Winter Has Arrived for Democrats!

In this episode, Alex focuses on some worrying revelations from a myriad of different elections that took place around the US on November 2nd. He discusses - 

- Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia Gubernatorial Election, seeing the highest voter turnout for a gubernatorial election since 1997. Biden won the state by ten points but swing voters seem to have swung to the right. Exit polls indicated that close to half of voters said parents should have "a lot" of say in what is taught in their child's school. This was a problem for Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate, who made out of touch comments about school boards and ran a milquetoast campaign. Do the Republicans have a template for the midterms on how to run a candidate that appeals to Trump supporters and moderates? 

- In New Jersey, the incumbent governor, Phil Murphy, beat the Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, by as close as 30,000 votes and with only 50% of the vote. This was in a state that went 57% to Biden in 2020 and 56% to Murphy in 2017. Pandemic restrictions, taxes, and social issues seem to fire up the Republican side, which also saw a very high turnout. 

- Minneapolis voters struck down a proposal to eliminate the police department and replace it with a public safety agency. According to FOX out of Minneapolis, “Fifty-seven percent of voters voted ‘no’ versus 43 percent for ‘yes’ on the ballot question.” 

- Republicans had their most successful election cycle in Seattle since the 1970s. The Seattle Times called the election “a fright night for progressives.” A Republican, Ann Davison, defeated a popular policing abolitionist named Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, and the city council president, Bruce Harrell, hammered a progressive candidate who wanted to cut the police department by 50%. 

- In Buffalo, New York, a write-in candidate named Byron Brown was able to defeat India Walton, a self-proclaimed socialist. 

- Alex worries that the Democratic Party doesn’t understand the severity of the moment and is being unrealistic with their control of the government. "Wokeism" may not be a popular term on the left, but this election cycle seemed to be a referendum on woke rhetoric.