What Happens If the Democrats Blow It Today?

What if the darkest aspects of Trumpism—the racist appeals, the contempt for truth and facts, the assault on the press—not only survive a midterm correction, but are bolstered by it? If you have trouble reading this message, [view it in a browser](. [What If They Blow It? Democrats Contemplate a Red Wave Abyss]( The overwhelming consensus of political observers, including many leading Republicans, is that the Democrats will make enormous gains today. But what if everyone is wrong again? We asked a dozen prominent Democrats—strategists, current and former elected officials—to stare into the abyss and predict what a Democratic failure would mean for the party and the country. "A failure to take the House would be near apocalyptic for the country .... [and] catastrophic for the Democratic Party," one Democratic rep told us.[Read More]( [Ted Cruz Gets Humiliated by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in Front of a Crowd of His Own Supporters]( If you're the type of person who enjoys watching Ted Cruz be repeatedly humiliated, this has been a delightful few years for you. And we can only hope that trend continues through today, when he's beaten by his Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke for his Texas Senate seat. That news is still a few agonizing hours away, but until then, enjoy watching Ted Cruz get humiliated in front of his own supporters by a small dog puppet. [Read More]( ['I Want Democracy as Much as I Want to Breathe']( On the last night of a long campaign, I ended up at a storefront on top of a hill looking down on a long carpet of chain hotels and franchise restaurants. The storefront was the headquarters of Sharice Davids, who is running for Congress as a Democrat in the Third Congressional District of Kansas. It was jammed with a happy, noisy, vastly diverse crowd; Davids, who is even money to defeat an incumbent Republican named Kevin Yoder, is a gay Native American woman with a law degree from Cornell and a background as an MMA fighter. "Kids look at Sharice, and they can say, 'If she can do it, I can,'" Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker said. "Native kids can say that. LGBTQ kids can say that. Everyone who ever felt different and left out can look at her as an example and a role model." And everybody cheered. [Read More]( [The Mass Shooting in Florida You Didn't Hear About Is What This Election Is All About]( It was another scene of American horror. This time it was a Tallahassee yoga studio, where a 40-year-old man with a history of harassing, assaulting, and hating women walked in Sunday evening and shot seven people, killing two, before he shot himself to death. You probably didn't even hear about it, because this is America, where people attempt mass murder all the time. But to ignore this latest American atrocity just because there is an election today is to miss what is truly at stake in the 2018 midterms. [Read More]( [These Are the Candidates Defining the 2018 Midterm Elections]( The 2018 midterm elections are a nationwide referendum on the last two years of Donald J. Trump, American president. By casting ballots for Congress and state-level races, voters will signal whether they approve of his approach to governing, or want a new way forward. Here are the candidates in the races that have come to define these historic midterms.[Read More]( [The Midterm Elections Could Be Hacked and We Won't Know Until It's Too Late]( Republican-controlled states have adopted a swathe of policies to try to depress turnout, particularly among groups-people of color, younger people-who tend to vote for Democrats. In a sick twist, these efforts may actually provide some of the very best cover for potential election hackers. Election-security types says there's a chance, and not a particularly small one, that citizens could be struck from the voter rolls not by any legal or official mechanism, but by a hacker. People could be robbed of their registration-and thus, their voting rights-and never even know it. [Read More]( [Read More on Esquire.com]( Follow Us [Unsubscribe]( [Privacy Notice]( esquire.com ©2018 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019