The November 6 Election. Part 2

Looking at a lot of the results of Tuesday's election, my faith in America and in the intelligence and good sense of my fellow Americans has been restored.

I had been convinced that America had taken a big swing to the Right, Also, I was concerned about the growing power of big money (corporations and extremely wealthy individuals) to influence elections through their ability, via PACs and SuperPACs, to buy political messages—especially TV advertising—to help the candidates that they favored. (Note that, under the law, these advocacy groups are supposedly allowed to advocate only for issues and not for specific candidates.) In the election their efforts often were not successful. As an example, Tammy Duckworth, an Asian-American and handicapped veteran running as a Democrat in a suburban Chicago district, was elected to Congress in spite of her opponent having 12 times as much money spent on his campaign.
 
Also in my area, where a number of Tea Party–affiliated or –supported candidates won election to Congress in the 2010 elections, this time most of them were defeated, in I think all but one of the suburban Chicago districts where they'd gotten elected last time. Even a rather moderate Republican—frankly to my surprise—lost the Congressional seat she had held for 30 years.

And of course not least, there's the fact that President Obama won, an outcome which I had been in doubt about. And the fact that three states approved same-sex marriage—the first time(s) that same-sex marriage had won in voter referendums—which, by the way, gives the lie to the assertions by same-sex marriage opponents that same-sex marriage never wins when it's a matter of the voters speaking but only when it's been forced upon the populace by courts or legislatures.

And recreational use of marijuana was approved in two out of three states where it was on the ballot.

I have faith that some of the the candidate elections if not the referendum results show that perhaps half of Americans understand that the Republican party is the party of the wealthy, and even of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual male. (We used to say "WASP," white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, but note that I have added a couple more adjectives to my version.) When you look at the statistics on who Hispanics (and to perhaps a lesser extent African Americans) vote for, it's mainly Democrats. Hispanics look at the Republican stance on immigration.

On the other hand, as to the referendum results I've mentioned: Issues like same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana have been shown to be issues which younger voters are more likely to approve. So the makeup of the electorate in this election—that is, who turned out to vote—probably was a big factor in the results. Also, it must be admitted that part of these election upsets here in Illinois was due to the Constitutionally-mandated redistricting carried out as a result of the 2010 census, and the re-drawing of districts by Democrats in the Illinois legislature to favor themselves.