Yes, last night’s wins are really bad news for Democrats in 2024. The polls were wrong about Democratic candidates, but they must be right about Biden being in trouble, right?

AP News: Virginia Democrats sweep legislative elections after campaigning on abortion rights.

Virginia Democrats who campaigned on protecting abortion rights swept Tuesday’s legislative elections, retaking full control of the General Assembly after two years of divided power.

The outcome is a sharp loss for Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his fellow Republicans, who exerted a great deal of energy, money and political capital on their effort to secure a GOP trifecta.

“It’s official: there will be absolutely no abortion ban legislation sent to Glenn Youngkin’s desk for the duration of his term in office, period, as we have thwarted MAGA Republicans’ attempt to take total control of our government and our bodies,” Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke said in a statement referencing Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Virginia was one of just four states holding legislative races this year, and it’s something of a microcosm of other closely divided states that will be critical in next year’s presidential election. That fueled outsized interest in the expensive, hard-fought legislative races, as both parties closely monitored the results for signs about voter moods heading into the 2024 campaign.

The AP thinks these results could sort of be good for Biden.

The results in Virginia — along with a win for abortion rights supporters on an Ohio ballot measure and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s reelection in Kentucky — will comfort the national party as President Joe Biden and other Democrats are expected to prioritize abortion rights in next year’s campaign to energize their voters.

Vera Alabaster, Girl Reading

“This is a huge sign of Democrats’ continued momentum heading into 2024. With so much on the line, voters showed up at the ballot box and sent the GOP a stark warning — betting big on the MAGA agenda doesn’t fly with everyday Americans, and it will cost them once again in 2024,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said of Virginia’s results in a statement.

“This is a huge sign of Democrats’ continued momentum heading into 2024. With so much on the line, voters showed up at the ballot box and sent the GOP a stark warning — betting big on the MAGA agenda doesn’t fly with everyday Americans, and it will cost them once again in 2024,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said of Virginia’s results in a statement.

The New York Times: Ohio Vote Continues a Winning Streak for Abortion Rights.

Ohio’s resounding approval of a ballot measure enshrining a right to abortion in the State Constitution continued a winning streak for abortion-rights groups that have appealed directly to voters after the demise of Roe v. Wade.

Abortion rights advocates who 18 months ago saw few paths around a conservative Supreme Court and gerrymandered legislatures, have instead found success by tapping into popular support.

Issue 1, as the ballot measure is known, had become the country’s most-watched race in the off-year elections, as both parties try to gauge whether voter anger over the loss of the federal right to abortion could help Democrats in next year’s presidential and congressional races.

National groups on both sides of the debate poured money into Ohio in recent weeks, delivering a frenzy of ads and canvassers, arguments and misinformation.

While abortion-rights groups prevailed in six out of six state ballot measures last year, Ohio was considered the toughest fight yet. And the victory lifted the hopes of abortion-rights groups pushing similar measures next year in red and purple states, including Arizona, South Dakota, Missouri and Florida.

“Seven times abortion has been put on the ballot across the country, and seven times voters have turned out overwhelmingly to defend it,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly Naral. “Once again, voters sent a clear message to Republicans and anti-abortion extremists: We believe in the right to abortion, and we are the majority.”

NBC News: Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear wins re-election in Kentucky.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky has won re-election, defying the usual political leanings of the red state, NBC News projects.

Beshear defeated GOP state Attorney General Daniel Cameron in an expensive and hard-fought race.

Beshear’s re-election in a state President Joe Biden lost by 26 percentage points in 2020 was due in part to the unique brand he has built in Kentucky, separate from the national party. But the victory is still a welcome sign for Democrats ahead of next year’s presidential race, with recent governor’s elections in Kentucky having previewed presidential victories to come.

In his bid for a second term, Beshear leveraged the popularity he built over the last four years, touting the state’s economic progress and his response to natural disasters, including devastating floods.

