Zohran Mamdani Defeats Sex Pest(s), Democrats Very Much In Array
A bad night all around for Trump
Democrat Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City last night. In case you haven’t heard, Mamdani is a 34-year-old Muslim socialist. That would seem like sufficient electoral challenge for a candidate, but Republicans and far-too-many Democrats insist that he’s a communist jihadist.
Mamdani will easily surpass one million votes, which no mayoral candidate has achieved since John Lindsay in 1969. That’s more votes total than Joe Manchin received throughout his entire Senate career (seriously).
This was not an easy victory for Mamdani. Despite losing the Democratic primary in June, disgraced former New York governor and sex pest Andrew Cuomo ran as an independent. Desperate billionaires showered him with more money than Mamdani would ever take from them in taxes or potential lost revenue. Cuomo even received a last-minute, desperate endorsement from Donald Trump, whose approval rating is lilliputian. He’s incredibly unpopular and really shouldn’t endorse anyone, but he also exists in a delusional fugue state, which is not ideal for someone in command of the nuclear codes.
Trump’s gross Disney villain henchmen Elon Musk and Stephen Miller publicly endorsed Cuomo, as well, which is like a day care center receiving a positive Yelp review from Susan Smith. Cuomo didn’t reject the endorsements because he’s a sleazebag, who probably considers Trump a role model for all sleazebags who abuse women.
Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer didn’t endorse Mamdani. It’s not even clear that he voted for him over the Trump-backed Cuomo, as he told reporters Tuesday, “Look, I voted. And I look forward to working with the next mayor to help New York City.” So much for “vote blue, no matter who.” That seems even more relevant when Trump is actively invading U.S. cities. It’s incredibly naive to imagine that any candidate Trump prefers would “help” the city. Trump even threatened to withhold federal funding from New York if the Democratic nominee won, which is the sort of mobbed-up threat a Democratic leader should repudiate, but Schumer didn’t even write a strongly worded letter.
Cuomo also ran an openly racist campaign against Mamdani that preyed on anti-Islamist bigotry and paranoia. Schumer never denounced Cuomo’s rhetoric, demonstrating less moral leadership than John McCain in 2008 when he corrected a supporter’s racist anti-Obama remarks.
A day before the election, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, suggested that Mamdani wasn’t a real Democrat and that he was lying to his supporters when he promised that he could make their miserable lives slightly better. “People do want us to be aspirational and dream big,” Spanberger said. “They also don’t want us to lie to them.” This isn’t ideal “big tent” talk. It’s an intraparty battle. You’d think it would be enough to just bond over shared opposition to Trump’s fascist regime. That’s literally how Democrats appealed to anti-Trump conservatives for the past decade. Spanberger and Mamdani probably have more in common politically than any Democrat truly does with Susan Collins.
Spanberger easily won her the Virginia governor’s race against MAGA kook Winsome Earle-Sears, so let’s pour one out for the centrists. Whenever Republicans and their enablers lose, Americans win. The race was called shortly after polls closed, in a true “grand opening, grand closing” moment for the current lieutenant governor’s career.
Earle-Sears had hammered Spanberger over her humane position on trans rights. Republicans spent millions on anti-trans ads in the state, but voters cared more about the economy that Trump has tanked. Maybe the Machiavellian punditry will realize that Democrats’ road to political Oz isn’t paved on the backs of trans kids.
Although Trump endorsed Cuomo — his colleague in groping — by name, he never bothered to mention Earle-Sears, who is Black. Trump takes his anti-DEI position pretty seriously. It’s also worth noting that Spanberger improved the most upon Terry McAuliffe’s 2021 performance among non-college grad voters: (Per the CBS exit poll: College grads broke for McAuliffe by 16 and Spanberger by 21, while non-college voters broke for Glenn Youngkin by 19 and Earle-Sears by just 5.)
Gov-Elect Spanberger delivered a rather presidential victory speech.
Democrat Ghazala Hashmi will become Virginia’s next lieutenant governor — a significant upgrade. Hashmi is the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office. She was also the recipient of gross anti-Muslim bigotry. During a recent GOP rally, outgoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin said that voters should send Spanberger “home,” but “I don’t want [Hashmi] anywhere. I don’t even want her in the state.”
