DEMS/ELECTION/GOP/HOUSE OF REPS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Republicans lost the House of Representatives in Tuesday [11-6-18] night’s midterm elections — a painful blow that will subject the Trump White House to ruthless Democratic oversight in the coming months. But to hear the president and his allies tell it, the winner of the election was President Donald Trump himself. The Trump White House seized on the GOP’s defense of the Senate and what it suggested would be limited House GOP losses to portray Democrats as falling flat amid sky-high expectations…The night’s results did bring good news for Trump. The president’s gut-level gamble to make himself an argument for retaining Republican control of that chamber paid off, completing his transformation from bombastic interloper to his party’s titular head, and giving the White House a major consolation prize. Trump’s role as the upper chamber’s savior, as he is spinning the results, will reverberate beyond his first midterms because it preserves Republicans’ ability to stock the federal courts with conservative judges. But the GOP’s failure to hold the House was an undeniable blow, despite some Trump allies musing privately that Trump might benefit from having a newly empowered enemy to vilify.”
–Christopher Cadelago and Andrew Restuccia, “Trump boasts of ‘tremendous success’ despite painful House defeat,” Politico, November 7, 2018 1:46 am