More Election Observations

Voters under age 30 swung back to Democrats by more than 30 percentage points. All inroads that Trump made in 2024 with non-white voters is gone. The Republican party has no future.

In a state like Colorado, with the Colorado General Assembly controlled by Democratic supermajorities in both houses, and all statewide executive branch offices (and possibly all statewide elected boards) controlled by Democrats, and either one or no federal elected officials, being a Republican politician looks pretty bleak. Also, Democrat in the Colorado General Assembly can propose partisan constitutional amendments, override vetos from Governor Weiss that they don't like, and can discipline Republicans who behave badly on a partisan rather than bipartisan basis. They also have the effective power to impeach any state officials who behave badly. Republicans in the General Assembly can't accomplish anything without cooperation from Democrats so they have an incentive to play ball on non-controversial issues. Their lack of power will discourage good people from running on their ticket or investing in developing a support base within their party.

The healthy Democratic majorities in each house of Congress means that conservative Democrats like Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, or former Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia, can't undermine the Democratic majority, and can be effectively subject to party discipline for failing to toe the party line. Especially in the House, the Democrats don't need dissenters like Haley Stevens from Michigan, who endorsed the Republican in the Michigan Senate race, for anything with a 59% or so majority, so they can hold them to task without concessions.

Congress is now in a position to bring lawsuits in federal court against the Trump administration when it fails to follow the law. It would have standing to bring emoluments litigation against Trump and his cabinet for gaining personal financial benefit from public office, could sue for impoundment of Congressional appropriations, and could sue to enforce Hatch Act violations (which prohibits campaigning with public resources). Congress is going to be much more effective in court litigating separation of powers issues in its own name.

Congress has broad investigative power and the power to issue subpoenas. Congress absolutely has the power to force embarrassing and politically damaging releases of the Epstein files and to put particular prominent people named in them on the spot in Congressional hearings.

Bringing an impeachment is easy now for the Democrats, although securing impeachment convictions requires bipartisan support. One good strategy would be to start at the bottom, for example, impeaching ICE agents who have engaged in misconduct, before working their way gradually up the ladder. Impeach mid-level Department of Justice lawyers who bring revenge prosecutions. Impeach Department of Defense officials complicit in war crimes and corruption. Eventually, impeach Justice Thomas, not for his horrible rulings, but for his corruption. Then Justice Alito after that. Justice Thomas may decide that it isn't worth it to fight and resign, and Senate Democrats don't have to let Trump fill that seat with anyone they don't approve of.

Democrats can, and should, use the nuclear option to abolish the filibuster and other counter-majoritarian privileges in the U.S. Senate, so that they don't have to negotiate with Senate minority Republicans to enact their agenda.

Trump can't make appointments to the federal courts, or to other high federal offices, after January 6, 2027, without the consent of the Democratic Party controlled Senate, and the Senate should insist on getting what it wants before approving any of Trump's appointments.

Trump can't pass treaties, not that he is inclined to get Congress to sign off on a treaty, when he can write an executive order instead.

Trump can veto legislation passed by a Democratic Party controlled Congress, and no doubt, he will. But passing popular legislation only to have it vetoed will help Democrats to show that they have a positive agenda to govern, and will keep Republicans unpopular.

The Democrats in Congress can deny Trump funding for anything they want in budget and appropriations legislation and can use that as leverage for almost any demand. Democrats could, for example, defund the White House secret service security detail, funding for Trump's vanity projects, and Presidential travel. Democrats can pass funding legislation that denies Elon Musk's companies federal contracts. Democrats can cancel funding for the Trump-class battleship, for steam powered aircraft carrier launcher conversions, and other of its pet projects. Democrats can insist on reinstating Medicare and Medicaid and Affordable Care Act funding. Democrats can defund ICE. Democrats can disallow spending for private company run immigration detention centers. Democrats can condition science and higher education funding on independence for researchers and universities.

Trump is a lame duck who has proven himself to be a political liability. Therefore, some of the remaining Republicans in Congress, particularly those who won elections by only small margins, like Florida's Senator who won by less than three percentage points, may decide the cooperating with Democrats on select issues makes them more re-electable by putting distance between them and Trump. We were already seeing this in the months before the election.

