On the one hand, last night was a terrible night for the GOP. There’s no sugarcoating double-digit election losses when there was anticipation of real competition. There’s little silver lining when the party was wiped out in numerous state elections. On the other hand, Democrats won in very blue states and cities. Who didn’t expect that, and what will it really change?
Democrats certainly hope that winning governorships in Virginia and New Jersey is a harbinger of success in next year’s midterm elections. Democrat Abigail Spanberger soundly defeated GOP Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia by about 15 points. Democrat Mikie Sherrill likewise pounded Republican Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey by 13 points. Both Democrats roughly hewed to a non-radical line — they focused on the economy and the unaffordability that still dominates kitchen-table discussions while focusing a lot less on left-wing cultural insanity.
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race amplified this from the other direction. “I am Muslim. I am a Democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this,” he crowed in his victory speech. And why not? He won by nine points with more than 50% of the vote in a three-way race, primarily against New York’s former governor and run-of-the-mill Democrat, Andrew Cuomo.
The city that was attacked by radical Muslims 25 years ago has now elected a radical Muslim as its mayor — and one who didn’t hide it, visiting more than 50 mosques during his campaign. He could localize the intifada and make life very difficult for New York’s Jews.
Is this New Istanbul, or what?
Furthermore, Mamdani is an unapologetic radical Marxist, who won with what the Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn dubs “happy talk about free things.” When life’s expensive (because of Democrat policies), it turns out that “free” bus rides and rent control are popular.
“There are many who say that a democratic socialist vision of governance for New York is impossible,” Mamdani said on Monday. “To them, I say: We need look only at our past for proof of how socialism can shape our future.” Given socialism’s actual history, that’s quite scary.
Perhaps most alarming was this statement in his victory speech: “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.”
National Review’s Noah Rothman calls Mamdani “the future face of the Democratic Party, whether Democrats like it or not.”
If that’s true, and there’s little reason to think it’s not, there could be a “bright side” in that Republicans will be able to point to that stark contrast in future elections. That’s what our Douglas Andrews hopes for, though he also offers a stern warning: “Between now and next November, Republicans had better learn how to turn out the vote when Donald Trump’s name isn’t on the ballot. And states like Ohio and Indiana and Kansas had better get on the stick and do their California-style redistricting to offset what Gavin Newsom just did. And SCOTUS had better rule constitutionally on racist gerrymandering. Or Trump’s presidency will effectively end on January 3, 2027.”
More on gerrymandering in a moment, but I believe Mamdani’s win in particular spells big trouble for all of us. He will drive Democrats further and faster left because now they know they can do so unabashedly and win.
Democrats will go with Spanberger and Sherrill when they have to, but their hearts are with Mamdani.
Virginia may be a blue state in presidential elections now, but Earle-Sears’s defeat was still a tough pill to swallow. Governor Glenn Youngkin won convincingly four years ago, and Earle-Sears is his lieutenant. His policies are popular, and Earle-Sears urged voters to “keep a good thing going.” She wasn’t especially adept at campaigning, however, and faced headwinds brought on by Trump’s unpopularity in suburban DC. Those Northern Virginia suburbs buy the Democrats’ lie that Trump is responsible for the shutdown that is hurting so many government employees in those areas. And they turned out in droves. Earle-Sears’s vote total was remarkably close to Trump’s approval rating in the state, and Democrats won every statewide race.
That includes Democrat Jay Jones, who won the race for Virginia attorney general despite having texted about fantasies of murdering his Republican opponent and wishing death upon his children. Here we are, two months after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and little more than a year removed from two attempts on President Trump’s life, and Virginia’s incoming chief law enforcement officer wants to shoot Republicans in the head.
As Jonathan Turley noted, “The election of Jay Jones as the next Virginia Attorney General shows that the key to rage politics is to hate the right people. Democrats just bulldozed any moral high ground in the debate over political violence and hate speech.”
As for Virginia itself, our Mark Alexander says, “I am grieving for the state of Virginia, the cradle of American Liberty, being ruled by the statist socialists in the Beltway burbs.”
Finally, back to gerrymandering. For decades, Republicans and especially Democrats have drawn congressional districts to their advantage. So what if a district snakes all the way across a state if it includes the necessary voters to elect a Democrat? Over the summer, Texas Republicans started aggressively fighting fire with fire, working to gerrymander the state so as to evict five Democrats from House seats.
In California, Governor and soon-to-be presidential candidate Gavin Newsom promised to fight back, as if this were some new Rubicon Republicans had crossed. He made no bones about the fact that he was trying to “neuter and neutralize what is happening in Texas.” Proposition 50 takes California districting out of the hands of an independent commission and gives the power to the state legislature, which is run by the dominant Democrat Party.
Prop 50 won handily yesterday, 64-36.
To wrap it up, Trump Derangement Syndrome prevails in blue states, a Muslim socialist just took over New York City, and California Democrats will add as many as five representatives in the House next year. It was a tough night for Republicans, to say the least. The good news is that none of those things will change the status quo much, and those of us who fight for Liberty will continue to do so tirelessly.
