Wednesday, November 06, 2019

Republicans, Campaigning on Your Slavishness to Trumpism Will Only Get You So Far


Virginia will now have Democratic majorities in both houses of its state legislature, the first time since 1993. With a Democratic governor, expect new gun control measures, LGBTQ protections, and climate control initiatives guaranteed to give conservatives some acid reflux. Twitterman did not visit Virginia ahead of this election to rally Republicans, but despite his absence, voters did not appear to forget who's president. At least two seats flipped to Democratic in the state senate and at least five flipped in the House of Delegates. One district elected the first Muslim woman to the house.

In Kentucky, moderate Democrat Andy Beshear is ahead in the governor race by just over 5,000 votes, but Republican incumbent Matt Bevin, a truculent Trumpist who had sought to turn his reelection campaign into a referendum on Trump, is not conceding. All other state-wide races in Kentucky went to Republicans, a suggestion that it really was the unpopular Bevin who lost and not the Republican Party generally.

But it was the president himself who stood alongside Bevin on Monday night in Lexington to argue that, while the combative governor is “a pain in the ass,” his defeat would send “a really bad message” beyond Kentucky’s borders.

Yep. Message received.

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