Last night was pretty bad.
I will first discuss local and regional races, and then go on to the national picture.
- As far as I can tell, the Republicans will have no presence whatsoever on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. Pat Tillman and both Perdue’s lost their races.
- County voters surprisingly passed a sales tax increase. I do not recall that ever happening previously. Why? Perhaps the socialists campaigned and messaged on the issue. Perhaps there was a perception it would reduce the severity of property tax increases.
- All five bond issues proposed by the city of Greensboro passed.
- Sheriff Sam Page won his race for NC Senate. That was one of the few bright spots last night.
- In the NC House races, the following Triad GOP incumbents lost their races: John Blust, Alan Branson, Jeff Zenger and Donnie Lambeth. While Lambeth deserved to lose, the others did not.
- The socialists gained control of the North Carolina House by a healthy margin.
- The Republicans lost several US House seats in North Carolina they previously held. Incumbents Virginia Foxx, Addison McDowell, Richard Hudson, Tim Moore and Brad Knott lost their races. Jennifer Balkcom lost the western Carolina seat previously held by Chuck Edwards and Madison Cawthorn, respectively.
- All of the statewide judicial races went to the socialists by fairly wide margins.
- Fortunately, voters passed the statewide referenda for Voter ID, income tax limitations and property tax limitations. It is paradoxical they supported these measures and yet voted overwhelmingly for the socialists who would undermine all these things.
- Darline Graham Nordone lost her U.S. Senate race in South Carolina to the young female physician, Annie Andrews. Of course, Michael Whatley was defeated by Roy Cooper here in North Carolina. Trump’s endorsements in these two races were counterproductive and profoundly awful. In particular, the fact that South Carolina voters chose a socialist reflects that Ms. Graham was not an impressive candidate. In addition, her late brother was a major cheerleader for the war in Iran that turned out to be lethal for the GOP’s electoral prospects.
- We cannot yet know precisely how many seats the socialists will have in the US House and Senate because of delays in counting. However, it is being projected that the socialists will have approximately 54 in the Senate and perhaps upwards of 240 in the House. Several Senate GOP incumbents lost their races. It will be very difficult for the GOP to regain their majorities.
- The state of Texas is turning blue. That is nearly catastrophic for the country’s future. Talarico (PCUSA) beat Paxton, in a victory for the religous left; and an Hispanic woman won the race for governor.
- The other religious left candidate– Adam Hamilton (United Methodist) won his Senate race in Kansas. Abdul El-Sayed, the socialist/ Islamist, won the Senate seat in Michigan.
- Voters in the state of Virginia passed ballot measures to make abortion legal until birth; and to make same-sex marriage legal.
- The socialist candidate unexpectedly won the governor’s race in Georgia.
Overall, the Republicans deserved this thrashing. President Trump was profoundly unwise– indeed, foolhardy– starting the war against Iran. This war was one of the key contributors to the blue tsunami that took place last night. His administration failed to deliver on the matter of accountability against the evil socialists. The GOP in Washington did not even try to contain spending and reduce deficits. They passed little of significance.
A great deal of inflation and the increases in the cost of living we have seen can be blamed on Biden’s spending several years ago. However, the GOP has not effectively notched back that spending. In addition, the wars against Russia and Iran have increased the costs of oil, gasoline and fertilizer– and those price increases reverberate throughout the economy. They hurt real people– especially in rural areas that have been the bedrock of GOP support.
The handling of the Epstein files and the retreat from mass deportations also likely jaded those who supported Trump two years ago.
Here in North Carolina, the GOP majority in the General Assembly has moderated or turned left. They passed Medicaid expansion and refused to restrict abortion significantly after Roe vs. Wade was repealed. There are other examples.
The GOP lost independent and Hispanic and rural voters compared with two years ago. In places like Texas and Georgia, immigration of Muslims and Indians– and domestic migration from blue states– have likely changed the demographics of likely voters. Compounding these problems is the fact that evangelicals did not show up at the polls in large numbers; and establishment Republicans often sabotaged or refused to support more conservative candidates.
How should the GOP respond? That is a topic for another day.
TC, I am unhappy in extremis !!
Here is a DEA friend’s reflections on election day:
Fred,
It’s amazing how, as we grow older, we recall important childhood lessons and how they relate to today’s events. I thought of this this morning as I looked over the battlefield and saw how many warriors lay wasted.
Election Day was always a fun day when I was a kid. Back then, politicians didn’t waste money on TV ads because most people didn’t have TVs. Radio ads ran, but not as often as they do today. Local politicians’ main broadcast tool was the ever-present sound truck. It was usually a late-1940s panel truck with giant bullhorns attached to the top. The politician or his surrogate (there were no women yet in this game) would sit in the passenger seat with a microphone and urge voters to get to the polls and vote for so-and-so.
