Taking bets they will pretend it’s not what they ran on!
Republican candidates got blown out around the country on November 3rd, but interestingly not so much Republican-esque policies. Places where Republicans lost big – or never had a chance of winning in the first place – saw some truly conservative ballot initiatives pass, and one very important crazy lefty one fail.
That last bullet point was a reference to California’s much ballyhooed, DSA championed billionaire’s tax proposal. Prop 40 would have imposed a one-time 5 percent tax on net worths exceeding $1 billion. It basically was an attempt to raise the Jolly Roger over the California State House and announce, “prepare to be looted.” It went down 53 to 47 percent – in California. Sanity prevailed.
In North Carolina, where voters flipped a U.S. senate seat from red to blue, at least six house seats, and the state House of Representatives, those same voters passed a constitutional amendment requiring all voters, including those voting absentee, to provide photo ID to cast a ballot in a 60 percent landslide. And they weren’t done there. They also passed a constitutional amendment capping the state’s marginal income tax rate at 3.5 percent – so the Tar Heels clearly aren’t interested in allowing their new Carolina Blue Democrats to tax “the rich,” or anyone else for that matter.
More on the election integrity front, Ohio voters, may have rejected Vivek Ramaswamy for governor and gave JD Vance’s old senate seat back to Democrat Sherrod Brown, but at the same time they passed a state constitutional amendment requiring voter ID. So did Blue Wave states, Nevada and Kansas, as well as Arkansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Those latter four states also passed constitutional amendments mandating that only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in their state and local elections, as did Alaska, which may or may not be another Blue Wave victim depending upon who is the real Dan Sullivan.
If there were any bigger losers than Republicans on this election night (hard to imagine), it was the trans community. Voters in Seattle – yeah, that Seattle, the one in Washington that’s arguably crazier than Burlington – voted to ban biological males from competing in women’s sports by a solid 56 percent majority.
And in deep-blue Colorado, not only did voters pass an initiative to mandate that elementary through college athletes compete in sports based on their biological sex, they also passed a statewide referendum that “prohibit[s] surgeries on minors that alter their biological sex characteristics as a treatment in response to a minor’s perception of sex or gender, with certain exceptions; and prohibit[s] the use of state or federal funds or insurance coverage to pay for these surgeries.”
Blue Arizona passed a similar no boys in girls’ sports measure by landslide votes of 59-41 percent and Red Nebraska put a ban on transgenders in girls’ sports into their constitution by a 68-32 percent margin.
And, of course, Democrats did their best – and looks like they succeeded – in coopting the “affordability” message from Republicans, but in case folks failed to notice this, did not explain in any detail what that means to them, especially here in Vermont. And, of more course, their message was anti-Trump.
So, here is the challenge for both parties: don’t misread the voters’ message.
For Vermont Democrats (why am I writing this, they aren’t going to listen to me, but anyway…), you were given power with the expectation that you will lower the cost of living for your constituents and oppose the President. That means no taxes, surcharges, fees, etcetera on heating fuel and gasoline. No income tax increases on “billionaires” curiously defined as anyone earning $250,000 a year. No new or increased payroll taxes. Get our freakin’ property taxes under control. Don’t go bat crazy with wackadoodle cultural and social engineering nonsense. And, all you should really do over the next two years is pass non-binding resolution after resolution condemning whatever the president does.
But here’s my prediction on this front: They will not govern based on what they campaigned on, and get ready for bat crazy.
For Republicans (and if history is a guide, they probably won’t listen to me either…) don’t take this election as a rejection of the affordability agenda and feel you need to back down on policy principals because you lost. That’s not why you lost. You lost because of a historically unpopular president in a mid-term election. If anything, you need to stand stronger as, in my humble opinion, a part of the reason you lost as big as you did was because you backed away from real, meaningful affordability reforms, especially regarding property tax relief.
The Blue Wave wiped out a lot of Republican messengers, but not so much a Republican policy message. And that’s the message I hope folks will take away.