It appears that Republicans won all three statewide races in Virginia yesterday, electing a governor, a lieutenant governor, and an attorney general. All three offices were previously held by Democrats. A source I read claimed that no Republican had won a statewide VA race since 2009, until last night. This is big.
Conventional wisdom held that the large number of federal employees and hangers-on in the northern counties around DC could be counted on to vote D. It turns out many of those “federal folk” are also parents with kids in the public schools who don’t like their children being taught they are evil, if white, or victims if not.
Public school teachers squandered most of their public goodwill during the recent pandemic. Public anger at teacher unions and their tame school boards is an under appreciated political force. Perhaps hindsight will conclude inviting union president Randi Weingarten to campaign for McAuliffe was a blunder.
While it is still too soon to call as I write this, the governor’s race in New Jersey is very close, but was expected to be an easy win for Democrat Murphy. November 2 has been a bad day for Democrats, and thus a good day for our United States. Going forward, the culture wars seem to be a winning issue for the GOP.
Another good outcome yesterday was the citizens of Minneapolis voting down a measure to disband the city’s police. That measure was a response to the death in police custody of George Floyd. I got the good political news I hoped for … for a change.
