Dems won big in this last night's elections. Mandami won in NYC, the govn'r of NJ won up 10 points.
And in Virginia, we got a trifecta and picked up 16 seats in the House of Delegates as well, giving dems 64 in the House and 51 in the Senate. Things are about to get interesting. Younkin's been in the office the last four years, but dems maintained slim majorities in both state houses, tempering what might have been a more Trump-friendly administration. Younkin did what he could in the state through executive order, reactionary policies against trans and DEI. Miyares, our AG, played possum against the federal government's assaults on our liberties, so getting him out of the way is the icing on the cake.
Jay Jones was the wildcard, and quite frankly the real worry here. The over/under on Jones winning was a 10-point > Spanberger win; she ultimately got 15-points, and Jones squeaked by with several hundred thousand votes.
We even flipped Yorktown, which has some of the most hard core conservative ol' boys you can get around here.
I can't imagine what things are like in NoVa right now, where a good portion of the DC federal workforce lives, but this election is being written as a rebuke of the current administration's policies, much like it was the first time they were in office. This year trumps 2017's results, by far. The ongoing government shutdown seems to be playing a big role here though. I haven't written about it before but I am in the camp of those that think the shutdown is necessary and needs to continue until we have some checks and balances on Trump's authority.
Side note: AFGE president Everett Kelly seems to have a mess on his hands after statements that Dems need to fold and reopen the government. Kelly's constituents have already been terrorized since Trump took office, and giving up the only leverage we have left against this admin would be a serious error. Rumors are that there's a minor rebellion against Kelly from other national labor orgs and some of his internal rank and file. People are saying that it's pretty tone deaf of him to suggest such a thing.
But Jones, a former AFGE member, should be ready to tear into the Trump admin in 2026. A quick glance at Jones's campaign page on Protecting Virginia from the Trump admin shows a couple of lawsuits related to mass firings of federal workers and funding freezing, where our current AG refused to join. One thing of interest is that when these coalition of states have sued the Trump admin and won, the rulings have only applied to the coalition. Virginia's been left out of these judgements. So that will change now, assuming that there are further victories.
Now while there's been no suggestion that Spanberger and Jones will lean into any soft succession type tactics, a boy can dream, can't he?
As goes Virginia, so goes the nation, some say, and that's the hope, anyways. Maybe if Trump is a symptom of what's wrong with America rather than the cause of it, then what happened in Virginia can be considered a sign of of what's right with it. The radical leftists over at Metafilter seem to be thoroughly heartened, and while I don't agree with calls that we're not on the edge of a thousand years of darkness, I do think that the scale of yesterday's wins across the board are sending a clear signal to the GOP, and that we should likely see a quick response from the GOP on this shutdown. Whether they'll blink or nuke the filibuster remains to be seen, but hopefully congressional GOP leaders will be less scared of a Trump primary challenger in '26 and will be willing to push back against the usurpation of Congress's power of the purse, as well as well as the unchecked power of the president's secret police force.
For now, we can at least see a bright light and hope for continuing success in 2026. The Virginia Assembly has already passed one amendment related to retaliatory redistricting in line with California to push back against shenanigans by republicans in Texas and elsewhere. It now looks sure to be on the docket for this winter's session, and I assume onto a June primary ballot in time for 2026 congressional races? It seems like a challenge, timing wise, so we'll see how that plays out.
Overall, this has been an exciting night for democracy, and I can't wait to see how things play out in the next Assembly session. Hopefully Virginia will lead the way against this hostile federal administration. As the former capital of the Confederacy, I think it would be interesting for Virginia to be at the vanguard of a state opposition to the vandal in the White House.