Some Republicans remaining in Congress may decide not to run for re-election or could even resign, because the job isn't fun anymore when they have no power.

If there is a vacancy in the office of President, and J.D. Vance ascends to the Presidency after January 7, 2027, Vance needs the cooperation of the Democratic Party controlled Congress to appoint a replacement Vice President, which it has no incentive to grant to someone they don't support. Otherwise, the Democratic Speaker of the House becomes the de facto Vice President.

Trump almost surely has progressive dementia and is in generally poor health as well. He will only get worse over the next two years. At some point, Vance may utilize the 25th Amendment to get him out, or may talk him into resigning, perhaps with the promise of a pardon.

Republicans could pass a lot of legislation in the lame duck session over the next two months. But it isn't clear to me that they have the unity and organization or vision to pull it off. Every day Congress isn't in session over the next two months is an opportunity that they lose. 

Also, Republicans have very thin majorities in the House and Senate to start with, and have dissenters (including those who have just lost their elections or did not seek re-election) with nothing to lose by not playing ball with the Republican Congressional leadership or President Trump. Indeed, one of the main reasons that Congress has been in recess so long, going into the midterms, despite controlling the House and the Senate and the Presidency, has been to prevent dissenters from allying themselves with Democrats over the thin Republican majorities in both houses, from passing legislation on matters like the Iran War, impeaching Trump appointees, and releasing the Epstein files, that would be politically damaging. And, the situation could be worse now for members of Congress who lost their elections and attribute that to meddling and incompetence from Trump and the Congressional leadership. Trump is very attached to executive orders for emotional reasons and doesn't recognize the benefits of going through the proper legislative channels instead.

Voters who have always voted Republican without much thought, or who have usually not voted, may like what they see in the next two years and cease to be such die hard yellow dog Republicans.

Democratic Party Governors in Republican states, have immense power to curb conservative excesses. We've seen that in the recent past in places like Arizona and Kentucky.

This is a Democratic Party high water mark fueled by the exceptional mendacity and maladministration of Trump 2.0. Democrats can expect a retreat from some of their gains in 2028, even if they do a good job.

Most of what tipped this over the edge, sadly, was not the issues that matter to Democrats and independents, but economic hardships like high gas prices and fertilizer prices arising from the Iran War, and international trade driven harms to the economy especially driven by unilateral tariffs. But imminent degradation of public health care funding and Trump's decision to side with Putin against Ukraine may also have been factors. And corruption and Trump's vanity projects may have played a role too.

So, to deliver, Democrats need to end the Iran War, shut down Trump's tariff and trade policies, restore health care funding, curb Trump's corruption and vanity projects, and take a hard line against Russia. Another of its agenda items is accomplished most easily by simply defunding ICE. But they are on a tight clock, so there is no time to waste to limited opportunity to prove themselves and to take a hard line against Trump's abuses which the Republican Congress did nothing to stop.

Also, while Democrats in the face of the veto power and an ultraconservative U.S. Supreme Court, have some limits on what they can accomplish legislatively at the federal level, their down ticket gains in state houses across the country can demonstrate their positive legislative agenda.

Wow!

What a great election day birthday birthday present.

The midterms have been a decisive, nearly unprecedented win for the Democratic Party, despite unprecedented efforts by President Trump nd billionaire campaign donors (especially Elon Musk) to thwart them and massive gerrymandering between censuses (with SCOTUS sanction) in an attempt to skew the vote in their favor, partially countered by counter-gerrymandering in blue states. Ironically, the five Congressional districts gerrymandered in August 2025 all ended up going blue.

