2014 Election Results

The election results are in and finally we can start considering who actually won. While the Republicans may have won the majority in both the House and Senate many pundits wonder did anyone actually win? Neither party was really able to advertise on what they did over the last few years. There are many rumors flying around, yet what effects does that have?

Koch brothers Won

Despite the fact that neither Koch brother appeared on a ballet, several people say the Koch brothers won big. They managed to keep republicans neck and neck in funding.

Hillary Won

Again, Hillary wasn’t on the ballet but Yahoo News and Forbes says she won Election Night 2014.  How? Well, the major reason deals with the electoral map.

The GOP’s relative underperformance in swing states is a problem going forward because the 2016 landscape is a lot less favorable for Republicans than the 2014 landscape was. Sixteen of this year’s 20 contested Senate seats were held by Democrats heading into the election — and six of those Democrats were from states that Obama lost in 2012. This gave Republicans a huge advantage. The map was already red.
 But that map will be upended in 2016, when 23 of the 33 seats at stake will be held by Republicans. Six of them will be in states that Obama won in 2008 and 2012 (Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin). Two will be in states Obama won in 2008 (Indiana, North Carolina). Two are held by senators who may be retiring (John mccain in Arizona, Chuck Grassley in Iowa). And two are held by senators who may be running for president, which means they can’t run for re-election (Marco Rubio in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky).

Http://news.yahoo.com/how-hillary-clinton-won-the-2014-midterms-075943434.html

Http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/11/05/hillary-clinton-wins-big-in-2014-midterm-elections/

The National Journal tells a completely different story.

Scott Walker was their biggest winner.  He became the most battle-tested and successful Republican candidate of the Obama era.

 He happened to win 3 times in 4 years. This seems a little difficult considering governors run for a good bit of time. Well, the reason is that Governor Walker faced a recall election and won, but due to the timing of the election he had to run again in two years. Meaning he ran in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

Chris Christie under his watch Republicans not only retained power in key battleground states (Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Wisconsin), they also staged hostile takeovers in traditionally Democratic territory (‎Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts) and hung onto governorships in dark-blue states (Maine, Michigan, New Mexico).

Andrew Cuomo wins because coming into 2016 he will have two attributes that may suddenly be in demand among a startled Democratic base: executive experience and distance from Obama.

There is just one problem with these results. They are attempting to predict an election two years away that neither person has stated they will officially run. However, this is a very common social norm in media. Now the media has the ability to make or break any candidate. When doing so the media acts as King Makers. Garber says, the media can pick the winners and losers. “Candidates who exceed expectations in garnering votes are declared winners; candidates who fall short are losers” (Garber, pg. 311).