>> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. kristen: hello. i'm kristen sze. you are watching "getting answers." live on abc7. every day, we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time. tonight, meta announces it is laying off 11,000 employees worldwide, yet another major cutting back of the workforce for the tech industry. what does that mean for the job market and silicon valley? the chief economist as that recruiter will be joining us. but the big story -- election night is on the books, but the vote counting continues. control of congress hangs in the balance with key races still too close to call. president biden claimed a huge victory after democrats beat

expectations for the party in charge during the midterm. >> while the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn't happen. and i know you were somewhat miffed by my obsessive optimism, but i felt good, during the whole process. >> -- kristen: joining us live now to examine the big headlines is of vice president of data in, paul mitchell. >> thanks for having me. >> democrats did better than expected. perhaps surprisingly been themselves. were you surprised? >> i was not too terribly surprised. i really felt that republicans would take back control of the house, which is a big obviously consequential thing, whether or not they do it by winning 6 seats or 16 seats. that was number one. i felt that that wave, the republican wave would probably not reach the california shores.

that in california we were more likely than not to have all of the democratic and republican currently held seats hold, and so for that is looking like that is what's going to happen in california. though we are probably going to find out there are millions of ballots still to become to. kristen: in california, we kind of held. that is not the case in new york state, where they actually lost a lot of seats over to republicans. what happened there? >> but is actually an interesting story, we could write a whole book on this, they had an independent redistricting process like we have in california. but instead of the california model, where the commission was independently appointed and got to implement the final plan, the plan the commission put out was kind of scoffed at by legislators. the courts threw it out and drew their own. it was almost a democrats overreached. it caused them to lose these seats in new york.

and it is striking that really this balance of power in the house could come down to an aggressive gerrymandering in new york that was thrown out and in florida that was actually supported by the courts there. that could really be the difference. kristen: i just found that storylines to be so fascinating. real quickly i want to put up for our viewers who have not paying attention all day the abc news webpage showing the balance of power we are talking about. this is the page for the key house projections. like you said, the republicans will probably win. they have not gotten to the threshold yet for control. they need 218, they are at 214. talk about how historic that is. biden was saying, for a sitting president, for my party during a midterm, this is actually historic that i lost way fewer seats than during obama or clinton. >> we should not dismiss the fact how consequential it is, we

are likely going to have kevin mccarthy being the next speaker of the house. even though it is a smaller number, it is an important number. the fact is though, in these midterm elections, particularly when it is a first -- the first met him after the party changes power in the white house, you have seen huge upsets. president obama famously called it a shellacking, when he lost upwards of 30-40 seats in the house. so we don't have anything close to that. a lot of oddsmakers were suggesting we would have a more lasting, bigger majority for republicans in the house. what this really does is we have a situation -- we might have a situation where the senate remains split, with kamala harris still being the tie-breaking vote. a house where kevin mccarthy has maybe a five vote margin. a 2024 election coming up, where it would all be on the line, every issue that's important to democrats or republicans would

be really decided at the national level in a massive 2024 election. kristen: does that mean people can kind of expect a stalemate, in terms of not a lot getting done for the next two years? >> yeah, i think president biden characterized it like a horrific next two years. for those of us watching d.c., i think you are going to see a lot of mud thrown around and a lot of people who are catching headlines, causing stalemates in washington. i don't expect to see a lot effectively done. there might be people who say, let's build coalitions and work across the aisle. with the 2024 election looming large and everything from abortion-rights, gun rights, environment, health care, all those issues kind of on the table for 2024, i don't think they are going to go to d.c. with kid gloves. kristen: if you talk about the exit polls and what people voted on, what was it? obviously republicans were

