With Election Day over and the rest of “election week” just ramping up, legacy media are openly celebrating their party escaping as stern a rebuke as many expected. Despite predictions of a red tsunami that would wipe out Democrat officeholders nationwide, the election shaped up to be one big, confusing mess, leaving pundits on both sides of the political aisle wondering what exactly was going through voters’ minds at the ballot box.
Still, Tuesday night gave the GOP some major victories in states and localities throughout the country. That the corporate press has chosen to ignore them shouldn’t surprise you, considering their desperate desire to interpret the midterms as approval of Joe Biden’s failing presidency. These GOP wins, however, signal that Democrats don’t have the popular mandate they’ll likely claim.
State Judicial Elections
In Ohio, Republicans ended up sweeping all three seats for the state Supreme Court, allowing conservatives to likely have a 4-3 majority in Ohio’s highest judicial body. According to a local news outlet, the races weren’t particularly close, with all three GOP candidates trouncing their Democrat opponents by double digits. With major abortion-related legal cases on the horizon, Republican control of the body will prove vital in upholding the law and protecting innocent babies in the womb.
Republican judicial candidates in North Carolina also enjoyed major victories on Tuesday, with GOP nominees for the state Supreme Court flipping the two seats up for election this cycle. The projected wins will now give Republicans a 5-2 majority on the high court beginning next year. Earlier this year, the Democrat-controlled court struck down two state constitutional amendments previously adopted by state voters in 2018, with the ruling coalition claiming, as National Review reported, that “the two houses of the state legislature that proposed them included districts that were racially gerrymandered.”
But North Carolina Republicans’ election dubs didn’t stop there. In addition to the state Supreme Court, all four GOP judges running for seats on the North Carolina Court of Appeals are poised to defeat their Democrat opponents, marking a major win for the future integrity of the state’s legal system.
State Boards of Education and School Boards
On the education front, Republicans fared very well in a number of key states across the country. In Kansas, four conservative candidates for the state’s Board of Education are all projected to win their races, giving the body a 7-3 Republican majority. Similar trends were also seen in Texas, where more conservative candidates are projected to win their bids for seats on the state’s education board.
Conservative grassroots activists throughout the nation also saw success in electing “parents first” candidates to their local school boards. In Michigan, four candidates backed by the 1776 Project PAC are projected to give conservatives control of the Brandywine Board of Education. The parental rights group also saw similar success in Maryland, where the group is forecasting that three of their candidates will successfully flip the Carroll County school board from Democrat to Republican.
Additional states that saw major conservative local school board victories on Tuesday include Florida and North Carolina.
J6 Committee Member Loses Reelection Bid
Virginia Democrat Congresswoman Elaine Luria, a sitting member of the House’s infamous Jan. 6 Committee, got handed the pink slip by voters on Tuesday when she lost her reelection bid to Republican Jennifer Kiggans in the state’s 2nd Congressional District. As reported by Federalist Western Correspondent Tristan Justice, Luria is one of four members of the committee not returning to Congress next year, along with Democrat Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida and GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
While Murphy and Kinzinger both opted not to run for reelection this cycle, Cheney suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of now Congresswoman-elect Harriet Hageman during Wyoming’s Republican primaries earlier this year.
Leading House Dem Goes Down in Flames
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chair Sean Patrick Maloney lost his reelection bid for New York’s 17th Congressional District on Tuesday, marking a major loss for House Democrats. Defeated by Republican candidate Mike Lawler, Maloney’s loss is reportedly the first time a House campaign committee chair has lost since 1992.
According to Fox News, the DCCC had poured roughly $600,000 into the race to save Maloney in the months leading up to Election Day.
State Legislatures
Thanks to the proactive leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s status as a solidly red state is no longer in doubt. In addition to DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio’s sweeping victories Tuesday evening, Florida Republicans also expanded their numbers in the state legislature, where they will hold supermajorities in both the House and Senate starting next year.
Republicans are also projected to increase their majorities in the North Carolina state legislature this year, giving the GOP a supermajority in the Senate and one vote shy of a supermajority in the House. The results are significant given that the state’s Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper has regularly vetoed legislation backed by conservatives, such as election integrity and pro-life initiatives.