PROGRESSIVES STUNNED: Youngkin Wasn't the Only Winner Last Night

Lt. Gov.-Elect Winsome Sears (R) of Virginia. Photo courtesy of Winsome Sears for Lt. Gov.

The most followed race of the evening last night was that between now Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin and former Governor Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin shocked the world by taking out the Democratic Party heavyweight, but his wasn’t the only vote that shocked progressives and Democrats last night.

Perhaps the least noticed but most important vote of the evening was in Minneapolis, where citizens flatly rejected disbanding their police force in favor of an ambiguous “Public Safety Department.” This is a direct message to progressives, right from the city where George Floyd died, that Americans want nothing to do with their #DEFUNDTHEPOLICE nonsense. Fox News report:

Voters in Minnesota’s largest city have rejected what would have been an unprecedented move to dismantle the police department on Tuesday after calls for reform following the death of George Floyd.

The measure asked voters if they favored amending the city’s charter to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety. The initiative would have removed language from the charter related to the agency, including minimum funding requirements, and would have divided control of public safety between the mayor and City Council.

The question failed 57% to 44%, according to the results released by the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office with 133 of 136 precincts reporting. It needed 51% of voter approval to pass.

“I kind of trembled a little bit in the voting booth today because I live in one of the neighborhoods most impacted by crime and violence… and knew the correlation between the lack of policing and good policing,” Sondra Samuels, a Minneapolis resident who sued over the measure, told Fox News. “We can have reform and we can have enough police to keep our children, our elderly safe. So this was a win tonight.”

Down the ballot in Virginia, there was even more pain for the left and celebration on the right. Republican Lt. Governor candidate Winsome Sears won her race, as did Republican Jason Miyares, who ran for Attorney General.

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Watch Winsome Sears’ victory speech:

Further down the ballot it only got worse for Democrats. The GOP took control of the Virginia House of Delegates. Jordan Davidson reports in The Federalist:

Just one year after President Joe Biden won the state by 10+ points, the Virginia House of Delegates is poised to end up in a 50-50 split or flip for the GOP after Republicans clinched at least five seats previously held by Democrats that they needed to close the gap.

The Tuesday victory follows the state’s pattern of giving the party that doesn’t control the White House big gains in the state legislature. Democrats have gripped the state House for the last two years after some of their endangered legislators on the ballot this year barely won their districts last election. Now Republicans, despite their competitors’ efforts to outraise them, have made a comeback and closed on the 10-seat gap created in 2019.

Democrat State House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn said before the election that her party was using their recently passed leftist laws as a campaigning point to win over voters and even insisted “the majority is safe.” The left’s inability to appeal to voters and address the issues plaguing Virginians such as education and rising crime, however, failed to give her the win she had falsely predicted.

While the Democrats were in power, leftist legislators passed dozens of bills endorsing progressive policies such as bumping up the minimum wage, enacting gun restrictions through red-flag legislation and carrying bans, legalizing marijuana, cracking down on what they labeled “police brutality,” and repealing the state’s mandatory ultrasound and 24-hour waiting period for abortions. These Virginia lawmakers also took advantage of the panic surrounding COVID-19 to justify looser voting laws that eliminate security measures such as voter ID from the state’s election processes and expand voting by mail to anyone.

Success wasn’t limited to Virginia and Minneapolis though. Your Survival Guy has repeatedly criticized efforts by progressive politicians in big blue blob cities in America for eliminating cash bail and allowing criminals back on the street in mere hours after arrest with no penalty for skipping town. It turns out, the Americans suffering through that progressive experiment don’t like it either. On Long Island, voters rejected Democrats for eliminating cash bail in a wave election. Carl Campanile reports for the New York Post:

A red tide swept over Long Island, with the Republican candidates for district attorney in both Nassau and Suffolk counties winning their races in stunning landslides Tuesday — turning the campaigns into a referendum on New York’s controversial bail reform law.

In Nassau, career local prosecutor Anne Donnelly upset Democratic state Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a former federal prosecutor, who voted for the 2019 law that eliminated cash bail for defendants accused of many misdemeanor and “non-violent” felony crimes.

Donnelly, who was deputy chief of the Nassau DA’s organized crime and rackets bureau, won 145,766 or 60 percent of the vote to 97,299 votes or 40 percent for Kaminsky — a 20-point blowout.

Kaminsky and Democrats rolled back some of the changes in 2020 following a public backlash and complaints from law enforcement that criminals getting sprung immediately would commit more crimes. The Democrats took action to limit judges’ discretion to set bail after wresting control of the state Senate from Republicans.

Kaminsky voted for bail reform as part of the 2019 state budget. He pushed for amendments to the law a year later to address complaints.

But Donnelly and the GOP used the bail issue as a club against Kaminsky, a rising star in the Democratic Party. The law was pushed so poor defendants who could not afford to pay cash bail would not have to languish in detention pending trial.

“The voters are sending a message. Safety first. Our children and families come first,” Donnelly said in an interview early Wednesday.

“I intend to hit the ground running come January and do everything I can to protect the people of Nassau County.”

Meanwhile, in Suffolk, Republican Ray Tierney trounced Democratic incumbent District Attorney Tim Sini with 145,933 votes or 57 percent to 109,060 votes or 43 percent. Bail reform was also a burning issue in that race.

Even Democrats in New York City rejected progressivism in their own way by electing the most-moderate Democrat possible as mayor. Former NYPD Captain Eric Adams is the Big Apple’s new mayor, and his first promise to New Yorkers was to undo all the damage done to them by socialist mayor Bill De Blasio. Michael Goodwin reports in the New York Post:

Adams, who will be the city’s second black mayor, is also breaking with the pack by vowing to end de Blasio’s anti-business approach, a focus he no doubt sharpened in private conversations with Bloomberg. And he distinguished himself by pushing for more Gifted & Talented programs in public schools and supporting charter schools.

Summing up his triumph on primary night, he said he was becoming “the new face of the Democratic Party” and pledged to show America how to run a city.

It’s hard to imagine a more refreshing approach after eight years of a mayor who fashioned his tenure around far-left nostrums. In de Blasio’s world, results don’t matter nearly as much as intent and ideology.

Adams realizes that’s the main reason why de Blasio failed, just as he realizes that success means paying attention to the details of daily life in New York.

“Everybody is trying to figure me out because I refuse to fit into this neat little package,” he told Juan Williams in August. “People are saying, ‘We don’t know who he is.’ Listen, I know New Yorkers. New Yorkers want to be safe. They want their children educated; they want [jobs] . . . They could care less if you call them left or right.”

Bingo. Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg all approached the job from a similar point of view. If Adams can match their success and usher in another renewal of shared progress, he will have achieved greatness in the ways that matter to millions of people.

Does that sound like a win for the progressive agenda to you?

Whether Jack Ciattarelli (R) ultimately becomes governor of New Jersey or not, the fact that the vote is even close in the state is a testament to just how badly Joe Biden and his radical agenda have soured Americans on the Democratic Party.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West (RIP JB) and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.