- Wow, Democrats sent quite the referendum message to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and had big statewide wins in Virginia, New Jersey, and California after all three shifted worryingly rightward in 2024. Last night felt good to win after this long, depressing wilderness year of resurrected Trumpism.
- Unfortunately, last night is what Election Day in November 2024 should have felt like. Kamala Harris and Democrats across the country warned everyone a million times that Trump would bring all the rampant corruption, draconian abductions and deportations, irrational foreign policy, and trade warring economic chaos that we’re currently being subjected to, but at least voters are waking up now.
- Democrats should troll Trump and not shut up for weeks about how Democrats won “bigger than anyone could believe,” and “liberals have an overwhelming mandate to stop Trump’s policies,” and “the Democratic Party has the highest approval ratings of all time.” Trump said all of that after winning by 1.5 % last November.
- Smaller race scoreboard: the Democrats dominated in Virginia and flipped 13 state legislature seats, evaporating Glenn Youngkin’s political legacy. They flipped 3 Mississippi legislature seats breaking the GOP supermajority. Colorado voted in a tax hike on the rich to fund school lunches. Democrats also flipped two seats on Georgia’s Public Service Commission ending Republican unanimity there. Is that the most purple 2026 bellwether Democratic victory of them all?
- It’s hard to see Republican VA Governor Glenn Youngkin springboarding into the top tier of GOP presidential candidates in 2028 now. He’s the most lame duck governor in America with Democrats nearly reaching a two-thirds majority in the VA legislature during his stewardship of the state.
- Republican turnout was wildly low across the nation. Trump’s executive overreach and this Do-Nothing Congress are hemorrhaging enthusiasm among their base. Voters were instead very fired up to vote against Republicans up and down the ballot. In California, Prop 50 fighting back against Republican gerrymandering in other states won almost two-thirds of the vote. Republicans ought to be very concerned about how many of their voters stayed home.
- This blowout election is a big warning for Republicans that their gerrymandering schemes in a bunch of states might dramatically backfire. By redrawing their district maps to turn a bunch of +10 to +20 red seats into only +5 red seats so that they can steal Democratic seats where possible, they’re leaving themselves vulnerable to a blue wave like we saw last night flipping dozens of previously safe Republican seats because Republicans got too greedy.
- I think the #1 lesson for Democrats is they should nominate in primaries only electric candidates who can message well and get attention, and are APPROPRIATE for their communities. No more litmus tests on unelectably liberal policy positions, or staying hostage to “The Groups.” Mamdani and Spanberger were very different candidates with different ideas for their constituents, but the state of Virginia and the city of New York are very different places with very different constituencies. And both won.
- For 2026 and 2028, Democrats need a big tent coalition, which will necessitate a bunch of candidates in ruby red states who agree with Democrats 90% of the time, but are maybe pro-life, or pro-gun, or super Christian, or don’t want to defund the police, or want our immigration system to work a little more orderly, or are supportive of trans rights generally but not entirely sure why trans high school athletes HAVE to be allowed to dominate women’s wrestling, etc. It’s not about throwing any minority groups under the bus, it’s just that right now Democrats literally CAN’T do anything to support and protect ANY minority groups at the national level because they have NO power because they keep LOSING elections.
- Everyone shit on super centrist Senator Joe Manchin being a thorn in Democrats’ side for years, but he won his last election in West Virginia in 2018 by about 3% when in 2016 Trump beat Hillary Clinton 68%–26%, and in 2020 beat Joe Biden 69%–30%. At a time when Republicans control the ENTIRE federal government, I wish Democrats had one hundred Joe Manchins in Congress so they’d control either the House or Senate, and could do some oversight on the Trump Administration’s corruption, incompetence, and striving police state tyranny.
- The #2 lesson for Democrats is that voters clearly want generation change. NJ Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill won with 56–43%, and is 53 years old. Her opponent is 63. Abigail Spanberger is 46 and won 57%–42% against a 61-year-old. Mamdani beat 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo by 10 points, and is 34 years old — my age! The Democrats’ new plan should be to smash the gerontocracy in 2026 and 2028.
- I’ve been talking about this quite a bit lately, but sorry Boomer politicians… if you’re over 70 years old, nuh uh. You are retiring whether you voluntarily do it to finally spend your golden years hanging out with your grandkids, or you embarrassingly lose the primary because you’re a dinosaur — thanks to Senator Dick Durbin for leading by example on this!
- I’m not entirely committed to a specific age for the cutoff, but I think it’s a we-know-it-when-we-see-it kind of thing. And it’s certainly lower than 80-year-old incumbents running for reelection. Here’s hoping 85-year old Nancy Pelosi commits to retiring!
- Sorry if this is ageist, but, frankly, stopping rising fascism requires governors, senators, and representatives who who can stay up all night, walk down stairs unassisted, answer interview questions without freezing and staring with a blank face at nothing for 20 seconds, and can figure out how to publish a TikTok video on their own. Senator Chuck Grassley first entered politics in the Iowa House of Representatives in 1958 when fucking Dwight Eisenhower was president. Eisenhower! Chuck was born in 1933!! 2033 is only 8 years away!!! Fucking retire!!!!
- Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey was born in 1944. We’re struggling to get the Boomers out of office as they cling to their jobs with their purple-handed, boney skeleton fingers, yet Kay, Nancy, and Chuck are the generation BEFORE the Boomers, the Silent Generation. Reeeeeetiiiiiiire!
- Mamdani quoted Eugene Debs in his victory speech. Republicans are already reacting to that fear mongering with the word socialism, and calling Mamdani ignorantly and inaccurately a communist, but today I encourage you to spend your daily literary time reading Eugene Debs’ Wikipedia page. Debs was a giant badass, a political luminary for decades, and so popular that in the epic election of 1912 in which Teddy Roosevelt split from the GOP and ran third party against both Republican nominee William Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, Eugene Debs ran on his own socialist platform and won 6% of the national vote! Dude was a badass, and I wish Democrats had half his conviction, passion, and energy to tirelessly campaign for labor, freedom, and progressive reform.
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The Halfway Post 