Jessica Tezoquipa, news editor
On Nov. 3, election night, Americans saw Democrats win both the House and Senate along with races in states that have not seen a Democrat elected in decades. We see the nation overall lean more blue than it did two years ago, with the Republican party (GOP) blaming rising prices, the Epstein Files and the war in Iran for the disappointment.
This midterm election has seen a lot of firsts: Minnesota’s governor-elect Amy Klobuchar is the state’s first woman elected governor; she was also the first woman elected Hennepin County attorney in 1998 and the first Minnesotan female senator in 2006, according to the Minnesota Reformer. She has promised to audit the state government once she is in office as a result of the mass Social Security fraud in Minnesota, as well as stating she will not raise taxes on Minnesotans. “Spoiler alert: You may not like every single thing I do,” stated Klobuchar in her victory speech.
Another first for Minnesota, Penny Flanagan is the nation’s first Native American female senator, as she is a part of the White Earth Nation in Minnesota. According to MPR, she has promised to expand Medicare for all, raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $17 an hour, protect abortions nationwide and to “rip ICE apart.”
Not just in Minnesota, places like Texas see James Talarico beat President Trump’s nominee for U.S. Senate, being the first democrat to represent Texas since 1988; Kansas has Democrat Adam Hamilton defeating the republican incumbent to be the first Democrat in the Senate since 1932, according to Ballotpedia.org. Representative Chris Pappas from New Hampshire becomes the first openly gay senator in the United States Senate. According to The Guardian, Keisha Lance Bottom, Governor-elect, becomes the first black woman to be Governor in American history, and Abdul El-Sayed from Michigan becomes the first Muslim to be elected to the United States Senate, according to Ballotpedia.org.
Although in previous years we have seen the president’s party lose out during midterm elections, republicans still walked away from election night surprised by the results. “To every American disappointed by tonight’s results, I mean I’m disappointed too but never discouraged, because we live in the greatest nation in the world. Millions of Americans voted because they love their country,” says Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives. “They’re alarmed by the direction that Democrats are taking, their embrace of this socialist, Marxist platform that is a threat to people everywhere.”
“They’re alarmed by the direction that Democrats are taking, their embrace of this socialist, Marxist platform that is a threat to people everywhere.”
Mike Johnson
“But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.” Vice Pres. J.D. Vance details in a post on X (Twitter). “He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses, were: 1. End the war; 2. Focus on cost of living/inflation 3. Put America First 4. Change our relationship to Israel.”