2014 Midterm Elections: Results and reactions from Election Day

Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University professor and drug policy advisor, previously argued that states aren’t signatories to international drug control treaties — only the federal government is. So the federal government is meeting its international obligations as long as marijuana remains illegal under federal law, even if some states allow pot.

But Wells Bennett of the Brookings Institute argues that international drug control treaties require participants to actually enforce drug prohibition, not just enact a law. If that’s the case, the US is required under international obligations to wage a war on marijuana regardless of what voters decide at the state level — and it can’t turn a blind eye to legalization in Colorado, Washington, and other states as it has since 2013.

Most of the results from the 2014 Midterm Elections — 36 governor’s races, 36 Senate races, and 435 House races, not to mention the many state legislature races — are now in. Even for political junkies, that’s a lot to keep track of.

So here’s a place for you to follow the results of all of the major races — the ones that are too close to predict, the ones that could pad out Republican control of the Senate, and the ones that speak to important larger issues at play.

The blogosphere is abuzz with a 2012 Quinnipiac University poll that suggested there is a 15-point gender gap in support for marijuana legalization. This puts women on the more conservative end of a major policy issue than men, when usually it’s the other way around. But while it’s true that women appear less likely to support legalizing pot than men, the gap doesn’t seem to be nearly as big as the Quinnipiac poll found.

Here’s a chart that compares the Quinnipiac survey to a recent Gallup survey and Fox News’ 2012 and 2014 exit polls of states that actually legalized marijuana:

As you can imagine, her reaction is even better in the audio version. You can hear it around 30 seconds of this NPR story, or you can re-live the event yourself with this short Vox approximation of what happened.

Before the midterms, the polls indicated that many incumbents of both parties were in danger of losing. The races of Democrats Dan Malloy (CT) and John Hickenlooper (CO) looked quite tight, as did those of Republicans Rick Scott (FL), Sam Brownback (KS), Scott Walker (WI), and others.

But all of them ended up winning — as did most other incumbent governors on the ballot (most of whom were Republicans). So far, just one incumbent of each party has lost — Pat Quinn (D-IL) and Tom Corbett (R-PA). The race of Governor Sean Parnell (R-AK) remains uncalled, though he currently trails. That means 25 out of 28 incumbents were reelected:

Marijuana legalization soared to victory in Washington, DC, on Tuesday when nearly 70 percent of the city’s voters approved Initiative 71. But before the measure becomes law, it faces a hurdle that could prove difficult to overcome: Congress.

Since DC is the nation’s capital and a federal jurisdiction, Congress has the final say over its laws. Initiative 71 in particular faces a 30-day congressional review period. Federal lawmakers could pass a resolution during this time period rejecting the law, or they could take no action and let the law take effect by doing nothing. There are also more roundabout ways to potentially kill legalization, such as through a budget measure (Congress also approves DC’s budget).

Nearly 6 million American citizens weren’t able to vote in the 2014 midterm elections due to their criminal records.

This chart by Sean McElwee of Demos shows why felon disenfranchisement matters. In four key Republican victories in 2014 — the Senate races in Alaska, Georgia, and North Carolina, and the governor’s race in Florida — the number of votes that the Republican candidate won by was smaller than the number of citizens who couldn’t vote:

Are Republicans going to use their control of Congress to pass immigration reform in 2015? The short answer is no.

Here’s the best reason to think that they won’t: if Republicans were serious about passing immigration reform next year, you’d at least see Republican officials and pundits saying so on Spanish-language media, to reach out to Latino voters. But they’re not.

This year’s midterm elections were historic for several reasons. The Republican Party posted strong gains across the board, and many of their victorious candidates help make clear that the GOP isn’t just the party of white males. Meanwhile, liberals had a lot to celebrate with how ballot initiatives turned out, and the electorate was distinct in a few noteworthy ways.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Democrats will have control of just 7 state legislatures. In fact, they will have unified control of 7 state governments (counting governorships).

One Republican victory in the midterm elections has been mostly overlooked. Yes, Republicans took control of the Senate and a surprising number of governorships. But they also won a record number of state legislature seats.

Republicans now control state government outright in at least 24 states, one more than they did before the election. They control at least 66 of 99 state legislative chambers nationwide. And they cut the number of states with total Democratic control from 14 to seven — the lowest number since the Civil War.

“We make democracy way too hard in this country.”

Democracy was even harder than usual on November 4 — strikingly so — if the volume of calls received by the group is any indication.

The president’s long, searching press conference after a midterm beating is a treasured Washington tradition. In 2006, President George W. Bush stepped up to the podium and termed his party’s loss, to the delight of the assembled press corps, “a thumpin’.” In 2010, President Obama took his turn, limning the lessons of the “shellacking.”

