WASHINGTON — Strong voter turnout, gracious concession speeches and the political demise of prominent election deniers helped make democracy the real winner in this week's midterm elections, say the ambassadors who represent Canada and the United States in each other's capitals.
Both David Cohen, Washington's envoy in Ottawa, and Kirsten Hillman, the top Canadian diplomat in D.C., pointed Thursday beyond the results — some of which are still coming into focus — to the relative peace and quiet on election day and ever since.
"I am like the eternal optimist on this subject, so I say everywhere I go that I'm actually not worried about these threats to democracy because in the end, I believe democracy will prevail," Cohen said.
"It will prevail over autocracy, it will prevail over extremist voices. And I think this midterm election was actually a very concrete demonstration of how democracy prevails."
Two full days later, the final outcome of Tuesday's election had yet to crystallize, with counting still ongoing in Nevada, Arizona and California, among other states. Republicans were on track for a narrow majority in the House, while the Senate was headed for another stalemate.
Prior to this week, the prospect of a drawn-out, uncertain electoral affair was striking fear in the hearts of election officials, the memory of Donald Trump's refusal to concede the 2020 election still fresh, the wounds of the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill still healing.
Nervous eyes are still glancing toward Arizona, where the battle for governor is far from over and Republican candidate Kari Lake has already been spitting fire at election officials in the state, particularly in populous Maricopa County.
And in Colorado, fewer than 800 votes were separating Democrat Adam Frisch from Lauren Boebert, the brash, gun-toting pro-Trump Republican who once voted to overturn Joe Biden's election win.
But by and large, widespread belligerence has yet to materialize. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate hopeful in Pennsylvania who lost to Lt.-Gov. John Fetterman, followed up a bruising campaign by wishing his rival the best, "both personally and as a U.S. senator."
Trump-allied Republicans in Maryland, Michigan and Wisconsin also conceded gracefully. In Ohio, Tim Ryan, the Democrat vanquished by author J.D. Vance, used his defeat as a teachable moment: "When you lose an election, you concede," he said.
"We can't have a system where if you win, it's a legitimate election, and if you lose someone stole it."
The turnout rate among eligible voters was about 47 per cent — a modest decline from the high watermark of the 2018 midterms, but still an improvement over the more typical midterm rate of around 40 per cent for a non-presidential year.
"There's been a lot of increased discussion around U.S. democracy, around elections, around the reliability of democratic institutions and the institutions of the elections in particular. And how did Americans react to this? Well, they reacted by voting," Hillman said.
"There's still races to call and there's still some path to walk, but the process unfolded as it should … and Americans voted — they really did vote in important numbers."
A similar collective message, one of genuine gratitude tinged with relief, was on the president's mind Thursday.
"It was the first national election since Jan. 6, and there were a lot of concerns about whether democracy would meet the test. It did — it did, it did," Biden said.
"You did your job," he told a gathering of Democrat election volunteers. You fulfilled your duty, you showed up, you did what you're supposed to do. And so did the American people."
The Democrats are on track to lose control of the House, but not to the scale pollsters and pundits had been predicting. And they have so far staved off defeat in the Senate, which is set to echo 2020: a run-off election in Georgia next month that will determine the balance of power.
Biden himself, whose poor approval ratings made him a liability for some Democrats on the campaign trail, confirmed Wednesday that "the plan" is to run again, pending a family discussion that he said would take place early in the new year.
Cohen, a longtime friend of Biden's, said his money is on the president seeking a second term regardless of who ends up being the presumptive Republican nominee.
"When he says he wants to run, he wants to run," Cohen said.
"It's my full expectation that Joe Biden is going to run in 2024, and it is my equal full expectation that if he runs, he's going to win. And it doesn't make any difference who the Republican candidate is."
That, too, is no longer as certain as it once seemed.
Media reports suggest Trump is hell-bent on proceeding with his "major announcement" — a re-election campaign, presumably — from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, even though the midterms gave him a black eye and control of the Senate is still up in the air.
That may have a lot to do with the fresh political wind in the sails of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose 20-point win has effectively lit the fuse on his own presidential ambitions.
Biden was asked Wednesday if he thought Trump or DeSantis would be a tougher competitor, but he didn't answer.
"It'll be fun watching them take on each other," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2022.
James McCarten, The Canadian Press
