Turns out that those anti-trans rights efforts do not work, as soon-to-be former Viriginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears found out in her total failure of a Virginia gubernatorial campaign against Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger, who wiped the floor with Earle-Sears by almost 15 points as part of a total Dem sweep in the commonwealth of Virginia. We won lieutenant governor, attorney general, and flipped a lot of House of Delegates seats.
That’s not all, of course. Mikie Sherrill ran a bit of a shaky campaign for New Jersey governor but finished strong, and instead of being close, Mikie is liking the results, as she won by 13 points. In my home state, we resoundingly said no to recalling our Democratic state supreme court justices, so our advantage there remains 5-2. And that’s huge for the next two big elections, the midterms and the presidential.
Oh yeah, you might have heard Crazed Commie Muslim Terrorist Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral race, beating Disgusting Sex Pest Andrew Cuomo and Beret Guy Curtis Sliwa. The reaction to his win was every bit as measured and reasoned as you might expect. One thing that I will predict about his tenure, the media scrutiny and political attacks will be similar to what would happen to a Black candidate elected as NYC mayor in 1961.
There’s even more. Daniel Nichian of Bolts magazine has a rather remarkable list of Democratic wins via a BlueSky thread:
What we know, 3pm on Wednesday:[In 4 parts]—CA's Prop 50 wins—VA Dems flip Gov, LG, AG—Dems defend NJ-Gov—Dems gain leg seats in VA & NJ—Dems win NJ & VA trifectas—Mamdani wins—PA Dems win state supreme court—ME anti-mail voting measure loses—GA Dems flip 2 statewide offices
Look, if the media is going to act like a 1.5% point win by Trump, where he didn’t hit 50%, is a monster mandate for MAGA to the point where Trump can do whatever he wants and Democrats have to do wholesale changes to their approach, then they better treat Tuesday as a massive, massive judgement on the disaster for America that is 2025. I really don’t want to hear about how Dems must “moderate their message,” nor do I want to hear about denying specific groups their rights. In addition, exit polls are showing that the narratives “Democrats have lost white males” and “Democrats have lost Hispanics” are seriously taking on water. The party did very well with both groups. I saw on Jen Psaki’s show on MSNBC last night that the shift to Dem among those two groups was double what the Trump 2024 shift was.
What we likely will hear is a lot of debate as to why this happened. One example of this is the kind of ridiculous debate over whether Democrats should focus on “kitchen table issues” or on attacking Donald Trump. I say, why not both? Greg Sargent of The New Republic thinks so as well.
The Democratic Party’s blowout wins on Tuesday night underscore a fundamental reality about the Donald Trump era: Anti-Trump politics is affordability politics, and affordability politics is anti-Trump politics. It’s not just that there is no need to choose between attacking Trump’s lawlessness and addressing the “price of eggs,” in the hackneyed shorthand for costs and inflation. It’s that the two missions are inseparable from one another.
All in all, the Democrats have had a great autumn, what with the huge No Kings protests. Let’s celebrate the win, and take this energy to move the fight forward, as we have a way to go fighting past and future horrors of the Trump II administration.
The last word goes to Ben Selvin and the Crooners, with the unofficial theme of the Democratic Party.
