Trump’s favored candidate for governor of Kentucky (Mitch McConnell’s home state) lost. Not by much, but there are no recounts in Kentucky. All the Democrat needs to do is hang onto his lead by 1 vote.
Virginia will be redistricted by Democrats, not Republicans, in 2020. Both houses of that state’s legislature flipped from red to blue tonight, and a Democrat captured the governorship last year. That’s a big deal, because Virginia has been trending blue, and now Republicans won’t be able to maintain their grip on that state through gerrymandering.
Also in Virginia, the female cyclist who was fired from her job two years ago after flipping off Trump’s motorcade has a new job: She defeated a Republican incumbent for a county supervisor seat and is now an elected official.
In Washington State and Seattle races, voters appear to be rejecting an initiative to reinstate affirmative action, repealing the taxes to pay for the expensive light rail system they voted in favor of multiple times, and retiring Larry Gossett from the King County Council. But Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, who trailed on election night, caught up in late ballot counting and by Friday appeared to have been re-elected. Amazon and other business interests that poured money into the City Council races fared poorly, with candidates they backed losing at least 5 of 7 races.
As I pointed out on another blog tonight (HorsesAss.org), it’s premature to draw any inferences about the 2020 election from tonight’s results, because the public testimony of the impeachment witnesses hasn’t started yet. It may be reasonable to surmise that things will only get worse for Trump, who in newly released polls already trails Biden, Sanders, and Warren by 17%, 17%, and 15%, respectively.
Photo: Juli Brinkman, shown here giving the finger to President Trump in 2017, was elected to Loudon County, Virginia’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019.