In the week after elections, there are always elements of celebration, frustration, and hope. For either side or rather all sides, there are wins and losses. Watching these midterm elections has been fascinating to me as we’ve seen extreme voter turnout and history-making results. But most interesting to myself has been that in a way, both Democrats and Republicans had a win. As reported by live updates from politico and the Washington post, Republicans took the Senate, 51% to 44%, the Democrats took the house at 51.7% to 45.3%. President Trump claimed that he won the Senate in a landslide while challenging the Democratic house already to investigate him all they wanted. On the Democratic side, history was made with female congresswomen rising to many of the representative seats including Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland, first Native American women elected to Congress, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim women elected to Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest elected congresswomen in history. These movements are not only impressive but also widely seen and reported on. CBS News reported this was a record voting year in midterm history, stating 113 million people participated, 49% of the eligible voter, making this the first midterm to exceed 100 million votes. In previous years, midterms have been considered the “unimportant” round of voting, not as flashing and exciting as the Presidential voting terms.
For myself, I felt a mix of emotions seeing the results of the national election and the reaction to new reports of results. It’s been a year of surprises and disappointments and since 2016 the political landscape has turned into a mud fight it seems as the White House has cycled through staffers at an increasing rate. Even more interestingly has been the constant fight between White House and news, from the incident of CNN’s Jim Acosta being barred from the press room after questions on the Russia investigation, to the most recent back and forth between Trump and Yamiche Alcindor, PBS Newshour, as he claimed her question on him acting as a Nationalist was, “Racist.” This relationship of aggression is disturbing and I hope as we enter the next wave of political movements, the reporters and news outlets will have the ability to continuing reporting to us in the public who are eagerly waiting to hear and read what’s to come next.
As midterm elections finish, so do midterm exams. I hope everyone has a good break and a breath from the last few intense weeks and a good last look at the leaves before the snow comes. Keep your eyes on the news and keep hope.