The Left "got schooled" by parents on Tuesday. It was a good night for Republicans. But, it was an even better night for freedom-loving Americans. Voters nationwide said "Hell NO!" to government overreach regarding things that matter; education, health freedom, law and order, and secure borders.
By many measures, Tuesday's elections ushered in a significant shift from Left to Right. However, more important than the shift is the fact that many suburban and rural Americans picked up the pieces from 2020, showed up at the polls, and their voices were heard.
The shift didn't happen just because "the Deplorables" came out in force to vote or to work at polling places. And that they did. For example, in Virginia, a state that has struggled in the past to secure equal representation in polling centers, hundreds of Republicans trained to volunteer as election officials.
Elise Stefanik of New York's 21st Congressional District said, "it was not just a big night for Republicans, it was a big night for America."
Virginia's wins became a trifecta of firsts. First, Youngkin won in a tough battle against a former Democrat governor. But second, Winsome Sears, a Marine and the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant, made history as the first Black woman elected to the Lt. Governor seat in the state's history. Her father came to America on Aug. 11, 1963, "at the height of the civil rights movement from Jamaica," with $1.75 in his pocket. "He took any job he could find, and he put himself through school and started his American Dream." She told her supporters they "were looking at the American Dream" in last night's 8-minute acceptance speech.
School choice is a key issue for her because she says, "education lifted my father out of poverty, education lifted me out of poverty." But, significantly, she also added:
"I didn't run to make history; I just wanted to leave it better than I found it."
It was also the first time the state elected a Latino Attorney General—Jason Miyares, the first son of a Cuban immigrant. Republicans also won unlikely races that were well-funded and heavily favored Democrats. Voters in Virginia may well be set to flip the balance of power to Republican control. It is tough to argue that Republicans only are responsible for the results of Virginia's election.
Youngkin, Sears, Miyares/Hat Trick in Virginia
Youngkin's victory speech resonated, confirming an urgency so many Americans feel:
"There is no time to waste. Our kids can't wait. We work in real people time, not government time," he said on Tuesday.
Trump will have you believe that it was his endorsement that produced the wins. In fact, the story is bigger than Trump's coattails. In Virginia, Youngkin "received stronger support in every corner of the state than President Trump did in 2020." Clearly, Independents must have chipped away at the margins.
In fact, according to Steve Deace, Youngkin's campaign "cracked the code," beating Trump's 2020 numbers—showing +3 in black voters, +9 for women voters, +8 in the suburbs, and +12 in rural voters in Virginia. Per Richard Baris, an uncannily accurate pollster who is the man behind the People's Pundit and the daily podcast, Inside the Numbers, said that "McAuliffe had a ceiling, but Youngkin had momentum."
Finally, the Virginia election found voters coming out in record numbers for an off-year election with "at least 3.3 million votes... already counted." And, by the way, it is the Democrats who usually "claim high turnout helps their candidates."
The pandemic ushered in a free-for-all of bureaucratic decisions that chipped away at parental rights. It also stripped away the veneer of programs that have been in play for years. The pandemic created isolation and widespread remote learning for children. At-home learning opened the eyes of many a parent to the identity politics embedded in critical race theory curricula and social-emotional learning (SEL) programming and policy.
The polls reflected Biden's failed policies on any number of fronts. Big Tech censorship continues to drive people to independent sources of news and alternative social media platforms. It is getting harder and harder to fool the American electorate, and citizens are beginning to dredge up the stuff of which they are made. After all, our Founding Fathers' rejection of Imperialism during the Revolutionary War is one many still hold dear.
While not the only success story, places like Loudoun County have consistently put their best foot forward in recent months—with a powerful, committed posse of parents. In the last 20 or so months, Loudoun County parents have cohesively set their hearts to action with unwavering perseverance on behalf of their children.
Loudoun County Parents have been real-life heroes when it comes to advocating for their children. These "Domestic Terrorists" have celebrated significant, hard-won victories in recent months and weeks. They showed gubernatorial candidate McAuliffe that CRT is not a conspiracy theory but a very real part of the curriculum in schools.
Fighting what felt like an overwhelmingly hostile political environment, these parents and others like them struggled doggedly on behalf of their children on multiple fronts. They fought Critical Race Theory in their schools, lobbied for health freedom, and made valiant efforts to stem the tide of identity politics promoting policies that seem to favor transgender rights over individual rights—in some cases exposing ugly truths. No doubt parents' efforts in Virginia helped Youngkin last night.
Democratic royalty like Terry McAuliffe and Obama failed to help matters. Instead, McAuliffe doubled down on the idea that schools are not teaching CRT. Obama, who campaigned on McAuliffe's behalf, only seemed to make parents angrier by belittling and berating the concerns of so many.
Remarkably, last night, many Democrats and Independents seemed to swing in favor of the same issues and policies that conservatives hold dear. In the end, the wins mounted because of hard-fought grassroots efforts favoring individual freedom and agency. These issues are the ones that truly resonated with an electorate bruised by loss and assaulted with policies that primarily favor coastal elites.
Even strongly liberal cities like Minneapolis voted against defunding the police despite having been (or maybe because of?) destroyed by rioters protesting George Floyd's death. They rejected a ballot measure by a 12 percent margin and kicked several anti-law-and-order council members to the curb, replacing them with moderates. The measure would have given the city council oversight of the "new Department of Safety."
In the Texas House District 118, John Lujan flipped a heavily Hispanic district to red in a Special election runoff race, a district Biden won by 14 points in 2020. It is true that he briefly held the seat before, but Hispanics in the San Antonio district may be realizing that Biden's border policies do not favor legal, taxpaying immigrants. "Law and order Republican," Ann Davison also won Seattle's city attorney race against "police abolitionist" Nicole Thomas-Kennedy.
Last night saw sweeping and decisive wins in judicial races in Pennsylvania. From the gubernatorial race in New Jersey to seats in Ohio, Connecticut, and even Long Island, Americans fighting a rising tide of tyrannical decisions by school boards, teachers' unions, federal and state overreach were rewarded in races nationwide. Even school boards saw some wins. A teacher in Massachusetts who was forced to resign because of his Jan. 6 attendance won a seat on the local school board.
In deep-blue New Jersey, "Republicans are projected to pick up eight seats in the New Jersey General Assembly, reducing the Democratic majority to 44-36." And if that weren't enough to prove voters are fed up in the state, a truck driver named Edward Durr, with a $153 investment in his campaign may well win Steve Sweeney's long-time Senate President seat.
The gubernatorial win in New Jersey was unexpectedly close. Some say there was election fraud. Nevertheless, incumbent Phil Murphy won, but he should have blown away his grassroots Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli. Instead, he eked it out. Had the Republican National Committee (RNC) had the cajones to put in place the same muscle in New Jersey as it did in Virginia, Ciattarelli may well have had a winnable margin. Instead, Ciattarelli's grassroots campaign—no thanks to the RNC—will go down in history as the standard for 2022, showing the RNC that a well-run grassroots campaign can accomplish much.
The RNC would do well to listen to Americans. It should learn from its efforts in Virginia and stop wringing its hands over polls that say races like the Governor's race in New Jersey are impossible wins.
The Democrat Party has its own set of issues with the progressive Left. AOC thinks her party hasn't moved Left enough. And it is not necessarily true that the country has moved to the Left. The Left has probably just been louder and moves in lockstep. Times may be a-changin', however.
Either way, CNN's Van Jones may well be right when he declared that this election "is a big deal. These numbers are bad. It is a five-alarm fire." He says the Democrat party has lost touch with "ordinary folks." 2022 will almost surely be something to watch.
