memeorandum: Mitch McConnell may be the greatest strategist in contemporary politics (Matthew Yglesias/Vox)

7:15 PM ET, November 5, 2014

Top Items:

Ezra Klein / Vox:

9 takeaways from the 2014 election — 1) The Democrats lost. — Badly. This wasn't just a tough map. Democrats lost Senate seats in Iowa and Colorado. They lost governor races in Florida and Wisconsin. Hell, they lost governor races in Illinois, Maryland, Maine, and Massachusetts!

Discussion: National Review, IMAGINE 2050, The Dish and Weekly Standard

Jay Newton-Small / TIME:

McConnell: No Shutdowns, No Full Obamacare Repeal — An exclusive interview with TIME about his plans as Majority Leader — Sen. Mitch McConnell was giddy, not an emotion often seen in the sober 72-year-old Kentuckian. But that's the only way to describe TIME's interview with him in Perry County, Kentucky, on Monday afternoon.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Guardian, New Yorker, The Daily Caller, OnPolitics, Yahoo! News, Outside the Beltway, CBS DC, Hinterland Gazette and Business Insider

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

The Democrats Have Two Choices Now: Gridlock or Annihilation — Well, that could have gone better. — Shares — A cardinal fact of American politics that has emerged during the Obama years is that demographic forces are slowly and inexorably driving the electorate leftward.

Discussion: Hit & Run, Washington Post and National Review

Matthew Yglesias / Vox:

Mitch McConnell may be the greatest strategist in contemporary politics — Mitch McConnell's reelection tonight wasn't very newsworthy. Polls had shown clearly for weeks that Allison Lundergan Grimes was far behind, and far behind is where you would expect a Democrat to be in Kentucky …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Great Debate and The Atlantic Online

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:

Reid: Why can't we all just ... get along? — Consider this karma avoidance by the soon-to-be-ex-Senate Majority Leader, but Harry Reid's new act won't fool anyone, least of all Mitch McConnell. Reid has run the US Senate for the past eight years like a dictatorship, steadily eroding minority privileges …

Discussion: The Hill, RedState, Washington Post, Mediaite and Politico

Harold Meyerson / American Prospect:
The Democrats' Catastrophe and the Need For a New Agenda

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money and Seeing the Forest

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:
Meet The Real Next Senate Majority Leader: Ted Cruz

Discussion: The Atlantic Online and Addicting Info

The Hill:
Democrats sift through the debris

Discussion: Roll Call and Power Line

Nate Cohn / New York Times: The Democrats' Southern Problem Reaches a New Depth

Washington Post:

Battle for the Senate: How the GOP woke up while Democrats were feeling the drag — One night in early September, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called a longtime colleague, Sen. Pat Roberts, from his living room in Louisville, furious about the 78-year-old Republican's fumbling and lethargic reelection campaign.

Discussion: Hot Air, New York Times, Politico, The Atlantic Online, The Hill, Hit & Run, Power Line, BizPac Review, BillMoyers.com, Mediaite, Bloomberg Politics, The Rothenberg Political …, emptywheel and RedState

Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post:

Joe Manchin on election results: ‘This is a real ass-whuppin’ — Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) did not mince words on Wednesday when asked to describe the historic losses by congressional Democrats. — “This is a real ass-whuppin,” he said. — Manchin is a moderate first-term senator …

Discussion: Power Line, Talking Points Memo and Mediaite

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

McConnell expected to woo King, Manchin — Two Senate sources say they expect Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to reach out to Independent Sen. Angus King (Maine) and centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) about joining the Senate Republican Conference. — Republicans have a 52-seat Senate majority …

Discussion: Politico, The Daily Caller and Liberaland

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

What really went wrong for Democrats — The most common explanation we're hearing for the GOP sweep of a dozen Senate races last night is that an already-treacherous map for Democrats was made a lot worse by the failure of core Dem voter groups to show up. — But multiple Democratic …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Firedoglake

John B. Judis / The New Republic:

