.

[Marokai Backbeat]

What happened instead...amazing. The Republican ground game is what did this. Here in Kansas, Sam Brownback is not well liked. If you asked every registered voter in the state, his approval rating wouldn't touch 40%. Folks just didn't show up to vote.

....hurray?

[Maxwell]

No gloating, we need to be better than that.  This was a hard fought race and kicking dirt in Democrats eyes is unnecessary.

Not like they'd ever give the Republicans here a chance to not be kicked in the face

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The ground game was a big thing. I wonder if they had done an immense but low key organization in VA, yes they did make some incredible improvements after 2013 Cuccinelli loss, but with a stronger effort they might have pushed Gillespie in. You never know when magic will happen and it is why I thought that Romney should build a GOTV organization in ME/PA/MI/MN/NM/OR if for no other reason than to force the Democrats to defend them late if something like a good debate win or two were to happen and make them close. Romney won the debate but couldn't capitalize on it effectively and had to plow through that OH wall that was unassailable for him.

I knew this as far back as 2008, to those who were didn't just stop withose races blown by bs in 2010 and looked further down ballot that Republicans can indeed still win in Colorado even as a Conservative or relatively conservative candidate, it is about delivery and candidate quality. VA is also still a swing seat as you had practically no campaign and yet the natural inclinations of the state combined with the year's sentiments produced a close result in spite of having a popular, well-entrenched incumbent.

Minority turnout was lower but Republicans did get to 35% with Hispanics 48% with Asians and 45% with others (I assume NAtive Americans) and 10% with African Americans. Those are significant improvements over Romney's performances and it is a start on which Republicas needs to build on in order to have a chance in 2016. 40%-55%-50%-15% is a reasonable target in my view amongst all those groups respectively.

[Ljube]

All is good, but we still lost NH and VA. In 2010, we at least managed to win NH. Now that one is out of reach, I fear. Tough for 2016.

[Free Bird]

All is good, but we still lost NH and VA. In 2010, we at least managed to win NH. Now that one is out of reach, I fear. Tough for 2016.

But to put Warner and Shaheen, who are very popular, within an inch of their political lives, is worth celebration on its own

[BM]

All is good, but we still lost NH and VA. In 2010, we at least managed to win NH. Now that one is out of reach, I fear. Tough for 2016.

But to put Warner and Shaheen, who are very popular, within an inch of their political lives, is worth celebration on its own

Exactly. They would have been yours if Democrats didn't have practical icons running. Horrible.

[IceSpear]

All is good, but we still lost NH and VA. In 2010, we at least managed to win NH. Now that one is out of reach, I fear. Tough for 2016.

But to put Warner and Shaheen, who are very popular, within an inch of their political lives, is worth celebration on its own

Exactly. They would have been yours if Democrats didn't have practical icons running. Horrible.

Or if the GOP candidates were actually decent instead of C-listers like Brown or Gillespie.

[Maxwell]

I don't think we can call Gillespie a C-lister anymore. If he was, Warner would've preformed at Durbin/Franken/T.Udall-levels.

But I agree with you on Brown. There are plenty of candidates in NH that probably could've beaten Shaheen. Marilinda Garcia, Dan Innis, Jim Reubens, hell, even Charlie Bass could've beaten Shaheen. Brown just ran a campaign that has been way too goofy (EBOLA IS CROSSING THE BORDER OMG).

[Simfan34]

No gloating, we need to be better than that.  This was a hard fought race and kicking dirt in Democrats eyes is unnecessary.

Not like they'd ever give the Republicans here a chance to not be kicked in the face

This. "Gracefulness" or "magnanimity" is something that would be slightly-less-than-reciprocal here.

[Bigby]

We might have won by an even greater margin this year than in 2010, especially in the House.

I feel good.

[Simfan34]

I don't think we can call Gillespie a C-lister anymore. If he was, Warner would've preformed at Durbin/Franken/T.Udall-levels.

But I agree with you on Brown. There are plenty of candidates in NH that probably could've beaten Shaheen. Marilinda Garcia, Dan Innis, Jim Reubens, hell, even Charlie Bass could've beaten Shaheen. Brown just ran a campaign that has been way too goofy (EBOLA IS CROSSING THE BORDER OMG).

That would have been beautiful!

[Bigby]

I don't think we can call Gillespie a C-lister anymore. If he was, Warner would've preformed at Durbin/Franken/T.Udall-levels.

But I agree with you on Brown. There are plenty of candidates in NH that probably could've beaten Shaheen. Marilinda Garcia, Dan Innis, Jim Reubens, hell, even Charlie Bass could've beaten Shaheen. Brown just ran a campaign that has been way too goofy (EBOLA IS CROSSING THE BORDER OMG).

That would have been beautiful!

Yeah, I feel stupid for thinking Brown would barely pull it out. I should know better about carpetbaggers, being a Southerner and all.

[Miles]

Congrats, ya'll. Impressive.

[King]

It really wasn't different from 2010. The difference is that the 2010 wave happened with Democrat drawn gerrymander districts and 2014 was the same vote with Republican drawn gerrymander districts. 2010 Senate was an election of completely inept GOP nominees trying to defend 2004 seats while 2014 Senate was more vetted GOP nominees knocking around 2008 seats.

In 2010, the GOP was attempting to pick up Delaware and Nevada. In 2014, they were targeting North Carolina and South Dakota. That's a big difference. The gains came much easier this time.

I'd really be shocked if the GOP margin in national popular vote ended up being more than 1% better in 2014 than 2010, if even 1% at all.

The landslide of this election was predictable outcome and the shock of it is an optical illusion.

[SPC]

It really wasn't different from 2010. The difference is that the 2010 wave happened with Democrat drawn gerrymander districts and 2014 was the same vote with Republican drawn gerrymander districts. 2010 Senate was an election of completely inept GOP nominees trying to defend 2004 seats while 2014 Senate was more vetted GOP nominees knocking around 2008 seats.

In 2010, the GOP was attempting to pick up Delaware and Nevada. In 2014, they were targeting North Carolina and South Dakota. That's a big difference. The gains came much easier this time.

I'd really be shocked if the GOP margin in national popular vote ended up being more than 1% better in 2014 than 2010, if even 1% at all.

The landslide of this election was predictable outcome and the shock of it is an optical illusion.

Even in Delaware and Nevada the GOP did better though.

[jaichind]

The part of the election last night I feel the most happy about is actually NY State Senate race along with the NY Governor race.  Even though Astorino lost he was able to get over 40%, he did well in upstate NY and I feel his performance was able to lift the GOP to a majority in the NY State Senate 32-31.  I like Cuomo so I am happy for him to win and what gives me great pleasure is that De Blasio failed in his stated goal of getting a NY State Senate D majority.  What is even more fun is the perception that Cuomo did nothing to get such a NY State Senate D majority contrary to his promises to the WFP.  So Cuomo wins but faces rebellion on his left within his own party and will working hand-in-hand with the GOP Senate to push his agenda.  So Cuomo winning is better than Astorino winning.  I get the policies I want and if anything goes wrong it will still be Cuomo and the Dems that get the blame since he is on paper in charge.  It will be heads I win and tails Dem lose.

[jaichind]

I am disappointed that some good opportunities to beat the Dem got away.  Like CT RI CO VT and even NH governor races along with NH and VA Senate race.  VA hurts especially since just like 2013 it was a Libertarian candidate that took down the GOP candidate AND the GOP failed in invest in a race that was in retrospect quite winnable.