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Call me Portlyanna-ish, but I don’t think the off-season elections were the dire warning to Trump and Republicans that much of the media—both mainstream and alternative—have made them out to be. I think there is some cause for concern in the enthusiasm department, but the trumpeting of these elections being a massive victory for the Democrats—and a huge blow to Trump—are more overblown that Michael Moore.
Consider the big three elections that captured most of the media’s focus: Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race; Abigail Spanberger and the violent Jay Jones in the Virginia gubernatorial and State attorney general races, respectively; and that lady with a man’s name in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. None of these races were a real surprise:
- Mamdani appealed to the base of NYC voters: recent immigrants, ethnic minorities, and white socialists;
- Virginia is very blue in a cycle where Trump is not on the ballot and tens of thousands of federal workers—who vote Democratic anyway—are sitting at home, unpaid, who are highly motivated to get back at Trump;
- and New Jersey is… New Jersey. It always looks like a State that might fulfill our wildest hopes that, “this year, it’s finally going to happen”—the refrain of every University of South Carolina Gamecocks football fan since time immemorial (I write—painfully—as a Gamecock myself).
Democrats are naturally going to distort—their favorite pastime, it seems—these results as a clear sign that momentum is on their side and that Trump is losing support. Conservatives should not be amplifying this message if it’s not true.
At best, I think it’s incomplete.
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