It is mostly a strong reaction against President Trump, who is one of the most unpopular Presidents at this point in his term in all of U.S. history (or at least since Truman in 1946, eighty years ago) and is considered by most political scientists and historians to be the worst President of all time - the only one to have been impeached twice, a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapists in a civil case, profoundly corrupt, frivolously ignoring election results and trying to foment a coup on January 6, 2021, committing war crimes, pathologically lying, crass, suffering from dementia, pardoning serious unrepentant criminals for money, invading Venezuela to seize its President and steal its oil, mounting campaigns of revenge with the full power of the federal government against his perceived enemies, covering up his involvement in child rape and organized trafficking of children for prostitution involving many powerful people (including his current wife), betraying legitimate immigrants, waging war on academia, alienating our long time allies and favoring Russia, North Korea, and China, even when this leads to direct harm to U.S. troops, openly racist and making racism and neo-Nazi ideology and slogans part of federal government policy, ignoring Congress and the courts, appointing utterly incompetent loyalists, starting an unauthorized war that has driven up fuel and fertilizer prices, imposing illegal tariffs on a massive scale, ignoring the rule of law, and desecrating national architectural and natural treasures irrevocably and illegally. He was aided and abetted in doing so by a corrupt and ultraconservative U.S. Supreme Court that he appointed three members to serve upon.

From exit polls via National Public Radio.

Colorado turnout was more than 2,111,000 voters, which is very respectable for a midterm election in a state with no close statewide races and many not very close races for Congress.

Mischief between now and two months from now on January 6, 2027, when the newly elected Congress is supposed to take office, in the lame duck session, is a concern. One can hope that SCOTUS would discourage this given the mandate of the midterm elections.

Is MAGA broken now, or is this just a setback? 

Will SCOTUS respect the voice of the people rejecting the policies and lawless conduct they let Trump put in place and get away with?

For all the gains made, Democrats still won't be able to override Trump's vetos, but can use the power of the purse and litigation to enforce its laws already on the books. It can refuse to consent to Trump's appointees. Their majority won't be quite filibuster-proof, but past precedent has proven that the filibuster can be dispensed with in the "nuclear option." Still, a major issue for them will be their difficulty in delivering despite a decisive win, without the Presidency or the Supreme Court. And, the Presidential succession calculus doesn't change until January 6, 2027, so until then, the demise of, resignation of, or disability of, Trump or Vice President J.D. Vance could actually help Republicans in the longer run.

Trump has said he will respect the election results, perhaps because they were so decisive that there is no credible way to spin or twist them. So that might discourage mischief over the next two months.

The Republican Party in Colorado is in a shambles.

Congress

As I write, Democrats have 54 Senate seats (34 of which were not up for election this cycle, and 7 of which were flipped), Republicans have 44 (31 of which were not up for election this cycle), and 2 seats remain to be called. Alaska and Mississippi is too close to call with the Democrat leading by 43 votes with almost all votes counted, and more votes to be counted in Alaska in a close race where the uncounted vote locations slightly favor Democrats. Democrats will have 54-56 Senate seats when it is all over.

Independent anti-Trump moderate candidates made very strong showings in Nebraska, Montana, and Idaho, and Democrats in Montana and Idaho should have followed the lead of Nebraska and not run a candidate of their own. Their own candidates in those states served as spoilers coming in third place in the vote. These independents could be the seed of a successor to the Republican party.

Democrats re-elected Hickenlooper to the Senate in Colorado with 60% of the vote after he survived a too close for comfort primary fight from a more progressive candidate.

Democrats won Senate races in states like Kansas and Texas that they haven't won for decades. In many case, Democrats in red states won by double digit margins. 

Democrats have also done very well in U.S. House races with the called races running D 225 to R 139 as I write (218 seats is a majority), and are favored in 24 more competitive races. In the end it is likely to be D 255 to D 260ish. Democrats will have a large majority in the House, with perhaps a 75-85 vote lead over Republicans. Twenty-seven house seats have flipped so far.

Colorado has 8 house seats and went into the election with 4 held by Democrats and 4 held by Republicans. It looks likely that after this election Colorado will have either 7 or 8 Democrats in the House. CO-8 which is a northeast suburban Denver metro area district evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, was an easy red to blue flip. CO-5, which is Colorado Springs, is likely to flip blue. CO-4, which is roughly rural areas and medium sized cities in Eastern Colorado, is likely to flip blue as well. CO-3, which is roughly Western and Southern Colorado, is the closest race but the Democrat is currently leading by 0.2 percentage points in that race with 90% of the vote counted. There is about a 50% chance that all ten members of Colorado's Congressional delegation will be democrats, and a very high chance that it will be at least nine out of ten, flipping at least three seats in the House.

