The Rolling Stones sang it best, “You can’t always get what you want.” The limited 2025 elections came and went and, truth be told, we on the right got our butts kicked. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, California and Maine; they won.
Let’s start with the main event; the election for New York City mayoralty. If you read my recent post, “Mamdani,” you had a sneak preview. It was all Mamdani. Socialism (Communism?) comes to the Big Apple. As a native New Yorker (Brooklynite), I was rooting against Mamdani, even as I predicted his victory. Plan B? Let Mamdani govern. Let’s see what he has. As former Mayor Koch said upon losing an election, “The people have spoken. Now they will be punished.” That’s my guess. Also, on the same ballot, New Yorkers rejected a referendum item to move the mayoralty election to presidential election years; 2028, etc. That would have made a non-Democratic victory even more unlikely.
Across the Hudson River, we were supposedly looking at a nail-biter. Mikie Sherrill smoked Republican Jack Ciattarelli. Clearly, the Trump haters were way more enthusiastic than the Trump supporters. Also, as in New York, large numbers of Republicans were already in Florida, getting ready to vote for Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., for governor in 2026.
Moving west to Pennsylvania, there was actually much interest in judicial retention elections. Go figure. Scott Pressler, super volunteer, made a “No!” vote on retaining three liberal judges his North Star. Scott went down in flames. Here in Florida, we also do judicial retention elections. I believe that, in the history of our state, not a single judge, of any persuasion, has ever not been retained.
Actually, the most interesting set of elections was in Virginia. Many pundits will pretend to know what happened there. They don’t. I knew the wipeout of Virginia Republicans was coming six months ago. They cut tens of thousands of federal workers (bureaucrats). Where do those government employees live? In one of three places; Washington, Maryland or Virginia. Northern Virginia, already a solid blue part of the state, got crushed. The voters moved left and the blues crushed the reds. Democrat Abigail Spanberger easily beat Lieutenant Gov. Winsome Sears, an anti-Trump Republican. Of even more interest was the lieutenant governor’s race. In Virginia, the lieutenant governor’s race gets its own line. It doesn’t run with the governor. Also, for the unaware, Virginia only allows one term per governor. Four years and you’re out. That’s important because the newly elected lieutenant governor is Ghazala Hashmi, America’s first state-wide elected Muslim. Four years from now Hashmi will likely be the Democratic candidate for governor; America’s first Muslim governor. The newly elected Virginia Attorney General, Jay Jones, is the same fellow that publicly wished death for his opponent and his opponent’s wife and children. And there’s more. California approved a referendum to do a state-wide redistricting prior to next year’s mid-term elections. The California Democrats are likely to add five congressional seats from this move. And, Maine voted against requiring Voter ID at the polls. Seriously. The Democrats got two governors, a lieutenant governor, an attorney general, three liberal judges, five congressmen and a no-voter-ID state. All the Republicans got was one little New York City mayor: Zohran Mamdani.