hoping a lot of people would blame biden for the economy and hold him responsible. his approval ratings have been really low. that that would make people vote republican. of course democrats were hoping people would vote and come up for abortion-rights. what were the drivers in the end? what did people get energized about? >> it is hard to get away from that core message around who is a party in power, what policies have they been trying to make, and have they been effective? and really having a midterm election as a referendum on that party and president is really kind of the norm. anything to get away from that is really facing headwinds. democrats out of -- democrats had a tough time getting away from issues like inflation and gas prices, cost of food and crime and other issues. however with the dobbs decision ending abortion-rights for americans, with donald trump getting into the headlines, with the mar-a-lago files, with the

lawsuit, the january 6 hearing, there were periods during the election cycle when democrats were able to effectively turn the spotlight away from biden and away from things like inflation and focus on issues that were more important to democrats. prop 1 in california was an effective way as an example for democrats and abortion rights activist to get a policy win with that ballot measure but also help shape the narrative in this election cycle placing more focus on abortion. it is striking. i'm not sold as to remember when abortion was an extremely divisive issue in california and we would have year-in and year-out measures to try to create parental notification and limits on abortion rights. but now we had a ballot measure put an abortion rights into the state constitution and they got more votes than any other ballot measure this year and any

other state what officeholder, more votes than gavin newsom. it really carried votes this election cycle. kristen: californians were clear on that. did it seem like it was a great night for ron desantis and a bad night for former president trump? if so, what does that mean for 2024? >> and to think ron desantis' victory and rubio's victory in florida really did put down a marker for the 2024 presidential election in two ways -- one is it solidified this desantis wing of the party, this momentum that he has. it really came out as a big winner on the national stage. in an election cycle where the term candidates think of him at odds losing in pennsylvania, a lot of the trump candidates did not win. the second thing it did was it showed florida is no longer this purple state. florida came out and saw the

republican, with the high latino population of florida, texas, those were real prime future democratic states, but the selection result last night really did put the hammer down on that. kristen: yeah, texas as well, beto o'rourke, who seemed to have run a solid campaign, there were lots of issues in texas from the energy crisis to uvalde, and he will still not able to convert that to a victory against greg abbott. we will continue to chat with you. do not go away. our coverage of the 2022 midterm elections continues. joining us next is abc7 news and set a film a tear to help us break down the state and bay

kristen: we continue our

coverage, there are lots of state propositions and offices that were decided along with bay area races. california voter data expert paul mitchell of political data inc. is back. also joining us now is our insider, phil m. who practically slept here last night. he watched all the returns last night. one headline we could not miss was when newsom won again. he immediately jumped to prop 1, talking about we passed abortion rights. take a listen. >> the affirmative step in the state of california took, the people of california took in unambiguous terms to assert our values, and to go on the offense. and the state overwhelmingly -- to state overwhelmingly that we are a freedom state and we support the rights of women and girls' reproductive care and rights, now enshrined in the constitution of the seed of california. kristen: that was the first thing he said.

phil and paul, i've got to get your takes on that. paul, let us start with you. >> it is important to note that when this ballot measure was conceived right at the time that the dubs decision was made, there were people in california nationally saying, no, democrats need to be focused on the issues of inflation and gas prices and jobs, and not be distracted by these more liberal issues around things like abortion rights. but gavin newsom has defied that and pushed a messaging that is more kind of on the -- kind of on his tiptoes, pushing into democratic messaging rather than being on his heels, reacting to what republicans were saying. i think that defined his style in his embrace of this proposition kind of fit that and it ended up working really well statewide to drive out democratic votes. if you google democratic

politician, you are going to find people wearing pink lasers and jackets and pants and really embracing the issue of abortion around the state. >> i agree with paul on a number of points. i want to bring a couple as well -- unlike other governors, gavin newsom is probably in the most blue state in the union. his reelection was a foregone conclusion. he ran one of the most orthodox if not the most unorthodox gubernatorial campaigns for reelection i've ever seen. he basically didn't campaign. he didn't camp in california. he spent most of his time doing ads in texas or speaking on the national stage. in other words, bringing forth the idea of the democratic ideals. it was able to do that because he had a solid base here in california. -- he was able to do that because he had a solid base here in california. on the push for a choice issue, saying california as a freedom state, he is right. he pushed that hard.

