The Midterms Are (Almost) Over. What Happens Next?
Diane Rehm: On My Mind
WAMU 88.5
4.7 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As ballot counting continues from Tuesday’s midterm elections, one thing has become crystal clear: this was not the outcome anyone had anticipated.
The Republican rout that had been splashed across headlines for months never materialized. Democrats made significant gains in state houses across the country, and when all is said and done, might even have picked up a seat or two in the Senate. In fact, the question of which party will hold a majority in the House come January is also still up in the air, though the GOP is expected to hold a small majority.
Norman Ornstein is an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor and writer for The Atlantic. He joined Diane to make sense of the results and discuss what they say about American politics today.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I |
| 0:05.3 | It's Diane on my mind some stunning results the red wave that wasn't |
| 0:13.5 | Democrats going against a long historical pattern and picking up several hundred seats in state legislatures |
| 0:20.0 | Some of these house races just remarkable |
| 0:22.8 | But are still being counted from the midterm elections but it's clear predictions that they |
| 0:31.1 | Republican wrote did not materialize |
| 0:36.4 | At this point controller the house and senate are still toss ups |
| 0:42.6 | Warman Ornstein is an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute |
| 0:50.0 | And contributing editor and writer for the Atlantic |
| 0:55.1 | He joined me Thursday morning to make sense of what we saw and the consequences of these elections for governing the country |
| 1:06.4 | Normoor and seen that first question I had to ask you is as we are speaking today |
| 1:14.4 | Thursday |
| 1:15.6 | Before noon where do things stand in terms of control of the senate and how soon might we know |
| 1:26.5 | So we have fundamentally three outstanding races and those are Arizona, Nevada and Georgia |
| 1:35.1 | Which is going to a runoff on December 6th |
| 1:38.2 | In Arizona |
| 1:39.9 | Mark Kelly the Democratic incumbent has a substantial lead he has a lead of about 95,000 |
| 1:48.4 | And we still have a few hundred thousand ballots to come in |
| 1:53.1 | They're almost all from two the two big counties |
| 1:58.6 | And in particular from the biggest county which makes up the bulk of the state Maricopa County |
| 2:03.6 | Right now Maricopa County is Phoenix |
| 2:06.0 | It's also Scottsdale which is a pretty rich and more Republican area and some exerban areas |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WAMU 88.5, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of WAMU 88.5 and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.