Denver's new member of Congress who successfully primaried a long time incumbent liberal but not progressive or activist Democrat, is a young democratic socialist progressive.

Governors

Democrats are on track to have at least 30 Governor's offices after this election, with another held by an independent. At least six Governor's slots will flip. Kansas is still a toss up in a very close race where the Democrat leads (which would be another flip). Two of the 20 Republican governors so far are from New England (Vermont and New Hampshire) and are moderates, not MAGAs. Five GOP Governor wins (FL, NH, TN, AL, SC) were by less than five percentage points.

Some of these states have not had a Democrat as a governor for decades.

State Elected Offices And Judges

In Colorado, every statewide office, every CU Regent seat and every state school board seat favors the Democrats, although the state school board seat in conservative Congressional District 3 is too close to call at this time. The new Democratic governor is more liberal than the outgoing Democratic governor. GOP candidates were trounced in statewide races. Democrat Phil Weiser got 61% of the vote.

Democrats are on track to win 49 of 65 seats in the state house in Colorado, which is more than a two-thirds majority, although several races are quite close. This flips six seats from before the election.

Tallying up the state senate results in Colorado is trickier since only half of the 35 seats are contested every two years for four year terms. A two-thirds majority is 24 seats and before the election, Democrats had 23 seats. There were actually 21 state senate seats on the ballot, since there were a few vacancies to fill. Democrats are leading or have won in 16 of them. But that doesn't get you to a total without knowing which parties hold 14 seats that voters didn't vote on this time. If Democrats hold 8 of the 14 seats not up for election this time (and they probably do), they have a two-thirds majority. There is no doubt, however, that Democrats will retain a majority in the state senate and a two-thirds majority is probably within reach when the dust settles, and at least probably gained some seats.

Four Colorado state court trial judges (none in Denver) will probably not be retained, which is the highest number in recent memorry. They are 10th Judicial District District Court Judge Alexander, 13th Judicial District District Court Judge Christiansen, 21st Judicial District District Court Judge Lawrence, and Crowley County Court Judge Boyce

Colorado State Ballot Issues And A Regional Ballot Issue

Colorado's ballot issue results are the only mixed bag. Measure NN diverting TABOR refunds to schools, and 7A funding an I-25/US-36 corridor passenger rail line and a measure to fund Denver schools will pass. 

Amendment 87 to establish a graduated income tax may get a majority but won't get the 55% it needs to amend the state constitution.

The ICE cooperation amendment (81) will fail. The right to use natural gas amendment (82) will fail. The right to hunt and fish amendment (83) will fail. The mail in voting ID amendment (84) will fail. The ban on multiple redistricting per decade amendment (86) will fail. The "plain english" amendment (85) may get a narrow majority but not the 55% support that it needs, so it will fail. Proposition 136 (capping income tax rates) will fail.

Proposition 132 (mandatory minimum fentanyl penalties) and Proposition 133 (mandatory minimum human trafficking penalties) will likely pass, even though law enforcement opposed them, but aren't state constitutional amendments, just laws. Propositions 134 and 135, which are anti-trans measures (134 for sports, 135 for surgeries on minors), will likely pass and become laws.

Proposition 137, a sporting goods sales tax for conservation law, is too close to call.

Denver Ballot Issues And Offices

A candidate endorsed by the Denver Democratic Party won about 28% of the vote (for a decisive win) in a large field of non-partisan candidates for a city council at large vacancy that lasts until the next municipal election is concluded in the spring of 2027.

All of the Denver ballot issues (including Initiative 311 banning fois gras, which I opposed) will pass.

Notable results in other states

Missouri rejected an initiative to establish a strict abortion ban. Idaho voters rejected an initiative to lift their strict abortion ban. California's Billionaire Wealth Tax proposal will probably be defeated. A proposal to mandate voter ID in Ohio passed.

I don't have the data to back it up, but I suspect that Democrats made gains almost across the board nationwide in down ticket candidate races, shifting power in their direction at the state level.

