| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| And elected Democrats for governor in Virginia and New Jersey and for mayor of New York City. | ||
| We begin with that and look at last night's off-year election results and what it could mean for the upcoming 2026 midterm races with Kirk Vado. | ||
| He's editor of National Journal's political newsletter, The Hotline. | ||
| Kirk, welcome to the program. | ||
| Morning, thanks for having me. | ||
| So before we talk about the specific races, give us the overall, the major storyline of yesterday's election. | ||
| The major takeaway is that it was a great night for Democrats. | ||
| They won races in Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, California by overwhelming margins. | ||
| This is a really encouraging, really strong night for Democrats and one that Republicans are very worried about. | ||
| When you say overwhelming, was it unexpected, the margins that they won by? | ||
| Democrats went into the marquee races in California with the redistricting referendum, the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia as the favorites. | ||
| But the margins that we saw here last night in terms of turnout and then the Democrat victories was way more than we expected. | ||
| Abigail Spamberg, the new governor-elect of Virginia, won with the largest margin since for a Democrat since George H.W. Bush was president. | ||
| They've also swept in about a dozen seats in the House of Delegates that they flipped. | ||
| This is a huge night for Democrats. | ||
| All right, so you mentioned the governor's race in Virginia. | ||
| What about the New Jersey governor race? | ||
| New Jersey governor race was supposed to be the closer of the two, and we're still waiting for the final votes to get counted there. | ||
| But Mikey Sherrill, the Democratic nominee there, ran up similar margins to Spamberger. | ||
| Now, New Jersey was a state that shifted toward Trump pretty decisively in the last election. | ||
| Harris only won it by about six points. | ||
| Jack Chitterelli, the Republican nominee there, got within three points of beating Phil Murphy four years ago. | ||
| Mikey Sherrill's running away with this right now by more than five points here, which is a big blowout considering how partisan everything is right now. | ||
| This is a really, really encouraging night for Democrats again. | ||
| Well, let's talk about the New York City mayor's race, Momdani's victory. | ||
| Mamdani's victory was, he was entering in as the favorite. | ||
| There was probably a little to no chance that Andrew Cuomo or Curtis Ilwell were going to catch up to him. | ||
| The big question was, was he going to get 50% or more? | ||
| And as we're sitting here this morning, I believe the AP has at about 50.4, which in a three-way race, even if Andrew Cuomo had about 40%, it's a big mandate for him coming in. | ||
| And he talked about that last night in his victory speech where he thanked his supporters and said, you have given me the mandate for change. | ||
| And I think that's a statement, that's a sediment that Democrats are going to latch on to as they start pivoting toward the midterms, this mandate for change. | ||
| And we'll take your calls during this first half hour of the program for Kirk Beto of the National Journal. | ||
| The numbers are biparty. | ||
| So Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also join us on text. | ||
| That's 202-748-8003. | ||
| And we're on Facebook and on X. | ||
| The California Prop 50. | ||
| Explain that and the margins that you saw there. | ||
| Yeah, so Prop 50 was the only item on the ballot this time for California. | ||
| And it was in response to the redistricting going on in Texas. | ||
| Trump and the White House put pressure on Republicans in Texas to redraw their map. | ||
| And Texas has a lot of looser laws around redistricting. | ||
| So the governor was able to convene the General Assembly. | ||
| And the Republican-dominated legislature was able to draw five new Republican-leaning districts. | ||
| Davin Newsom, the Democratic governor, said that, look, we're going to fight fire with fire here. | ||
| But California has a lot more complicated process. | ||
| They had to first pass the map in the state legislature, but then put it before voters because California has an independent redistricting commission. | ||
| Now, this language on the proposition was very explicit, that this is going to be in response to Texas' map, that we are going to push back on Trump. | ||
| This will allow the legislature to redraw the lines until the end of the decade, when after 2030, when the regular reapportionment process starts, then it will go back to the redistricting independent commission. | ||
| This ballot referendum was supposed to be a real drag-em-out affair when this was announced about a month and a half ago. | ||
| We at Hotline were thinking that it's going to be more 50-50. | ||
| But Gavin Newsome, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic Party outraised, outspent any opposition to this referendum. | ||
| It's now going to pass with a larger margin than Harris carried California. | ||
| And the AP called this race right when polls closed. | ||
| It was a resounding victory for Democrats, resounding victory for Gavin Newsom, who we know has 2028 ambitions, and a big defeat for Trump, who could have gotten much more involved in this, but he chose to stay on the sidelines here. | ||