but i was thinking, two points, one was, what else was he going to say? the fact of the matter is, we are doing really well on homelessness? prime? -- crime? great strides in public education? he doesn't have a great record. he has an aspirational record. he's really good at thinking up where we should be. but we are not there. so he couldn't point to a lot of successes in his first term. i wanted to get your take on this. i notice a difference between the returns on state races. it was a 60-40. but when it came to proposition 1 on joyce, -- on choice, it was what, closer to 70, 30? >> yeah. that ballot measure actually outperformed all the state what candidates. that means that you had dolly

slash yes on prop one voters. the abortion message rather than being the polarizing thing democrats should be scared of, it ends up being the thing that democrats are able to lean into. >> it is a lesson that other states could take a look at and say, they may be republican, but that doesn't mean they are antichoice on the ground. we have legislators but on the ground. because republicans voted for the choice measure. kristen: right. >> they did. kristen: or democrats did not all vote for their state candidates because a registration -- because of the registration. >> the democrats had to get democrats plus independents. so republicans were voting for joyce. it shows that there is a part of the republican party is out there that is more malleable to these middle issues. kristen: that's a great point. i wonder if that is something that played out on a national level as well. what you think, paul? >> there were five states where there were abortion measures on the ballot. three affirming voting rights

and two restricting abortion rights. in those cases, the pro-choice -- most of those cases, the pro-choice side won. there will be analysis on how effective having these ballot measures were in two important ways, one is how much was a candidate like a gubernatorial or legislative candidate able to use this as a method of kind of positioning themselves and rallying volunteers and getting their campaign going, and secondly, when you have something on the ballot, what happens? every news outlet, every report on the election has to talk about that issue. so when nate silver was reviewing the national landscape the last hours of election reporting last night, he said, we don't know what's going to happen in the west coast. they had been abortion measure on the ballot in california. we don't know how much that impacted turnout in those races. i think in 2024, honestly,, if

we have a situation where it is a democratic president, a tied u.s. senate five seat house majority, the 2024 election cycle is going to feel like it is for all the marbles. >> it will be interesting to see if you are not going to win the choice issue in congress, they have no will to pass at anything -- to pass anything on either side, the state level you can. if you are serious about choice, you go to the state level. but there's not a lot of money. the money, before we go, what did you think of the money that was spent nationally to basically come up with a draw? >> this is what happens. we had a 100 million campaign for mayor in los angeles that essentially came up as a draw. it is kind of amazing how effectively our parties have been able to perfectly got half of the electorate in these big national elections. it is definitely astounding. we saw tons of money on both sides. more money than i think most people realize.

it is in california, we are focused on races around the country, there were huge facts moving huge amount of money into key senate and gubernatorial races in a way that we just did not see in california. >> so division is good for business. kristen: it certainly is. the warnock and walker run off -- >> they are making a portion of this. kristen: we've got to go. real quickly, how likely do you think it is that we are going to be talking about last night's republican's star, desantis, versus democratic star gavin newsom? >> it all depends on biden and trump. those are the two first rounds. would you agree? >> yeah, i think for newsom, he has a couple of lockers. -- of blovkets. -- he has a couple of blockers. it is very uncommon for the vice president to not at least win the party nomination whether or not she could win the presidency

is a different question, but the party nomination, she should be in the drivers four. if both biden and harris were not to run, the newsom is well-positioned -- then newsom is well-positioned to try to seek the presidency, but i don't think that changes what he should be doing in the next 6-9 months or the next couple of years. kristen: we could go on forever. our time is up. thank you so much, paul and phil. coming up next, we have other news. more tech layoffs shaking up silicon valley. is this a warning sign about the economy? an expert will be here to join

kristen: less than a week after twitter laid off half it stuff come another giant is handing out pink slips -- meta says it will lay off more than 11,000 employees. these layoffs mark the most significant job cuts in the company's history. joining us live to talk more about this and the potential impact on the economy is julia public.

