BACK ON:  I apologize for the delay since my last text, due to circumstances beyond my control.  I'm back.

Maybe I should have stayed away.  Our side isn't exactly covering us with glory.  I see that the Dems will control the new U.S. Senate, with victories in Arizona by incumbent Senator Mark Kelly, and Nevada, with incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto.  I see that there is only one Senate seat left to be decided, and it will be determined by a runoff in Georgia between incumbent Raphael G. Warnock and challenger Herschel Walker.  The best our side can do, if it wins that seat with Walker, is to return the Senate to its current status, 50-50, with the Dems having a one-vote advantage because our intellectually astute vice president, Kamala "you can't take me off the ticket" Harris, breaks a tie.

We didn't plan it this way.

Even the House races humiliate us.  Depending on who you read, we have about seven races to win before we can claim leadership of the House.  We'll probably get there, but don't expect our troops to be taking a victory march down Broadway.  Leadership of the House should have been wrapped up days ago.

The talking heads are talking.  There are endless explanations for what happened on Tuesday.  Why did Republicans  underperform so badly?  How could all those pollsters be so wrong?

Or were they?

Frankly, I look first at simple, common-sense answers.  This one is startling, and probably right, from Frank Luntz: 

"Republicans have received 5l.5% of the House vote so far while Democrats have received 46.6%. 

"If this had happened before the new districts were drawn, that +5
GOP lead would have won them about 25 seats.

"That's the impact of partisan redistricting."

Add to that the observation of an increasing number of observers that the Republicans simply did not come out to vote.  But why?  Well, let's try "overconfidence."

So redistricting and overconfidence might well explain most of the Republican problem on Tuesday.   I'm not making that as a definitive statement, but huffy and puffy explanations involving analysis of issues should be looked at with some skepticism.

November 12-13, 2022