It's true that half the senators who voted for Obamacare won't be returning to the Senate in 2015, as reported in both
The Washington Examiner and
Bloomberg, but 60 percent of the Republicans who voted against Obamacare are returning to office in January.
Out of the 39 Republicans who voted against the reform legislation, 24 of them will return to office in January,
reports The Washington Post, saying that figure "shifts the frame a bit."
Sixty senators, including 58 Democrats and two Independents voted for Obamacare back in 2009, but come the first of the year, just 30 will remain in the Senate.
Many Democrats lost their seats in November, the Post argues, but it's difficult to say if their losses were completely linked to their votes on Obamacare. Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu lost her re-election bid in this weekend's runoff, but it may be less because she voted for Obamacare years ago than because politics in the South are changing, the Post said.
Only two states in the south, Virginia and Florida, still have Democrat senators, but overwhelmingly the south is turning Republican,
reports the Post.
Not only that, but just eight out of 29 Democrats who are leaving the Senate and who backed the president's healthcare initiative have been defeated, and five of those were not defeated until this year, long after they backed the legislation. The other Democrats who are leaving have retired or are leaving the Senate for other reasons.
Just one Republican who left office was replaced by a Democrat, but 16 of the departing Democrats are being replaced by Republicans.
But the real reasons the shift is occurring is much more complicated than just voter reaction to Obamacare, reports the Post, as it is too hard to tell whether to blame Obamacare alone or many other factors that have come into play since the legislation was passed.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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