Beshear also ran on abortion.

Kentucky has a near-total ban on abortion, which took effect last year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated federal protection for the right to an abortion. An ad from the Beshear campaign featured a young woman whose stepfather raped her when she was 12 years old.

“Anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it’s like to stand in my shoes,” the woman said in the ad. “This is to you, Daniel Cameron: To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable.”

It is a powerful ad. I’d like to post it here, but WordPress won’t let me.

A couple of smaller victories for Democrats:

A woman reading, by Gabriel Metsu, 1653-4

The Hill: Democrat flips deep-red New Jersey assembly seat in upset.

Democrats have successfully flipped a seat in New Jersey’s General Assembly in a a deep-red district that has not elected a Democratic legislator in three decades.

Decision Desk HQ projects that Democrat Avi Schnall has won a seat in the assembly, unseating incumbent Republican Assemblyman Ned Thomson. Voters in each New Jersey legislative district choose two assembly members to represent them, so the contest was a four-way race featuring two Democrats and two Republicans. 

Schnall was elected alongside incumbent Republican Assemblyman Sean Kean in the 30th District.

Schnall is a former New Jersey director of an organization that advocates for the interests of Orthodox Jews called Agudath Israel of America. He received significant backing from the township of Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community.

He’s also reportedly a former Republican and could vote with Republicans in the assembly on some issues. But the flip is still a big win for Democrats.

The Daily Beast: Moms for Liberty Candidates Take a Beating in Some School Races.

Moms for Liberty, the right-wing “parental rights” group advocating a hardline anti-woke agenda in America’s schools, had a rough night in Tuesday’s elections for school board seats around the country.

The organization, considered an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, endorsed scores of candidates in school districts in several states from Alaska to North Carolina. But the group’s record backing book bans, opposing racially inclusive lessons in classrooms, and pushing anti-LGBTQ messages seemingly failed to connect with voters in multiple ballots.

A key battleground for MfL was Pennsylvania, where the group endorsed over 50 candidates in some 28 districts.In 2021, Moms for Liberty claimed credit for 33 seats in Bucks County, claiming that eight out of 13 districts “now have a majority of school board members that value parental rights.” Ahead of Tuesday’s election, MfL endorsed only a single candidate in the county—though some of this year’s candidates in Philadelphia suburbs sympathetic to the extreme organization may have feared that an outright endorsement from the extreme organization could scare off moderate voters, according to ThePhiladelphia Inquirer.

A “voter guide” from the group earlier this year recommended candidates in five districts but stressed that the messaging was “not an official endorsement.” All five of the Republican candidates in Central Bucks—which has been roiled for years by culture war rows—were included in the guide. But after Tuesday’s vote, the district’s school board was swept by Democrats who won five seats.

More wins described at the link.

Not election related, but a very big win for Biden and Democrats:

NBC News: Senate confirms Biden’s 150th judge.

President Joe Biden has hit a milestone as the Democratic-led Senate confirmed his 150th federal judge.

Back-to-back votes Tuesday made Kenly Kiya Kato and Julia Kobick district court judges in California and Massachusetts, respectively, totaling 113 district court judges chosen by Biden.

Reading Woman, by Patrick Bornemann

He has also secured lifetime appointments for 36 appeals court judges — who have the final word on most matters of federal law — and one Supreme Court justice: Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it “a very important day in the Senate.”

“Our 150th judge confirmed under President Biden,” he told reporters. “That’s really a great record: 150 judges who have brought integrity and impartiality to the bench, 150 judges who’ve expanded the diversity and dynamism of our courts, 150 judges who are restoring Americans’ trust in the federal judiciary.”

Schumer added that Kobick, who was confirmed on a 52-46 vote Tuesday evening, is “our 100th female judge” the Senate has confirmed in the Biden era.

“We’re making the bench look more like America. It never did,” he said. “And we’re making giant strides, more than any other Senate has, to get that done.”

