People’s Choice Awards
After a week of reading gloomy reports in the polls, Democrats had a great day at the polls. Abortion was a the driving issue across several states, following a trend that began with the overturning of Roe. “The political potency of abortion rights proved more powerful than the drag of President Biden’s approval ratings in Tuesday’s off-year elections, as Ohioans enshrined a right to abortion in their state’s constitution, and Democrats took control of both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly while holding on to Kentucky’s governorship.” NYT (Gift Article): How Abortion Lifted Democrats, and More Takeaways From Tuesday’s Elections.
+ WaPo (Gift Article): “Abortion rights advocates won major victories Tuesday as voters in conservative-leaning Ohio decisively passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to abortion, while those in ruby-red Kentucky reelected a Democratic governor who aggressively attacked his opponent for supporting the state’s near-total ban on the procedure. In Virginia, a battleground state where Republicans pushed a proposal to outlaw most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Democrats were projected to take control of the state legislature after campaigning heavily on preserving access.”
+ “The outcomes suggested that, as in 2022, an unusually broad group of voters who believe that Democrats have not delivered for their interests voted for the party’s candidates anyway because they apparently considered the Republican alternatives a threat to their rights and values on abortion and other cultural issues.” Ronald Brownstein in The Atlantic (Gift Article) on Dem wins from Virginia to Kentucky to Ohio. “Even as many Democrats have been driven to a near panic by a succession of recent polls showing President Joe Biden’s extreme vulnerability, the party in yesterday’s elections swept almost all the most closely watched contests. ”
+ After he was falsely accused in the Central Park jogger case, Donald Trump called for his execution. Now Yusef Salaam will be on the New York City Council. (We’re approaching a scenario where one of the Central Park Five is in office and Donald Trump is in jail.)
