Steve Israel: “The answer is a combination of Democratic complacency, Republican extremism, and media decline in a House district that I know intimately.”

“A Maricopa County judge on Tuesday ordered Arizona Republican Kari Lake to compensate Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs for some legal fees related to the election lawsuit Lake had brought challenging her loss, but he stopped short of sanctioning Lake for filing the lawsuit,” CNN reports.

“Pennsylvania’s top elections official fully certified results from the November vote late last week after recount petitions in some counties had delayed the process,” the AP reports.

Associated Press: “Republican House candidates nationwide won the support of 38% of independent voters in last month’s midterm elections, VoteCast showed. That’s far short of the 51% that Democrats scored with the same group in 2018 when they swept into power by picking up 41 seats. The GOP’s lackluster showing among independents helps explain in part why Republicans flipped just nine seats, securing a threadbare majority that has already raised questions about the party’s ability to govern…”

“VoteCast suggests that independent voters distinguished between the problems facing the U.S. and Biden’s culpability for them. While few independents said the economy is doing well and about two-thirds disapproved of Biden’s handling of it, independents were slightly more likely to say inflation is the result of factors outside Biden’s control than that Biden is to blame, 51% to 47%, according to the survey…”

“Some Republican strategists say the finding is a sign that messages that resonate during party primaries, including searing critiques of Biden, were less effective in the general election campaign because independent voters were searching for more than just the opposition.”

“A state judge on Saturday rejected Kari Lake’s last-ditch effort to overturn her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race, dismissing for lack of evidence her last two claims of misconduct by Maricopa County election officials,” the New York Times reports.

“The order by Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, after a two-day trial in Phoenix that ended Thursday, follows more than six weeks of claims by Ms. Lake, a Republican, that she was robbed of victory last month — assertions that echoed the false contention that was at the heart of her campaign: that an even larger theft had stolen the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump.”

“Ms. Lake and her supporters conjured up what they called a deliberate effort by election officials in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, to disenfranchise her voters. But they never provided evidence of such intentional malfeasance, nor even evidence that any voters had been disenfranchised.”

Cook Political Report: “According to Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, a dozen women will now be serving as governor, making up nearly a quarter of all state executives.”

“That breaks the previous record of nine, first set after the 2004 election. That was also the number of women governors heading into this midterm cycle, representing a gain of three. The breakdown includes eight Democrats and four Republicans.”

Cook Political Report: “For the first time since tracking this metric, all the most competitive races broke in the same direction. We typically see a majority of the seats going whichever party’s way has the momentum that cycle, but this underscores just how much Democrats ran the table.”

Cook Political Report: “Republicans picked up nine seats to win a 222-213 majority, a mirror image of Democrats’ prior edge. But they wouldn’t be in the majority if not for razor-thin wins by five of their candidates: Lauren Boebert in CO-03 (546 votes), John Duarte in CA-13 (564 votes), John James in MI-10 (1,600 votes), Mike Lawler in NY-17 (1,820 votes) and Zach Nunn in IA-03 (2,145 votes).”

“That’s an effective margin of just 6,675 votes out of 107.6 million votes cast in House races nationwide (0.0062%), about a fifth of the 31,751-vote margin by which Democrats won the House in 2020.”

“A campaign staffer trying to raise money for Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) called up donors last year pretending to be Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s chief of staff,” the Washington Times reports.

“State GOP operatives found out the scheme by the Santos campaign staffer involved not only impersonating McCarthy Chief of Staff Dan Meyer but sending follow-up emails to the donors from a fake email address.”

Jennifer McClellan (D) easily won the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Rep. Donald McEachin (D) in Virginia’s 4th congressional district.

McClellan won nearly 85% of the votes cast in a “firehouse primary” and is heavily favored to win a February 21 special election.

“Many of Mitt Romney’s fellow senators assume his willingness to break from his party — and Donald Trump — means he’s planning for only one term. They may be surprised,” Politico reports.

Whether he could win is “frankly, not a question in my mind,” Romney said in an interview.

Said Romney: “I’ve faced long odds: Getting the nomination in 2012 was a long shot, becoming a Republican governor in one of the most liberal states in America, Massachusetts… So I’m convinced that if I run, I win. But that’s a decision I’ll make.”

Virginia’s 4th congressional district is holding its Democratic “firehouse primary” to replace the late Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA), the New York Times reports.

The winner will be considered the overwhelming favorite in the February 21, 2023 special election as Joe Biden carried the district 67% to 31% in 2020.

Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Though polls close at 7 p.m., it could take a while to determine the winner. Vote counting won’t begin until Wednesday morning. And there are multiple lawsuits in the works alleging unfairness over the party’s decision to hold the primary on a Tuesday and with limited polling sites.”

Dan McLaughlin: “A major reason why many Republicans and conservatives have increasingly soured on Donald Trump following the underwhelming 2022 election cycle is that Trump played a crucial, often decisive role in picking so many of the bad candidates who lost winnable races.”

“What follows is an examination of exactly how badly Trump harmed Republicans, beginning in this first installment with the big three Senate races in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona. All three were eminently winnable with good candidates, and any two would have given the party control of the Senate.”