Finding Bright Spots for Conservatives in the Results

I’ll be honest—when I planned this post, before the election, it was with the assumption that Hillary Clinton would be the next president. I expected it to be much like the exercise I did after the 2012 election, combing through down-ballot races and finding the odd conservative who survived the Democratic tidal wave to fight another day.

Today’s reality, of course, is much different. Donald Trump will be the 45^th President. Throughout the election, I stated many times that I didn’t believe that Trump was truly a conservative, and was in fact just another New York liberal like Hillary Clinton. Some of the things he said seemed without any real conviction, as if he were simply sweet-talking conservatives into voting for him; other times, he didn’t even bother pretending to hold conservative convictions.

But on the other hand, Mike Pence will now be the Vice President, likely to take an active role in the administration, and his conservative credentials are largely unquestioned. And some of the speculation about Trump’s future Cabinet, if true, is equally encouraging. Rick Perry? Sam Brownback? An honest effort to eliminate the Department of Education? Far better than many dared hope. And if Trump actually sticks by his list of potential Supreme Court justices, even better.

But the bottom line is that we simply won’t know for certain whether Trump’s election is good or bad for America until January 20^th, and probably for some time after that. Word is that an Obamacare repeal bill is being readied for the next Congress as I write this, one that could finally become law; as with everything else about the incoming administration, the attitude for now should be cautious optimism. Sounds good, but we’ll believe it when we see it.

Even aside from the presidential race, however, there are plenty of successes for conservatives from Tuesday night. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey, and Ron Johnson, all fairly reliable conservatives to one degree or another, will return to the Senate, and by being in the majority their clout will only be increased. In the House, only one member of the Freedom Caucus, Scott Garrett, lost reelection. Another vulnerable member, Rod Blum of Iowa, won reelection, and several other conservative candidates won House seats for the first time. They will all join another Republican House majority in the 115^th Congress, as in the Senate increasing the possibilities of what they can accomplish.

In the gubernatorial races, the most conservative governor up for reelection, Pat McCrory of North Carolina, is still stuck in limbo as the margin between he and his Democratic opponent is only a few thousand votes, and a recount seems likely. Meanwhile, Republicans will succeed Democratic officeholders in Missouri, New Hampshire, and Vermont—not necessarily stalwart conservatives, but without a doubt more conservative than both their opponents and the governors they will replace. Republicans will also take control of state legislative chambers in Iowa, Kentucky, and Minnesota, further expanding an already dominant GOP majority in state governments.

So overall, Tuesday was a surprisingly good night. Whether the good news fully extends to the presidential level remains to be seen.