Here is a telling statistic: In Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats spent $18 million on campaign ads that mentioned President Donald Trump while Republicans spent just $1.3 million on ads that invoked the name of the man who totally dominates their party.
That is a pretty good indication that the key factor that produced the Democrats’ sweep of elections from New Jersey and Virginia to California Tuesday night was animosity toward Trump. Sure, people are upset about the economy, but Americans are almost always grumbling about the economy. According to exit polls, it was anger at the would-be autocrat in the White House that was motivating the biggest share of voters.
The purest expression of this anger came in California, where just a single issue was on the ballot: a suspension of a bipartisan redistricting regime that will allow the Democrat-controlled legislature to redraw the lines of congressional districts to make it likely Republicans will lose five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The successful measure, Prop. 50, was Gov. Gavin Newsom’s direct response to the Republican Texas legislature’s gerrymandering of districts in the Lone Star State to steal five U.S. House seats from Democrats — a political stunt concocted by Trump.
In an unusually high turnout of voters, Californians passed Prop. 50 by a landslide 65%, enthused by the chance to take on Trump in a down-and-dirty redistricting rumble. One voter waiting in an impressively long line at a polling station told an MSNBC reporter he was willing to wait for hours to cast his vote; he said he was there to defend his freedom.
The economy is a perennially compelling issue, but, when voters feel their liberties being taken away, freedom trumps any other concern. If Tuesday’s Democratic victories are any indication, “No Kings” will be the Democrats’ most effective rallying cry in next year’s midterm elections.
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