Tammy Baldwin Delivers Democrats Very Badly Needed Win in Senate

Tammy Baldwin has emerged victorious from the most hard-fought campaign of her political career.

The Democratic incumbent defeated Republican challenger and former businessman Eric Hovde to retake her Senate seat. The Associated Press called the race for Baldwin early Wednesday morning, with the Democrat eking out a win by a margin of just 0.7 percent, and 99 percent of votes reported.

This is a sorely needed win for Democrats. Republicans hold a 10-seat majority in the chamber, with six races remaining to be called. Donald Trump has already won the presidency, so every seat Democrats win in Congress matters.

Baldwin and Hovde clashed over a number of voting issues, including immigration, the Middle East, Ukraine, and particularly abortion. Hovde falsely accused Baldwin of being pro-choice “up to the point of delivery, where a healthy baby can be born alive and be terminated.” He also constantly drew attention to the fact that Baldwin is gay, referring to “Tammy Baldwin and her girlfriend” multiple times. One ad Hovde’s campaign ran stated that “while [Tammy Baldwin] sleeps in her girlfriend’s million-dollar condo in New York City, Wisconsin families are getting hammered by high inflation and handouts for illegal immigrants. Tammy and her girlfriend are living large while Wisconsin families foot the bill.”

This line of attack certainly hurt Hovde more than it helped. He was also hampered by very fair accusations of carpetbagging from Baldwin, as the Republican ran in Wisconsin but owns a bank in Utah and a lavish mansion in Orange County, California.

The victory allows Wisconsin Democrats to exhale, and turn their attention to the months ahead.

Individuals charged for rioting through the halls of the Capitol Building on January 6 are turning to Donald Trump’s reelection as fair rationale to throw their cases out the window.

January 6 defendant Christopher Carnell tried—and failed—Wednesday to push back status hearings scheduled for later this week that relate to his case, arguing that Trump’s win would “significantly impact” the details of his case. He cited the MAGA leader’s repeated promises to pardon his supporters who disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

“Carnell, who was an 18 year old nonviolent entrant into the Capitol on January 6, is expecting to be relieved of the criminal prosecution that he is currently facing when the new administration takes office,” the motion reads, adding that Carnell is “awaiting further information from the Office of the President-elect regarding the timing and expected scope of clemency actions relevant to his case.”

The motion was struck down within minutes of its filing by D.C. District Judge Beryl Howell, but Carnell could prove to be just the tip of the iceberg for January 6 defendants trying to sneak their way out of facing consequences for raiding the nation’s legislature. Independent journalists have already observed that a “pardon-palooza” could offer Trump a loyal, homegrown paramilitary ready to do his bidding. It could also potentially win Republicans more seats (or at the very least, favor) in the House of Representatives, as incumbent Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar’s criminal trial looms on the horizon.

Even Trump himself is looking to undo his chains via the power of the Oval Office. The legally embattled Republican’s ascension back to the highest levels of government will grant him the power to effectively erase his federal criminal charges by firing special counsel Jack Smith, who is currently prosecuting Trump’s January 6 case and his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. (Trump ally Mike Davis has already threatened Smith to “lawyer up.”)

Trump will also likely toss his election interference case in Georgia, or at the very least delay it until he exits office in 2029. And being convicted on 34 counts related to his hush-money trial might not touch Trump, either. He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, but it’s unclear how the incoming forty-seventh president will be forced into a state courtroom in the middle of a presidential transition, noted Politico.

Donald Trump has already won the presidency, and on Wednesday afternoon, he also won Michigan, adding 16 electoral college votes to his already impressive electoral college tally.

Trump now has a total of 292 electoral college votes, and nearly 72 million popular votes—defeating Harris by nearly five million votes.

Trump’s victory is only the second for Republicans since 1992 in the Great Lakes State, with the former president also winning Michigan’s 16 electoral votes in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes. This time, Trump won by over 80,000 votes, or 1.4 percent, according to the Associated Press. In 2020, President Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.