chief economist for super cute or -- for zip recruiter. thank you for your time. the ceo, mark zuckerberg, says delay also will account for about 13% of meta's workforce. what is driving these layoffs? >> so, very high interest rate growth causes the dollar to surge and stock prices to fall. so many tech companies have seen their valuations going to retreat about 45 years at this point. -- 4-5 years at this point. and they need to catch up. the funding environment has deteriorated markedly. the majority of tech companies get most of their revenue abroad. the dollar-denominated sales of course now look much worse on balance sheets. and sales also fall abroad, when the u.s. dollar becomes too strong. kristen: then there is the user

engagement and time spent. i wonder if more people flocked to platforms like facebook during the pandemic that may be leaving now and getting back to her with her regular routine -- getting back to their regular routines. >> many companies that some of the growth in the digitalization of everything, online exercise, online learning would be permanent, that was a permanent acceleration. what we have seen is that as many people are going back to some of their pre-pandemic normal behaviors, going back to the gymnasium and in person stores, and that is hurting many of the websites that took off. to put the layoff in perspective, meta has been growing so quickly the last few years, it's been adding more than 15,000 jobs a year. so 11,000 layoffs take some back to around their headcount level at the start of 2022. but they are still way higher than before the pandemic. kristen: some are saying some employees were working five hours a week, but nobody sees

them, they were not coming at, so there was that thought -- bottom line with these layoffs plus last week's layoff such order, what does that mean in terms of our local economy that is so dependent on tech? >> it is certainly concentrated in the bay area, silicon valley. for now, the weakness we are seeing in silicon valley on wall street as well is largely offset by the strength main street -- the strength on main street. but these kinds of moves are always concerning, too, because they can have ripple effects throughout the economy. when you see major tech companies see revenue fall 1% to 5%, they often overreact and cut their spending by 10% 20%. and that hurts all of their vendors. who then cut their spending and on and on. so what we have to fear always is a sort of a panic can set in

that causes this to snowball and become a much bigger problem that needed, until finally inflation is under control and companies feel comfortable to grow again. kristen: let ripple effect is what causes recession so often. we will have to watch that. in terms of the laid off folks, can other industries that are still thriving absorb some of them? i realize software engineers and may be health care, what can these folks get absorbed to? >> many other industries have an enormous need for tech talent. they have been left in the dust and the competition for talent in recent months. they cannot compete with the big tech companies, when it comes to compensation or benefits. they will now swoop in and make offers as attractive as they can to snap up workers who were laid off. we expect about 75% of the tech workers laid off will find other jobs in tech. that is what is happening right

now. but the others will go into health care, government, they will go into fields like manufacturing, where there's been an unmet need for tech talent over the last years. kristen: julia pollak, thank you so much for that great information and analysis. take care. a reminder to our viewers, you can get our live newscast, breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming app, available on apple tv, google tv, amazon fire tv, and roku. just search "abc 7 bay area" and download it now. we'll be right back.

kristen: thank you so much for

joining us for "getting answers." we will be here every weekday at 3:00 p.m. on air and on livestream, answering your questions about the bay area. tonight, breaking news. the critical midterm elections and a day later now, the two senate races we cannot call. georgia now headed to a runoff. what this means for potential control of the senate. what president biden just said about the midterms, and if he's running in 2024. also just moments ago, the storm nicole just upgraded to a hurricane tonight. now set to hit florida this evening and then move up the coast. the president before the cameras late today, saying democrats defied the odds when it comes to presidential midterm losses. what this means about working together, he said, saying there was no red wave. mary bruce live at the white house. meantime, that georgia senate race now headed for a runoff. senator raphael warnock, a slight lead over herschel walker, but neither hitting 50%, so, now that runoff.

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