Reshaping the courts with more public defenders and greater diversity has been a high priority for Biden and Schumer. In four years, former President Donald Trump and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky steered through 234 federal judges — most of them young, conservative and poised to serve for decades — including three Supreme Court justices who tilted the court to the right and paved the way for the landmark ruling last year that overturned Roe v. Wade.

I’ll end with some commentary on last night’s election results:

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice: Elections are more important than polls.

Some 48 hours ago, pundits were rushing to explain how, why, where, and exactly to what extent the Democratic Party is doomed.

A New York Times/Sienna poll released last weekend showed President Joe Biden catastrophically trailing indicted orange gasbag of hatred former President Donald Trump in virtually every key swing state. According to the poll, Trump leads Biden by five points in Arizona, four in Pennsylvania, six in Georgia, and 11 in Nevada. Analysts like Nate Silver and Matt Yglesias made panicky noises, condemning Dems for not mounting a serious primary challenge to the incumbent. There was weeping, there was gnashing of teeth.

And then, we had an actual election.

Young Woman Reading, by Nagy Vilmos

Tuesday night’s results are difficult to square with the “Biden and Democrats are doomed” narrative. In an off-year election, with the incumbent president’s approval rating mired below 40 percent, you would normally expect the president’s party to be stomped, crushed, spindled, and obliterated.

But instead, Democrats did fine. In fact, they did better than fine, and then even better than that. Tuesday looked a lot like a blue wave, with Democrats romping to victory in blue and purple states and overperforming dramatically in red ones.

It’s difficult to predict what this means for 2024. But we know that in 2022 and now in 2023, Biden’s low approval rating appeared to be entirely disconnected from Democratic performance. That should at least give the likes of Silver and Yglesias a moment’s pause in their punditing of apocalypse….

The most impressive victory for Democrats on Tuesday was in deep red Kentucky. Democrat Andy Beshear managed to win the governor’s race in 2019, when Donald Trump’s unpopularity helped Democrats to a strong national performance. Beshear’s polling for 2023 showed a close race between him and Trump-endorsed challenger Daniel Cameron; conventional wisdom was that Beshear could win, but would probably have a narrower margin given Biden’s approval numbers.

Instead, Beshear won easily, 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent, far outpacing his narrow .4 percent win in 2019. For the second straight year, Trump’s endorsement backfired in a key race (remember Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker?).

Many analysts attributed Beshear’s win in a Trump +26 state to his personal brand and relentless campaigning. And it’s clear that Beshear is an extremely talented politician. But in general, when your party’s president has an approval rating 17 points underwater, even talented politicians struggle. A five point win for a Democrat in Kentucky cannot be reasonably described as a struggle.

Read more analysis at the link.

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: Please, Please, It’s Too Much Winning. We Can’t Take It Any More.

Republicans are licking their wounds and surveying the carnage from yesterday’s election, but there’s no sign that it will break Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP.

You probably remember Trump’s immortal line from 2016: “We’re going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning.” The next line in that riff is the pièce de résistance: “Please, please, it’s too much winning. We can’t take it any more.”

Here’s how all that winning is looking right now 😭😭😭 …

• Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) on Newsmax: “It was a secret sauce for disaster in Ohio. I don’t know what they were thinking. Thank goodness that most of the states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot because pure democracies are not the way to run a country.”
• Sean Hannity on Fox News: “Democrats are trying to scare women into thinking Republicans don’t want abortion legal under any circumstances.”
• Newsmax anchor: “It does seem like the Republican Party generally has a real problem with winning.”

Watch the videos at the link, because I’m not allowed to post them here. Santorum really stepped in it, but that’s nothing new for him.

It was a great night, and I don’t believe the polls. They’ve been wrong since 2016. Besides, the 2020  election is a year away. Polls are meaningless at this point, despite what the pundits want you to believe.

Soooo much winning! Can you stand it? Have a great Wednesday everyone!!