Over the past year, there were concerns that Democrats would lose the state, with its large Arab American and Muslim populations, due to the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s brutal war in Gaza over the past year. Those concerns appear to have been vindicated, and show that Democrats should not have dismissed Arab American and Muslim voters, especially at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Trump has now knocked down the so-called “Blue Wall” Great Lake states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—as he did when he cruised to victory in 2016.

Kamala Harris lost in the state of Missouri on Tuesday, keeping with the expected results from polls prior to Election Day. But three progressive ballot initiatives won in the state: legalizing abortion, increasing the minimum wage, and defeating a wage raise for law enforcement.

In addition to Donald Trump’s easy 18-point victory, Republican Senator Josh Hawley cruised to reelection, defeating Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce by nearly 15 percentage points.

Abortion was enshrined in the Missouri Constitution by a three-point margin, while a minimum wage increase of $1.25 per hour each year until 2026, reaching $15 per hour, passed by a whopping 15 percentage points, according to the latest results.

Missouri voters even rejected a raise for law enforcement officers by more than 20 percentage points. So why did voters in the Show-Me State reject Democrats but support their policies? The answer seems to be an indication of what went wrong for Democrats during this election. While Harris and Kunce support abortion rights, voters did not connect them to their defense on the state level.

The same goes for the minimum wage: Harris came out publicly in support of a $15 minimum wage two weeks ago. But was that too late to reach voters in Missouri or the country at large? And the point can be raised as to how much the Harris campaign publicized her support for the increase. Plus, she only came out in favor of $15 per hour after Trump’s stunt of pretending to work at a McDonald’s.

Harris campaigned heavily on abortion rights as well, but it wasn’t enough to persuade the same Missouri voters who voted to protect them—something that will undoubtedly have Harris and her campaign agonizing over. What could they have said or done differently to stress Trump and Republicans’ threats over abortion? It goes to show that legal abortion is more popular than the Democratic Party, as Melissa Gira Grant wrote for The New Republic last month.

Voters in Missouri, and perhaps the country, in effect drew a distinction between the policies they support and the candidates who backed them. Democrats didn’t reach the voters who supported their policies, and there’s also the possibility that voters simply didn’t know what candidates like Kunce and Harris stood for. If that’s the case, the party needs to look at the ineffectiveness of their messaging, and how spectacularly it failed.

After Donald Trump made it his goal to make America “the crypto capital of the planet,” the Republican winner, Silicon Valley, and his crypto army may be able to cash in on Tuesday’s victory.

The “upcoming deregulation wave will create an economic sonic boom,” wrote one CEO Tuesday night, encapsulating the feelings of many investors looking to make a buck off the Election Day results and its ripple effects.

As of Wednesday morning, traders, crypto enthusiasts, and of course, Trump himself find themselves victorious. The stock market jumped overall Wednesday morning, buoyed by the so-called “Trade trade,” as investors scramble to buy stock expected to perform well under a second Trump term.

Perhaps the person cashing in the most is Trump himself, whose shares of Trump Media & Technology Group skyrocketed following his win. Shares of TMTG, which runs his Truth Social platform, rose more than 30 percent in premarket trading. Trump owns a roughly 57 percent stake in Trump Media.

He added nearly $300 million to his fortune overnight.

Meanwhile, bitcoin is also at a record high after Trump’s win, again boosting his own earnings. And the Republican has the crypto industry to thank.

“Being anti-crypto is simply bad politics,” wrote Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong just after midnight, attaching a photo of the Ohio Senate race. The cryptocurrency super PAC Defend American Jobs spent more than $40 million to help Republican Bernie Moreno win his race to flip the Senate seat.

The industry raised more than $200 million to affect House and Senate elections and punish anti-crypto candidates. And it looks like, for the most part, their work paid off. Coinbase’s political offshoot Stand With Crypto’s own numbers indicate that “pro-crypto” candidates won 270 seats.

As The New Republic reported earlier this fall, crypto companies spent more than $130 million to determine the election, breaking records. Since the Citizens United ruling in 2010, the fossil fuel industry has collectively only spent $176 million over 14 years of election cycles.

“It’s time to build. 🇺🇸” wrote Marc Andreessen, the “techno-optimist” billionaire who gave millions to Trump, in celebration of the win.