Here's Why the Democrats Got Crushed—and Why 2016 Won't Be a Cakewalk — Barack Obama has been elected president twice, but his party has now gotten drubbed in the two midterm elections held during his presidency. He will face a Republican Senate and House.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Bloomberg View, New York Magazine, No More Mister Nice Blog, American Thinker, The Dish and Vox

David McCabe / The Hill: Obama has lost nearly 70 House seats since taking office

Steven Hayward / Power Line:

Climate Change? An Issue for Losers — Ross Douthat nails it in his NY Times blog post-mortem: … Andrew Restuccia notes in Politico: … Will Bunch in the Philadelphia Daily News: … The Keystone pipeline appears to have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, according to the National Journal:

Discussion: National Journal

Ross Douthat / New York Times:
The Evaporating Democratic Majority

Discussion: Business Insider and Bloomberg View

John Podhoretz / New York Post: A stunning tidal wave of change in the Senate

Andrew Restuccia / Politico:
Tom Steyer, greens have rough night at the polls

Discussion: The Daily Caller, ABC News and The Hill

Josh Kraushaar / National Journal:
Republicans Just Broke Democrats' Blue Wall

Discussion: Conservatives4Palin

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

‘Hundred-year majority’ for House GOP? — Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, proclaimed Wednesday that Republicans may have built a “hundred-year majority” in the House. — “We're as back to a majority as any of us have seen in our lifetimes.

Discussion: rubber hose and Shakesville

New York Times:
Negativity Wins the Senate

Discussion: Liberal Values, Washington Post, Lawfare, Christian News …, Mediaite, John Hawkins' Right Wing News and Outside the Beltway

New York Times:
Obama Vows to Cooperate, Within Limits

Discussion: The Nation, Power Line, TalkLeft and Gawker

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

The Polls Were Skewed Toward Democrats — For much of this election cycle, Democrats complained the polls were biased against them. They said the polls were failing to represent enough minority voters and applying overly restrictive likely-voter screens. They claimed early-voting data was proving the polls wrong.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, The Dish, Hot Air, Outside the Beltway, Gawker and Talking Points Memo

Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:

New Outside Groups Prove Worth to Conservative Donors — Last fall, Steven Law, the president of the nation's largest Republican “super PAC,” met with two of his party's biggest donors in a Houston office. Both had given generously to Mr. Law's organization, American Crossroads …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Kenneth P. Vogel / Politico:
Big win for conservative big money

Discussion: Right Wing Watch and Seeing the Forest

Washington Post:

Transcript: President Obama's Nov. 5 news conference on midterm election results — President Obama held a news conference Nov. 5 at the White House to discuss the results of the midterm congressional elections . — PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon, everybody. Have a seat.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Althouse, The Federalist and Hit & Run

David Wasserman / The Cook Political Report:

First Impressions: Historic GOP House Majority — It's hard to overstate House Democrats' bad night. By all measures, Republicans enjoyed an historic night, exceeding pre-election expectations across the country. There are fewer than ten races where the outcome is in some doubt …

Discussion: New York Times, The New Republic, Talking Points Memo and Washington Monthly

Kris Maher / Wall Street Journal:

West Virginia Elects America's Youngest State Lawmaker — A West Virginia University freshman who did most of her campaigning out of her dorm room became the youngest state lawmaker in the nation Tuesday. — Republican Saira Blair, a fiscally conservative 18-year-old …

Discussion: Gawker, Jezebel, fox13now.com, Business Insider, Mediaite, The Daily Caller and NPR

Katherine Connell / National Review:
Democrats Sink to Pre-Great Depression Levels in State Legislatures

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and Clayton Cramer

Jay / Miami Herald & MiamiHerald.com:

Alex Rodriguez's DEA confession: Yes, I used steroids from fake Miami doctor — › — ‹ — For 21 tumultuous months, New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez has defiantly maintained he never used banned substances from a Coral Gables anti-aging clinic …

Discussion: New York Times, Truth Revolt, New York Magazine, abc11.com and The Daily Caller

Peter Baker / New York Times:

President Obama Left Fighting for His Own Relevance — WASHINGTON — Two things were clear long before the votes were counted on Tuesday night: President Obama would face a Congress with more Republicans for his final two years in office, and the results would be seen as a repudiation of his leadership.