Midterm elections in the USA results

This 6 November 2018 video from the USA says about itself:

Can Progressives Make the Democratic Party End its Collaboration with Republicans?

There are important differences between Republicans and Democrats, but there also are many areas where the differences are more cosmetic than real, especially in the area of foreign policy and militarism. Will progressive successes in the midterms push the party as a whole more to the left? TRNN midterm panel with Eugene Puryear, Jacqueline Luqman, Paul Jay, Lester Spence, Danny Glover, and host Marc Steiner.

By Patrick Martin in the USA:

US midterm vote: Democrats win control of House of Representatives

7 November 2018

The Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections on November 6, gaining more than the 23 seats required for a majority. With many House races too close to call or with large numbers of votes still uncounted, particularly in states like California and Washington, which provide for voting by mail, the five television networks projected a Democratic victory with a gain of 30 seats or more.

The Republican Party retained control of the US Senate, gaining several seats in states where President Trump campaigned heavily against Democratic incumbents. It is noteworthy that Democratic senators who capitulated most cravenly to Trump’s vicious persecution of immigrants—Joe Donnelly in Indiana and Claire McCaskill in Missouri—lost their races by wide margins. Republicans also captured Senate seats in North Dakota and Florida, with seats in Montana, Nevada and Arizona undecided as of this writing.

The Democrats made some gains in state governorships, where the Republicans held 26 of the 36 statehouses. Democratic candidates won Republican-held governorships in Illinois, Maine and Michigan, and defeated the most right-wing anti-immigrant Republican, Kris Kobach, in Kansas, usually a Republican state, as well as the two-term governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, notorious for his assault on workers’ rights. But Republicans won the two most hotly contested races in large states—Ohio and Florida. … Among the biggest states, the Democrats retained control of New York, Pennsylvania and California, while the Republicans held Texas.

Winning control of the House in no way means a shift to left on the part of the Democratic Party. On the contrary, prominent Democrats have been at pains to declare their desire for bipartisan collaboration with the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Senate. …

[Democratic party House leader Nancy Pelosi] concluded her remarks with a paean to bipartisan cooperation, declaring, “We’ve all had enough of division”, and claiming that “unity for our country” would be the main goal of the new Democratic-controlled House.

She said not a word about the racist campaign against immigrants and refugees that was Trump’s focus in the closing days of the election campaign, or the nationalistic and militaristic character of the Trump administration’s foreign policy. On the latter point, she pledged the Democrats to “honoring the men and women of our military who guarantee our freedom.”

Trump reportedly called Pelosi shortly after her victory statement to congratulate her and discuss future relations between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House. …

The Republican Party will move even further to the right, bound even more tightly to Trump, who seeks to lay the basis for a personalist, authoritarian movement of a fascistic character. His domination of the party will only increase.

There is massive popular opposition to the right-wing policies of the Trump administration, particularly its attacks on democratic rights and its racist vilification of immigrants and refugees. But within the framework of two equally right-wing, corporate-controlled parties, and with the Democratic Party demanding a more aggressive foreign policy and massive internet censorship, this opposition could find only extremely limited expression in the heavier election turnout, particularly among young people and, in some states, among minority voters.

Perhaps the only unalloyed expression of these popular sentiments came in the Florida referendum on a state constitutional amendment to abolish Florida’s policy of imposing lifetime disenfranchisement on anyone with a felony conviction, which deprives 1.4 million Florida residents of the right to vote, nearly half of them African-American. This constitutional amendment passed by a margin of 64 percent to 36 percent, clearing the 60 percent mark required for passage.

FLORIDA PASSES VOTING RIGHTS AMENDMENT Floridians approved a constitutional amendment to automatically restore voting rights to people with felony convictions once they complete their sentences, a historic expansion of the right to vote to about 1.4 million people. [HuffPost]

WHITE SUPREMACIST WINS NINTH TERM Rep. Steve King, a white supremacist, won a ninth term in Congress despite months of growing outrage over his bigoted statements and ties to extremist figures in the U.S. and overseas. [HuffPost]

This is how Fox News covered a glorious night for handsome Trump’s triumphant GOP.