| And now Democrats are going to be able to draw five new districts leaning toward their party, neutralizing the advantage that Texas Republicans thought they had. | ||
| Do these results impact the shutdown at all? | ||
| Does this change the calculus for Democrats or Republicans? | ||
| That's what I was trying to find out a little last night and working some of my Hill sources on the Democratic side and seeing what their thought process is after this overwhelming victory. | ||
| And I think after we see this C in Virginia, this overwhelming win in New Jersey, top 50 in California, again, it's not like these are deep blue areas either. | ||
| They won in swing seats. | ||
| They won in redder areas as well down in Georgia at the public service commissioner race. | ||
| They're really emboldened right now to not give an inch. | ||
| And I think that's going to help prolong this shutdown, and maybe this will help bring Republicans to the table as well. | ||
| And we will, actually, I just want to show what President Trump put out on Truth Social about the election. | ||
| This was at 10.05 p.m. last night. | ||
| It says, quote, Trump wasn't on the ballot and shutdown were the two reasons that Republicans lost elections tonight, according to pollsters. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Do you think that that drove the shutdown drove Democrats to the polls? | ||
| I think it definitely had a big effect in Virginia, where there's a large share of federal workers who are without a paycheck right now. | ||
| Same thing with the Doge cuts earlier this year. | ||
| All of that was winned at Spamberger and other Democrats back. | ||
| I think the biggest factor, though, is what he said first, and that said his name was not on the ballot. | ||
| Democrats made gains amongst the voters who are more likely to turn out in midterm and off-year elections. | ||
| They're doing really well with low-propensity voters. | ||
| Trump does better in presidential years when he's on the ticket, when there's a groundswell of people coming to the polls. | ||
| We've seen this happen in special elections so far this year where Democrats have a turnout and enthusiasm advantage. | ||
| And I think that's the crisis that Republicans are waking up to this morning, is that that Trump coalition is really bound to Trump in presidential years. | ||
| They struggle to get them out in midterms. | ||
| They struggle to get them out in off-year elections. | ||
| If I'm looking ahead to 2026, I'm trying to think of everything I can to get Trump in voters' faces so that that base will turn out and combat this Democratic wave that might be coming down the pike. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers. | ||
| We'll start with Alexis in Detroit, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm not sure how much analysis really is required for these election results. | ||
| I'll just say that, you know, as somebody who's in Michigan, a generally purple state, you know, New Jersey, I always assume, is blue. | ||
| And I'm independent. | ||
| I want mostly Democrats to win. | ||
| But California and New York are not the way that Michigan goes. | ||
| Or I would say anywhere from like, you know, western Pennsylvania all the way to Utah. | ||
| That doesn't say anything about the middle of the country. | ||
| What I want to know is what do you think this state says about the middle of the country voters where it has been referred to as Trump country before? | ||
| Because I just don't think it says much. | ||
| Am I happy about the results last night? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| But I think what needs to happen is they need to, the Democratic Party, I'm not a Democrat. | ||
| I don't like the DNC. | ||
| I don't like most Democratic politicians. | ||
| Let me just state that very clearly. | ||
| But I think what needs to happen is they need to take the populist economic message that the new mayor-elect of New York has and get rid of his stances on Israel, transgender, immigration, because they're not going to win in the middle of the country with that. | ||
| All right, Alexis. | ||
| Well, you know, I was a guy from Western Pennsylvania. | ||
| I was born in Pittsburgh. | ||
| I resonate with that a little bit. | ||
| But what's interesting here is that Democrats, regardless of where they fall on the spectrum within the party yesterday, one in one big, you know, Zoran Mamdani and Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spamber don't have a whole lot in common, but one thing they do have in common is that they were laser-focused on affordability issues. | ||
| You saw them talk about that everywhere on the trail. | ||
| Even when Trump started weighing in on the New York mayor's race, Zohar and Mamdani said, you know, I'm actually focused on lowering costs here. | ||
| You know, I'm actually focused on making sure people are fed. | ||
| You know, I'm making sure of stabilizing the rent here. | ||
| I think that's a message that Democrats can take, not just from New Jersey and Virginia and New York, but that's a message that's going to play in Michigan. | ||
| That's a message that's going to play in Western Pennsylvania. | ||
| That's going to be a message that's going to play in Trump country because that's one of the messages that Trump hammered home on during the final stretch of his campaign as well. | ||
| Do we have any information on segmentation of the electorate? | ||
| Do we know anything about how Latino voters went in yesterday's election, black voters, that kind of thing? | ||
