| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
And the EMS. | |
| They can trust in the prayers of their fellow Americans. | ||
| And I want them to know that their representatives here in Washington are making sure that every federal resource they need is on the ground and ended their way soon. | ||
| I spoke with Mayor Greenberg this morning. | ||
| I came and I'll continue to stay in close contact with local, state, and federal officials, including at the FAA and the NTSB in the coming days. | ||
| But first and foremost, I'm keeping my fellow Kentuckians in my prayers and asking our colleagues to do the same. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Democracy. | |
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Voters went to the polls yesterday 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 Bado. | ||
| 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? | ||
| The 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. | ||
| Mondani's victory was, he was entering in as the favorite. | ||
| There was probably a little to no chance that Andrew Cuomo or Curtis Silwell 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 it 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. | ||
| 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 bipartisan. | ||
| So Democrats are on 2028-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| 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 in the proposition was very explicit, that this is going to be in response to Texas's 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 Newsom, 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, Prop 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 wind at Spanberger and other Democrats back. | ||
| I think the biggest factor, though, is what he said first, and that's that 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: 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 the 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, what 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, Zohran Mamdani and Mikey Sherr and Abidale 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, Zoharan Mandami 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 cast 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, how, 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 hierarchy. | ||
| You've done 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 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, excuse me, the Democrat bosses to favor him and not the Democratic candidate. | ||
| All right, Liz. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
| Well, I think the Trump factor that Liz was talking about there was pretty astute, that Trump was not very active in these off-year elections. | ||
| He held a tele rally for Jack Shidderelli in New Jersey, did one the same thing for Republicans in Virginia. | ||
| But he wasn't active on the campaign trail in person, but his policies were front and center here. | ||
| In Virginia, it was laying off all the federal workers. | ||
| It's shut down right now. | ||
| And in New Jersey, like Liz said there, it's that Greenway Tunnel between New Jersey and New York that he yanked funds from. | ||
| That was a big infrastructure project that had a lot of bipartisan support, and people were really angry about it. | ||
| And that project, remind us what that was supposed to do. | ||
| Was that just improving that tunnel? | ||
| It was road improvements in there to ease in traffic between New Jersey and New York. | ||
| And it had a lot of bipartisan support. | ||
| People were really excited about it. | ||
| I mean, have you ever driven up in New York? | ||
| It's miserable up there. | ||
| And that was supposed to help ease the pressure a little bit. | ||
| This is a good common sense infrastructure project that Trump and the administration yanked the funds from as a way to punish Democratic-leaning states for the shutdown going on right now. | ||
| So Jack Shittarelli, who in the past has kind of tried to keep Trump at arm's length, wrapped his arms around him this time after he came within six points of flipping New Jersey. | ||
| In fact, one of the big issues in the closing weeks of the campaign was Chitterelli was asked during a debate, what raid would you give the first few months of the Trump administration? | ||
| And he said he would give it an A. Democrats pounced on that remark and they hammered it over the airwaves. | ||
| Mikey Sherill kept talking about it on the campaign trail. | ||
| And I think that is a little bit of a warning, too, for Republicans running in purple-ish areas that you claim to Trump at your own peril. | ||
| In Livingston, New Jersey, Independent Line, Josephine, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What happened in New Jersey hasn't happened since 1961. | ||
| And what am I talking about? | ||
| Consecutive election of the same party. | ||
| It doesn't happen in New Jersey. | ||
| So when you say we're a blue state, not really. | ||
| Every time you turn around, Republican gets in, next time, Democrat gets in. | ||
| This hasn't happened since 1961. | ||
| What was the trigger? | ||
| Quite frankly, Trump. | ||
| Let me tell you something. | ||
| His treatment of people as cattle, as garbage. | ||
| Can't do that to people. | ||
| And we see it with our own eyes. | ||
| I don't have to hear. | ||
| And what he did to the White House, are you kidding me? | ||
| This man is having a party in Mar-a-Lago and Halloween while people are starving. | ||
| Give me a break. | ||
| Anything to add on the Trump factor? | ||
