Doomsday for Democrats; a rebirth for Republicans.
That’s, basically, the media’s take on Tuesday’s Election Day. And that take was essentially based on two results. First, and most of all, Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe for governor of Virginia — a state Joe Biden handily won against Donald Trump in 2020. And, second, the way-tighter-than-expected race between New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli.
But it’s Virginia that has the Democrats reeling. During CBS News’ coverage, chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett said, “If you had told Democrats six weeks ago that Terry McAuliffe could well lose the Virginia governor’s race, I think they would have said, ‘That would be kind of an earthquake, that would be a very big deal.’ Democrats are trying to say (now), ‘Well it’s not such a big deal, there’s a history and maybe it’s not so bad.’ It seems to me that if it was an earthquake six weeks ago and does happen, it will still be an earthquake.”
Before the final results were even in, NBC News’ Kristen Welker said, “This Virginia gubernatorial race has historically been an excellent indicator for both parties ahead of the following year’s midterms. If Democrats lose this race, it will send shockwaves through U.S. politics.”
Well, the Democrats did lose that race.
Politico’s Steven Shepard and David Siders wrote, “If Tuesday’s elections were the first concrete readings of political conditions since Joe Biden became president, Democrats may be headed straight into a hurricane.”
So, wow, we have shockwaves and earthquakes and hurricanes and just a complete disaster, apparently, for Democrats.
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote, “There was only one good thing for Democrats in Tuesday’s elections: A defeat so comprehensive and disastrous does not leave room for excuse-making, blame-shifting or evasion.”
The New York Times’ Lisa Lerer wrote, “For five years, the party rode record-breaking turnouts to victory, fueled by voters with a passion for ousting a president they viewed as incompetent, divisive or worse. Tuesday’s results showed the limitations of such resistance politics when the object of resistance is out of power, the failure of Democrats to fulfill many of their biggest campaign promises, and the still-simmering rage over a pandemic that transformed schools into some of the country’s most divisive political battlegrounds.”
The Associated Press’ Nicholas Riccardi wrote, “Democrats’ worst fears are that they’re on course for a 2010-like drubbing in next year’s midterm elections and that they can’t use the specter of former President Donald Trump to stop it.”
The Washington Post’s Dan Balz wrote, “A year after celebrating victory in the 2020 elections, their slender congressional majorities are now even more at risk than they feared, and it is not clear that President Biden or his party have a workable plan to rebalance a political landscape tilting significantly against them.”
You get the picture.
Meanwhile, conservative sites, such as FoxNews.com, gleefully celebrated what they were calling the beginning of a “red wave” and had a headline that said “Woke Nightmare.”
But the most thought-provoking piece I read came in Politico from The xxxxxx’s editor-at-large Charles Sykes: “Terry McAuliffe Bet on Voters Hating Trump. Turns Out They Dislike Democrats More.”
It’s not only a good analysis of politics, but of political coverage. Sykes wrote, “The derangement of the GOP, however, has tended to obscure what happened on the left, where elite Democrats have increasingly lost touch with many of the voters who will determine the outcome of the next few elections.”
Here are a few other notable stories about Election Day:
Trumpeting a victory
OK, quiz time. Guess who said this when asked why it took Fox News longer than CNN and MSNBC to call Virginia for Youngkin:
“Well, it’s probably because maybe they wanted a Democrat to win.”
Bet you didn’t guess Donald Trump, but that’s what the former president told conservative radio host John Fredericks. As Mediaite’s Colby Hall wrote, Fox News wanting a Democrat to win anything “would come as a surprise to anyone paying attention to Fox News opinion programming over the past month.”
Wait, just the past month?
What’s Bongino’s deal?
Speaking of Colby Hall, the Mediaite writer has an interesting update on conservative radio host Dan Bongino. Bongino has not been doing his nationally syndicated show for the past couple of weeks because the company he works for, Cumulus Media, had a vaccination requirement. Even though he is vaccinated, Bongino has threatened to quit the show, saying, “They can have the vaccine mandate or they can have me, but they can’t have both.”
Hall reports that a source told him that Cumulus has already fired anyone who refused to get the vaccine. So if Bongino is vaccinated, who is he standing up for at this point?
Hall writes, “So what’s really going on here? It’s entirely plausible that Bongino wants out of his contract with Westwood One and is protesting in hopes of scoring a broken contract, perhaps so he can go to Fox Radio or another outlet. He has an audience that most conservative outlets would love to reach. Radio Ink reported on rumors that Bongino, who is a Fox News contributor, could find a home at Fox Radio.”
After Hall’s story appeared online, Bongino took to Facebook and denied he is trying to get out of his contract. Bongino said such stories are an attempt to punch holes in Bongino’s stance against vaccine mandates. Bongino also took shots at other conservative radio hosts who have criticized Bongino for “virtue signaling” about vaccine mandates.
Rice on Jan. 6