Democrat Jay Jones bounced Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares out of office. There was concern that the race would suffer potential ticket splitting, because Jones had his own ridiculous scandal that I won’t even bother repeating as it doesn’t rise to the level of “Fascist Felon In The White House.” Fortunately, Spanberger voters weren’t stupid enough to put a Republican on the front lines of what’s become an ongoing war against Trump’s rogue government. The Washington Post can lament the excessive “partisanship” that helped elect Jones, but despite his apparent misdeeds, Virginia is much safer without a Trump-friendly attorney general. (The Republican who leaked Jay Jones’s controversial texts to the National Review also lost her race, which I presume is the opposite outcome she desired.)
Democrat Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli in the New Jersey governor’s race. The Garden State had shifted significantly to the right last year, and Sherrill was attempting to win a third term for her party. That seemed like an uphill battle, especially considering that Ciattarelli presented as more “normal” than Winsome Earle-Sears. Trump even said his name out loud, which upon reflection probably didn’t help him very much. The race was called shortly after polls closed. Sherrill even carried Ciattarelli’s hometown of Raritan Borough.
It was clear from exit polling that voters overall were pissed and blamed Trump for the chaos they should’ve known he’d inflict. If last night’s rout extends to the midterms, not even the most crooked gerrymandering can save the GOP. Meanwhile, California voters gave democracy a fighting chance when they overwhelmingly agreed to aggressively redraw the state’s congressional districts and wipe out as many as five Republican seats. This is a direct response to Trump initiating a “gerrymandering” arms race. His DOGE assault on federal workers is probably why Democrats swept the Virginia races and might end up with a supermajority in the House of Delegates. Trump canceling funding for a major railroad and tunnel construction project in New Jersey for the pettiest of reasons probably didn’t help Republicans in the state, either.
In Georgia, Democrat Alicia Johnson vanquished Republican incumbent Tim Echols in the special election to represent district 2 on the Public Service Commission, and Peter Hubbard defeated GOP incumbent Fitz Johnson in district 3. Pennsylvania retained its liberal Supreme Court majority, and Democrats flipped school boards in conservative Bucks County. It’s as if John Fetterman might’ve prematurely sold his soul for Pez.
Trump is poison, but he wants everyone to know that it’s not his fault. The malignant narcissist posted on social media, “TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT, according to Pollsters.”
Trump won’t legally appear on a ballot again, and the shutdown has reached a record length because Trump won’t negotiate. There’s a reason personality cults don’t endure.
Seems an all around rejection of Trump and his miserable party. Dems won every race, and in “safe” blue areas like NYC overperformed. Voters are sending a message, and Republicans should consider the wisdom of sticking by their demented creep monster—if we have free elections after this. Remember, their gerrymandering schemes only work if they can hold relatively tight red districts—if Dems overperform again, they’d end up flipping even more seats than the pre-gerrymandered map.
And shame on Schumer et al for not endorsing Mamdani the moment he won the nomination. He’s your damn nominee! If you seriously believe he’s antisemitic, show your receipts. If being critical of Israel is now disqualifying for even a local office, then our party is screwed. Israel gets no vote here.
It seems to have finally dawned on trump that voters blame the repubs for the shutdown, but, as noted, he won't negotiate to end it. Even with last night's shellacking, he thinks that it's still a winning issue for him.
As for not being on the ballot, he wan't officially, but he endorsed a lot of candidates, most of whom, if not all, lost, and is constantly in the news, and makes everything about himself, including elections that he's not running in. So he was on the ballot, unofficially, that is.
The midterms are always a referendum on the sitting president, so he will definitely be unofficially on the ballot next year. Unless he gets his shit together to end the shutdown, restore SNAP benefits, restore the Obamacare subsidies, stop his tariff nonsense, and stop waging war on American cities, his second term will be over. He's incapable of getting his shit together, and no one around him is capable of making him do so, even if they wanted to.
Finally, what the ever loving fuck is wrong with mainstream Dems?