Wednesday, Obama gave his second post-defeat press conference — but refused to play by the rules. He seemed upbeat, almost energized. He gave no ground on his agenda. He made clear he intends to push forward with major executive actions on immigration and climate change. Asked by a reporter to give a name to the 2014 election, he demurred; Republicans had “a good night,” he said.

After last night’s election, the 114th Congress appears to be the first to have 100 female members.

Emily’s List, a group that helps elect Democratic female candidates to Congress, pointed this out Tuesday night that female legislators hit triple-digits after Democrat Alma Adams won a special election in North Carolina’s 12th district. It’s possible the final number will change, however, as the results in close races come in.

When the newly elected Congress turns its focus foreign policy, the conversation will surely center around the Middle East. President Obama’s team is working hard to broker a nuclear deal with Iran, continuing its campaign to destroy ISIS, and trying to manage the Israel-Palestine conflict. These are all issues on which the new Congress and the American public have strong views. Which is why a new poll of American Jews who voted in the midterms is so interesting — and revealing.

American Jews (full disclosure: I’m one) are highly interested and involved in America’s Middle East policy, so their opinions matter despite being about 2.2 percent of the US population. And the polling data suggests they’re likely to back President Obama’s approach — because they’re mostly Democrats.

Even before the Democrats won a 55-seat Senate majority in 2012, many analysts agreed that they were likely to lose the chamber in 2014. After all, the party would have to defend seven seats in states that Mitt Romney had won — and against a midterm electorate likely to be more favorable to the GOP.

We’re hearing the reverse analysis now, after Republicans just retook the Senate. In 2016, the GOP will have far more seats up — 24, compared to the Democrats’ 10. Furthermore, seven of these Republican-held seats are in states that Obama won twice, and they’ll have to be defended amid presidential-year turnout:

One possible winner in the 2014 midterms? The Keystone XL pipeline.

Now that Republicans control both the House and Senate, they’ll be looking to push a bill to fast-track approval of the controversial pipeline — which would transport 830,000 barrels of oil per day from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, down to Nebraska. The pipeline has been held up by the White House over concerns that expanded tar sands production could exacerbate climate change.

With defeats in North Dakota and Colorado this election, the personhood movement is 0 for 5 since the first attempt in 2008. The ballot initiatives would amend state law to expand the rights afforded to unborn fetuses. Vox health editor Sarah Kliff explains what the ballot results mean for the future.

The midterm elections really mattered. Not only did they shift the balance of power at the federal level, but they also affected all sorts of policies at state and local levels — from health care to gun rights.

The local and state issues, unfortunately, don’t get as much national media attention. Here are six important things that occurred at the state level last night — all of them arguably as or more important as Republicans taking over the US Senate.

But after the bust comes the boom. Obviously the ultimate outcome in the 2016 election depends on inherently unforeseeable events, but the fundamentals of the race should look very different — and much less favorable to Republicans. But then it’s all going to flip again two years later.

The Senators up for re-election in 2016 will be the ones who took office in 2010 and 2004, both strong years for the GOP. That means Republicans will be playing defense. Illinois is very likely to go to the Democrats. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are both states with substantial blue tints. The seats in Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida are all very winnable for Democrats, and Missouri, North Carolina, and Arizona are on the board as reach possibilities. Republicans, by contrast, really only have a single pickup opportunity in Colorado.

This year’s Senate polls were more picked-over and modeled than ever before — and their final performance was not impressive. Yes, overall the polls pointed toward a Republican Senate takeover, and correctly predicted the victor of nearly every competitive race. (They missed the Republican victory in North Carolina, and most averages incorrectly gave Greg Orman a slight edge in Kansas.) But the margins they were showing were pretty far off the mark — very far, in several instances:

There’s no evident pattern to where the polls were the worst. They were way off in deep-red states like Kansas, where independent Orman didn’t even come close to winning despite leading most recent polls, and Arkansas, where Sen. Mark Pryor ended up losing by 17 percentage points.

On November 4, several states radically altered their approaches to a drug once known for Reefer Madness. In Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, DC, voters approved marijuana legalization measures. But in Florida, a medical marijuana amendment fell short of the 60 percent approval it needed to pass under state law. Here’s a breakdown of each state’s initiative, the latest results, and how the opposing campaigns pushed their messages to voters.

Arkansas elected Republican Rep. Tom Cotton to the Senate on Tuesday, sending incumbent Mark Pryor packing. You might not be surprised that a Republican won in Arkansas in a heavily GOP year, but Cotton’s victory is a much bigger deal than you probably think. His election is a significant step for the future of GOP foreign policy, and thus perhaps for American foreign policy.

(Read more: Sen. Rand Paul just gave one of the most important foreign policy speeches in decades)

Throughout the fall, President Obama has said that after the midterm election he would use his executive authority to create a fairly broad program to immunize many otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants from deportation. On Election Day itself, spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated that this is happening between now and the New Year.

I’m just not sure I believe him.