YEA

 

Five Takeaways from Tuesday night (and there could be ten)

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-Life Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell won a convincing re-election last night. McConnell will be the new Senate Majority Leader, replacing pro-abortion Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Last night was arguably the most impressive overall showing by pro-life candidates in more than three decades. You already know the dominant sound bite: Republicans took control of the Senate, President Obama is repudiated, Obama doesn’t care.
Here are five takeaways from November 4, 2014:

#1. There is a reason the New York Times published an editorial that essentially said mid-term elections should be abolished. They knew it was not going to be a good night for pro-abortion Democrats. Republicans needed a net gain of six to take control away from pro-abortion Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They lost none and have already won seven. But there’s likely more coming.
The Alaska Daily News reported this morning that “Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan [who is pro-life] appeared to grab an insurmountable lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Begich [who is pro-abortion] early Wednesday, with all of Alaska’s precincts reporting. With results from all 441 precincts counted, Sullivan led 49 percent to 45 percent. The margin remained essentially the same from the first returns early in the evening.” Meanwhile, in Louisiana there will be runoff next month which pits pro-abortion incumbent Mary Landrieu against pro-life Bill Cassidy.
In other words, the net 7 will likely be a net 8 and very possibly a net 9. The seven victories so far are Tom Cotton in Arkansas, Cory Gardner in Colorado, Joni Ernst in Iowa, Steve Daines in Montana, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Mike Rounds in South Dakota, and Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia.

#2. We ran a story yesterday written by Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon, our in-house expert on all things Planned Parenthood. PPFA’s political arm had issued a press release touting all that it had done—money, endorsements, buses, etc., etc. I asked Randy to write that piece because I wanted our readers to know that money isn’t everything, even in combination with the impact of other wealthy pro-abortion PACS, such as EMILY’s List, and the unwavering support of the Establishment Media.
National Right to Life pummeled EMILY’s List, which gives money only to the most radically pro-abortion female Democrats. We will have a more complete analysis later, but we can say this now.
NRL was involved in 26 head-to-head races with EMILY’s List. Based on preliminary results, it appears that we won 19 of those 26 races.
Six of the 26 were U.S. Senate races. We won five of the six; the lone loss was in New Hampshire, where we opposed incumbent Jeanne Shaheen.
We are running stories from various state affiliates today and tomorrow. What you will read is an amazing ground game by our affiliates working with National Right to Life. (See also NRLC’s summary analysis of the massive work done by our grassroots which is also running today.) A lot of organizations will claim they were the key pro-life players. NRLC and our affiliates allow our work to do the talking.

#3. A great many pro-life female Republicans won last night. We were watching Fox News as Brit Hume was offering a typically astute analysis. Suddenly, the ongoing count which had Republicans +5 became a +6. A moment later they interrupted Brit to announce how Republicans had reached that magic 6 figure. Joni Ernst, a pro-life Iowa state Senator, had just defeated pro-abortion Rep. Bruce Braley to win the seat left vacant by the retirement of pro-abortion Senator Tom Harkin. The symbolism was hard to miss. When pro-life Mia Love won the race for Utah’s 4th Congressional District, she became the first black Republican woman — and first Haitian American — elected to Congress. Which brings us to

#4. The battered, tattered “war on women” mantra. For much of the last year, we’ve written about how this impact of this assault on the intelligence of female voters was petering out. True, pro-abortion Democrats are desperate to hold on to the votes of single women and no doubt still believe that recycling this idiocy will help. But, in fact, their obsession with abortion and “reproductive health” boomeranged, most spectacularly in Colorado. The monomania of pro-abortion Sen. Mark Udall (D) was so off-putting that reliably pro-abortion newspapers such as the Denver Post threw their support to pro-life Cory Gardner. And finally (for now)
#5. The overwhelming—indeed humiliating—defeat suffered by pro-abortion Texas state Senator Wendy Davis. Davis was running against pro-life Attorney General Greg Abbot to succeed pro-life Gov. Rick Perry. There are many lessons to take away from Davis’ dismal 38.9% of the vote. First and foremost, pro-lifers in Texas never panicked when the local and national media announced that Davis, a heretofore obscure state legislator, represented the unstoppable wave of the future. They knew their state is pro-life. They also knew Texans would not support a candidate who’d filibustered a bill that would ban aborting pain-capable unborn children, provided that truth was not buried. They made sure it wasn’t, and the rest is history.

Source: NRLC News
Please take time today to read all the posts at National Right to Life News Today.