| So I was really laser focused in New Jersey on New Jersey's ninth congressional district. | ||
| That's Nellie Poe. | ||
| It's a Democrat-held district, but it's a district that shifted the most, I believe, in the country from Biden in 20 to Trump in 24. | ||
| It's a district that Biden carried by 19 points in 2020 to a district that Trump carried by a single point in 2024. | ||
| And the reason for that was the large Hispanic voter population in Passaic County, Hudson County, and Bergen County. | ||
| So I was really watching those margins to see how Latino voters were going to break this time. | ||
| And Mikey Sherrill did really well there. | ||
| Turnout, of course, was lower, which again, I think taught to what we were saying earlier: that Trump inspires a lot of people to come out to vote. | ||
| When he's not on the ticket, those more reliably Democratic voters are there. | ||
| But this is a really encouraging sign for Democrats because they've struggled over the last few cycles with Latino voters. | ||
| And Mikey Sherrill was able to win those areas pretty decisively there. | ||
| So I think it does bode well for Democrats right now. | ||
| Helen, Long Beach, California, Republican line. | ||
| Go ahead, Helen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm doubting the credibility of the election results in California. | |
| I'm a Republican in California, Los Angeles County. | ||
| I've been mailing for 10 years. | ||
| I have used mail-in ballot to cast my vote. | ||
| And for 10 years, I always received within days of mailing off my mail-in ballot, confirmation, email confirmation. | ||
| This time, I casted my vote by mail in early October. | ||
| I have never received a confirmation. | ||
| Now, this is the first time in 10 years. | ||
| So my question is: well, this is what I'm going to state. | ||
| This election in California needs to be closely examined. | ||
| I don't feel that there's some, I feel like there's dishonesty going on. | ||
| There's a lot of Republicans, a lot of people who are very strong against this Proposition 50, probably Democrats too. | ||
| I'd like to see the numbers. | ||
| I'd like to see how overwhelming the Democrats came out and voted to have this yes on Proposition 50. | ||
| So that's my comment. | ||
| And I'm hoping someone at a higher level is going to take this, take my words and take a very close look at how the process of the ballots were counted. | ||
| Helen, can I ask you before you go, were you against just redistricting in California or are you against redistricting in general in other states as well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was against redistricting. | |
| And well, I'm a California lifer. | ||
| So my world is California, and I'm always directly impacted by the policies of California. | ||
| Yes, it was against Proposition 50. | ||
| I felt that it was just a power grab by the Democrats in power in California. | ||
| And I feel still to this day that there's something wrong with this last election. | ||
| So that's my concern. | ||
| And I hope someone at a higher level takes a good long run. | ||
| You've got that, Helen. | ||
| And I do think I can't speak to the locality of where she cast her ballot there, but the DOJ did send election watchers to California and New Jersey to make sure that the process went smoothly. | ||
| And it seems like it has. | ||
| The final margins are still being tallied. | ||
| California takes its good, sweet time in tallying all its ballots because of all the mail-in votes that come in. | ||
| But from what we're seeing over the last few hours of returns, there's everything pretty in line with what the polling said it was. | ||
| It's a very overwhelming victory for Democrats right now. | ||
| I don't think there was anything, any funny business going on there. | ||
| And I think that the resistance to this from Republicans, more independent-minded groups, was just not enough to push back on the Democratic enthusiasm to have a check on Trump and Republicans. | ||
| Let's talk to Liz, a Democrat in New Jersey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Liz, did you vote yesterday? | |
| No, I do the mail-in, and I was following this election very closely. | ||
| I'm a lifelong New Jersey citizen here. | ||
| And this defeat of the Magatites, to me, they never had a strong position in this state. | ||
| New Jersey also understands Donald Trump in a way that other people don't. | ||
| They see him for the con man that he is and always has been. | ||
| And I think Cheryl's margin was going to be tighter if it was the straight-up election and Trump wasn't trying to stick it to the New Jersey taxpayers by taking away the tunnel repair situation to our north. | ||
| He made it much more difficult for any Republican, even a moderate one, which we tend to elect occasionally. | ||
| But if you could think back to the administration of Chris Christie, he had the same sort of tough guy, nonsensical mindset. | ||
| And when he fell from grace, he got elected by getting quite a few of the Republican or excuse me, the Democrat bosses to favor him and not the Democratic candidate. | ||
| We are going to leave this here for a briefing from the National Transportation Safety Board on the UPS cargo aircraft plane crash in Louisville, Kentucky. | ||
| It killed nine people and injured others. | ||
| This is live coverage. | ||
| 5:15 last night at the Louisville Airport. |