At the end of the day, when the polls closed, politicians and their helpers would discard their campaign brochures, buttons, and flyers, and they would sometimes line the streets around polling places with this material. By law, saloons were closed on election day, and so around 7 or 8 pm, after the polls closed, they would reopen and be crowded with happy and sad voters looking to explain everything over a mug of suds. Well into the night, the winners and losers would offer their visions for a new world or the end of the present one. Nobody would really know until early the next day who won or lost.
My uncle Gene taught me a lot about New York City politics. An immigrant from Donegal, Gene worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and loved America and its crazy politics. Mike Quill, another Irish immigrant, led the Transport Workers Union (TWU), which represented New York’s subway workers. Mike always planned his union contract to end on New Year’s Eve. This let him demand benefits for his workers in the new contract, or threaten to shut down the subway system, which back then would cripple the city and stifle Christmas shoppers.
Ironically, Mike suffered a heart attack and died during one of his wildcat strikes, and because the streets were jammed with buses and cars filling in for the idle subway trains, the ambulance called to save Mike was struck in crosstown traffic while Mike quietly slipped into his next life and out of this one.
This was the crazy world of New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, few of us or our elders cared about national politics. Most of it was too distant to matter to the average voter. I remember being surprised that something like failing to manage garbage pickups affected the races for mayor. At least one of our mayors got tossed out of office for failing to have the Sanitation Department clear the streets after a brutal snowstorm.
New Yorkers were very democratic in how they viewed their elected officials. Politics, as Tip O’Neill reminded us, “is all local.”
I thought of this last night as the Republican icons and stars were dispatched by a new and unusual crew of “leftists.” How did it happen? My uncle Gene has spent the last half century in heaven, so I couldn’t ask him. But I think I know what he would have said.
He would have said something like, “Trump forgot to pick up the garbage,” or “Trump forgot to clear the streets of snow.”
On Election Day, it seems people never remember a politician’s successes, only his failures. Trump picked a war in the Middle East that arguably was necessary to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons, but the average Jane and Joe was more concerned about their mortgage rates, cost of energy for their homes and cars, and the price of groceries at the local supermarket. Trump and the party he led forgot these things, but the voters didn’t, and it cost Trump and his people big last night.
It wasn’t like people truly embraced the new crowd; they just wanted the old crowd to know that their garbage wasn’t picked up and there was too much snow on their streets. My uncle Gene would have predicted this, I’m sure.
The big winner in my book last night was Marco Rubio. Unlike JD Vance, who tries to be a clone of the President at times, Rubio is more independent but a dependable and smart politician who has managed to survive in his job(s) by dint of his expertise in politics and geopolitics.
The Democrats will soak up some media praise and boast of a revolution of sorts for a while, but by January, when they are asked to take their seats, we may see a lot of loose ends begin to unravel. That party is disunited and facing what some say is a civil war within the party between the old and new guards. They pride themselves on having a Big Tent, as Chuck Schumer likes to say. Barnum & Bailey also had a big tent, but it was full of clowns. They have two years to deliver on their promises, but the political roads are filled with obstacles. Will they, for example, be able to muster the votes to override presidential vetoes? If they fail to pick up the garbage and clear the snow, by 2028, they, too, will be history.
This may have been a time for the “No Kings” crowd to celebrate, but it may be worth thinking of the future and if we’ll ever see a “No Queens” crowd. Trump is from Queens, the New York City borough famous for tossing out the mayor over the snowplows that didn’t arrive when needed. So, too, is AOC, who emerged from last night, a winner in her support of DSA candidates like Abdul El-Sayed. Is it possible that we might have a billionaire builder from Queens succeeded by a bartender from Queens? I wonder what my uncle Gene would think of that!
John
I shudder, Fred, to think of what will happen.
Taking care of the garbage and snow is a good analogy.
We need to hold on to our faith. I feel badly for our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids.
@MichaelRCaputo
” HISTORIC? Grover Cleveland lost 110 House seats, Hoover lost 102, FDR lost 81 and 7 Senate seats. Truman lost 12 Senators, Ike lost 13. Clinton lost 9 Senators. Bush 2006 lost 6 Senators and 30 House. Obama lost 9 Senate seats in 2014, 63 in House.
So spare me all the HISTORIC. “
I agree, Fred. There have been large, wholesale changes of the guard throughout history. But were the winners ever this radical/ socialist?
Good summary reporting, Triad, and good analysis on your part.
Glad to be rid of Donnie Lambeth, but no doubt the Dem who replaces him will vote to tax Carolinians to keep the Medicaid expansion, whose costs are exploding, just as Lambeth would have.
The Republican Party has broken so many promises and stands for nothing. But it was the rebuke of Trump’s lies that piled tremendous cost on the wage earner that put the nail in their coffin.
I agree, J. Sobran. Now it’s time to pick up the pieces– somehow.