There were lots of demographic landmarks. The first Muslim Senator. The first openly gay man in the U.S. Senate. The first black women governors in two states. Two Native American firsts. The first Latino governor of California. And so on.

Water Witch Revisited

I was in my early 30s working as an associate attorney in a small but well established Wheat Ridge law firm. My children hadn't started first grade yet. I hadn't started this blog yet. I had no real peers, just long time office staff and bosses. The Internet wasn't what it is now, and I didn't have my first cell phone yet.

Lunch breaks were lonely and I needed something to give me a mental break from work. So, I'd grab lunch away from the office and I started writing chapters of a fictional story by hand with pen and paper. I'd write scenes that took place on the same date starting in the moderately distant future of the year 2030, more than a quarter of a century away.

I didn't really have a firm outline for the plot. I'd write what came to me that day and tried to fit it into the same future timeline for the year 2030. At first, I wasn't even sure who the main character would be. It was about world building and character building first, and plot second. I was inspired somewhat by a serial novel being published in one of Denver's two daily newspapers at the time, called "Confluence Park."

Looking back at it now, with the year 2030 just four years away, I still like what I wrote, although we certainly aren't on that timeline and it could use some copy editing. I got to about a hundred and twenty pages, with twenty-eight installments grouped into nineteen chapters, typed them up, and eventually saved them to a private blog on the same Blogger host as this blog and its sister blog. 

But, I lost the plot as it swirled away in too many directions that I couldn't figure out how to tie up, I moved onto a new job as a professor (perhaps my favorite job of all time), and the project stalled. A few months before I was laid off from my job as a professor, I started this blog and poured my time into it, averaging multiple posts a day, in an era before social media was really a thing.

Like any fiction, it was influenced as much by the time when it was written, not long after 9-11, as by realistic predictions of the future.

In my fictional metro Denver of 2030, Highland's ranch had become a slum full of Muslim refugees from the Nigerian civil war between Northern and Southern Nigeria in which the U.S. was playing an active role. The fear of terrorism from foreigners in Colorado was pervasive and was being addressed by various branches of the U.S. military, including the Colorado National Guard and the U.S. Navy which was taking a leading role in U.S. involvement in the Nigerian civil war.

The characters were living ordinary lives and finding their places in it. One group of characters were members of the family of an economically marginal lower middle class white property manager in the Highland's ranch slum: a mean drunk patriarch, and overworked CNA mom twenty years younger than her husband, a rebellious older teen daughter with a very serious boyfriend that her parents did not approve of, and a fourteen year old middle school aged daughter who was recruited to by a confidential informant looking for terrorists among her tenants. Another character was a U.S. Navy Officer stationed in Denver to head up counterterrorism operations. Yet another was a young adult woman who made ice sculptures for an event company, who was an orphan who grew up in the Eastern Plains who was a low powered hereditary witch with little formal training who migrated to the big city for work and who ended up being the main character. She also volunteered for a dive rescue team. There was a young man who worked in a fuel cell powered electric motorcycle dealer's shop, and his aunt who had faded unicorn tattoos and listened to this oldies music called grunge. There was a young very academic minded Muslim woman who'd let the high school space club and had fallen for a devoutly Catholic boy but had parents who had arranged a marriage for her that would derail her college plans, pared with her father who had been an Islamic law professor in Nigeria but was now a businessman in Denver, and a brother who she goes to the same high school with who has been targeted by some suspicious characters. 

It had airships, was in the process of transitioning from internal combustion to electric vehicles, was experiencing climate change with Denver Water restricting what it made available to the suburbs that it resold the water from its water rights to and wildfires raging in the mountains. It had a pair of half-mile high skyscrapers erected in downtown Denver in remembrance of the World Trade Center. One plot point involved a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility finally being opened and nuclear waste being shipped from nuclear power plants in the east across the rockies, and creating a target for terrorists. China had just put the first men on Mars. All teens got shots for AIDs, syphilis, HPV, and warts, and teen girls almost all got contraceptive implants. Video calls were a thing.

Some of my predictions weren't so far off. Others were, but weren't necessarily meant to be predictions so much as they were to play with ideas and concepts and possibilities that weren't likely but were interesting and still believable enough.