Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.
...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).
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Notes -
As an opening salvo of the presidential primaries of 2024, the midterms were a great night for Desantis and a pretty bad night for Trump. Dems had high hopes for Florida a few months ago, as it's ostensibly a purple state. Desantis made headlines for his Martha's Vineyard + Disney stuff and it was plausible that swing voters may have punished Republicans for this. In the end, though, Florida was a bloodbath for Democrats. Rubio and Desantis both won by double digits, and many democratic congressional districts were wiped out with recent redistricting changes.
Trump, on the other hand, has egg on his face. He helped clear the lane for weak senate candidates like Oz and Walker, and they underperformed similar races (e.g. governors) through split ticket voting. It's impossible to redo the election to see what it would have been like if Trump didn't back candidates, but it's not implausible that Trump's meddling cost Republicans control of the Senate chamber. It also probably shrunk McCarthy's house majority a bit, making it more unwieldy and difficult to restrain Biden.
As of the time of writing, Desantis currently has a 26.5% chance to be the next president on Election Betting Odds, while Trump has a 19.3% chance. It was even more stark early today when it was 30%+ vs 15%, and while I think this is very unrealistically lopsided in Desantis' favor, the recent movements have captured the sense that Trump fatigue is setting in not only for moderate swing voters, but for a broader swathe of Republicans as well. I personally think Trump still has a 66%+ chance of winning the Republican nomination if he seeks it in 2024, but it's looking increasingly likely that it won't be a simple coronation: he'll have to work for it through a potentially crowded field. If Desantis proves to be an actual threat, things could get really ugly really quickly. All major presidential candidates have a hardcore following of blindly loyal fanboys that will stick with them through basically anything, but through browsing places like 4chan and interacting with some Republicans in my circle of family and friends, it seems that Trump's version of this is quite large. Desantis won't just be seen as an enemy, but as a traitor, and many Trump loyalists will not look kindly on a man who hurt their king.
Oz actually did alot better than the R governor candidate, so the split-ticket voting was in his favor. Mastriano was the disaster candidate in Pennsylvania, and possibly dragged Oz down with him.
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