1. New Jersey isn’t as much of a lost cause as New York. It’s just borderline enough that Republicans throw their passion and energy into it only to end up with races that seem close, but ultimately aren’t. Virginia, packed full of bedroom community government employees, is occasionally winnable, but mostly not. New Yorkers tend to vote for whoever is on the Dem party line and the Mamdani machine rammed up social media hype that got younger voters to turn out.
All of those elections were long shots for the good guys and the not so good guys like Cuomo.
Republicans ran a terrible campaign in Virginia based on moral scolding. Republicans should by now know better than anyone that moral scolding doesn’t work. But Democrats ran a terrible campaign too. But in a blueish state with a working political machine like VA or NJ, Dems just to have show up. And they showed up.
Cuomo ran a terrible campaign in New York, but the election was lost once Cuomo failed to turn out enough voters for the primary. And the rest was an unfocused mess in which the squabbling between Cuomo and Sliwa made the outcome 100% inevitable.
2. The average voter cast ballots based on his or her perception of the state of things and a big part of that is the economy. Trump and Republicans had that going for them in 2024. They don’t in 2025 and they won’t in 2026.
This is an urgent reality check.
Yes, Republicans and conservatives will agonize that Virginia voters didn’t make their decision based on the Jay Jones death threats. It’s 2025. Moral qualifications for candidates are deader than Gary Hart (correction Gary is still alive) which is why Graham Platner is doing better than ever after the SS tattoo and the Communist declaration. There may be nothing too awful that a politician can do to be morally disqualified. People vote down party lines, they vote based on which party they think is screwing them harder, based on identity politics and just sheer ‘cussedness’.
3. Conservatives have been living in an echo chamber, gushing over Trump’s accomplishments. There’s plenty to gush over, but only so much that ordinary American voters care about.
The gushing feels good, but unless people come out of the echo chamber and actually deal with the everyday state of the country instead of the social media trends, 2025 will be a warm-up act for 2026 with Dems taking the House.
And then 2028.
If you think that can’t happen, it can. And then the executive orders will be wiped out with the stroke of a pen and we’ll see a dystopia that will be far worse than the Obama and Biden years.
Conservatives become complacent. It takes a shock to the system: a ‘Butler’ moment to wake people up and make them fight.
Tonight’s elections should be a dash of cold water. President Trump has done a lot of great things, but much of the country is still agonizing over prices, over the economy at ground level, and is not feeling good about the state of the nation. Unless that changes, not just Dems, but Islamists and the far Left will exploit the opportunity to take more positions, climb the political ladder and eventually take over the country.
A downer? Yes. That’s why the wake up call is needed. We’re not safe. We’re in the middle of a war. The echo chambers have become too cozy and we’re seeing too many memes while losing sight of the battle.
There’s still time before 2026 and 2028. But only so much time..
