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The Day After Mid-Terms: Dems Retain Senate, GOP Moves Into House

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Now that the countdown for Election 2012 (733 days and counting) is kicked off the a GOP takeover of the House and the Democrats keeping the Senate; today is ripe for figuring out what happened the last few months.

ABC News’ The Note sees this as coming full circle since 2008:

In the course of one night, critical gains Democrats had made in Congress over the course of two years were erased as the party in control of the White House suffered a painful loss of nearly 60 seats. As of this morning there were still 15 seats that have not been called — all of them currently held by Democrats. The GOP is likely to pick up some of those, bringing the total number of seats gained by Republicans even higher.

Not to mention this election cycle proved the strength of the “angry vote” over the fabled “youth vote,” which was shockingly absent compared to 2008. CBS News reports that the kids weren’t all right at the polling place and voting was down 18 percent  among 18-to-29-year olds. This year? The “youth vote” comprised nine percent of total voting percentage.

The New York Times rings in with the basic question: was hoping for change too ambitious from a country that can’t wait?

The most pressing question as Mr. Obama picks through the results on Wednesday morning will be what lessons he takes from the electoral reversals. Was this the natural and unavoidable backlash in a time of historic economic distress, or was it a repudiation of a big-spending activist government? Was it primarily a failure of communications as the White House has suggested lately, or was it a fundamental disconnect with the values and priorities of the American public?

For a full list of the Senatorial, Gubernatorial and House races, ABC News has the voting results as they come in.

Your Guide To Election Day at The Mid-Way

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It’s Election Day and we’ve got nine hours until the polls close for 2010–now we just have 734 days until the next election, and you can be sure that’ll be on the minds of every pundit as of 12:01 am Wednesday morning.

If you’re planning on watching the day’s coverage, TheWrap highlights every major network’s planned schedules–including the overtly confusing ABC/Breitbart kerfuffle.  Don’t want to wait? Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight claims a 54-55 seat gain in the House by GOP from yesterday–the GOP only need 39 to take control. But as Andrea Mitchell said today during an interview with Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss), it’s still a 34 percent pro-GOP vote and appears to be a “firing” election rather than “hiring.”

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The Youth Vote Remains Essential for Midterms

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The midterms are winding down–complete with a Rally to Restore Fear/Sanity in 24 hours–but at least one constant remains: the youth vote.

If not proved by the insane turnout at the Daily Show’s taping on Wednesday at the Harman Center in DC, maybe the Beltway Gang’s other favorite staple can prove it: polls! Over at DCI, Dan Meyers contemplates a recent Rock The Vote poll:

Let’s look at previous midterm elections and voters that were 18-24 years old.  In 1998 turnout among them was 18.5%.  In 2002 it dropped to about 17.2%.  And in 2006 it rose to 19.9% — up almost 3% points.  Participation is higher, as it is in most segments, in presidential election years.  In 2000, 36.1% turned out.  2004 came in at 41.9% and most recently, in 2008, a spike to 44.3%.  2008 was the highest turnout among 18-24 year old voters since 1972 – the Nixon landslide – with turnout at 48.3%.

This year’s estimate: 77 percent. Meyers goes on to couple this with emerging media trends in social networking and communities developed through meet-up culture, which encourages people to not simply say they’ll vote but make sure they will. The social check-in app Foursquare has created a new badge–“I Voted”–for election day so users can show off via Twitter or Facebook that they’ve checked into an election location and voted.

If the “youth vote” remains on a steady rise, then it almost becomes proof positive that voters will keep it up as they enter their next polling place demographics of “home owner,” “married” and “employed.”