| What I'm going to say is that these off-year elections are clearly seen as a referendum on the party in power in the White House. | ||
| You saw in 2021 big wins for Republicans in Virginia. | ||
| They came close in New Jersey. | ||
| They flipped some seats in some special elections in New York as well. | ||
| And that was kind of the early canary in the coal mine for the Biden administration. | ||
| And I think we're seeing something similar play out here for the Trump administration. | ||
| His approval ratings have been taking a big hit as this shutdown drags on. | ||
| His approval ratings have been underwater since March when he announced the first run of tariffs. | ||
| I think this is a really dangerous political spot for Republicans and Trump to be in. | ||
| And last night was proof positive of that. | ||
| And to California, Republican Mike, you're on the air. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm a history teacher. | ||
| Your guest there is pretty biased. | ||
| But I'd like to say congratulations to the elite liberal media who serves as the offensive team of the left and the Democrats who serve as a defensive team of the left. | ||
| They went out and they did their job. | ||
| They're supposed to be objective, the media, of course, but they get out and served as the official team left and demonized Trump and made him part of the part of the election, as far as that goes. | ||
| And that, and so doing what they do, and this is the game, the Democrats also have to talk about where they stand on the issues because elite liberal media is out there demonizing the Republican, getting the voter to try to vote against the Republican, | ||
| and therefore not even illuminating the extremism of the Democrats and where they stand on the issues, like say, you know, open borders and teaching homosexualities and alternative lifestyle to second graders and so forth. | ||
| So that's the game. | ||
| So congratulations to them. | ||
| They did a great job, but they did serve the country, is my opinion. | ||
| Mike, did you vote on the Prop 50 question? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I voted no. | |
| That was totally hypocritical. | ||
| I mean, as far as it goes, but that was a powerful. | ||
| Sorry, and you said you had a second point? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| The second point is the. | ||
| Now, I noticed that 90% of the blacks voted Democrat, so they came back on the liberal plantation. | ||
| But what they didn't realize is that... | ||
| Wait, where are you getting the 90% for which election are you talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The one last night. | |
| 90% blacks voted no longer. | ||
| Overall for all of them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| What do we know about that, Kirk? | ||
| I haven't dug into the demographic crosstabs quite yet because I wanted more votes to come in, especially out in California. | ||
| But to Mike's point, negative partisanship is a heck of a drug, and that does fuel a lot of enthusiasm for Democrats right now. | ||
| But what I think is a bigger story here is that there was a lot more enthusiasm for voters to turn out for Democrats' message of lowering costs, fighting for more affordability, and frankly, just pushing back on some of the more detrimental policies that Trump has put out here right now, like the tariffs, the shutdown that's going on right now and the furlough in federal workers, especially in Virginia. | ||
| This is Audrey and Philly on by Text who says, thrilled about Momdani's victory, but worried the DNC will sabotage him and take the wrong lessons from yesterday's results. | ||
| What can Momdani actually accomplish as mayor? | ||
| I think the lessons that Democrats across the country are going to try to take from not just Mamdani, but Mikey Sherrill, Abigail Spamberger, as well as that affordability message. | ||
| I don't think you're going to see someone running for Congress in Michigan talking about making the buses free or making the community grocery centers that Mamdani's talking about. | ||
| I think the lesson here is going to be to be your authentic self. | ||
| I think Mamdani ran an incredible campaign. | ||
| His campaign videos, I think, are going to be studied in political science classes for years to come here, especially that halal video where he's doing a John Oliver style explaining about why your halal plate is getting more expensive. | ||
| I think that's going to be the takeaway here, where it's less so much about the individual policies and more about how do you campaign authentically in 2025 and 2026 and beyond. | ||
| He's also the first Muslim mayor of New York City. | ||
| What did his, or how did his religion play in this campaign? | ||
| It was a big question going into the primary, but then during the closing weeks of this general election, it kind of reached a fever pitch. | ||
| You saw a lot of the attacks lodged against him were very Islamophobic. | ||
| They talked about his, he had talked about on the campaign trail about how his family was affected by 9-11, how they experienced Islamophobia in the streets. | ||
| And Republicans kind of latched onto that to say, like, he doesn't really understand what happened here that he's talking more about. | ||
| You know, someone gave his aunt a mean look on the bus, which is incredible that he was able to overcome that, that he was able to have that sort of grace. | ||
| You know, last night he was talking about being a mayor for all New Yorkers, even the people who voted against him. | ||
| And I think he's going to run into the reality of governing here pretty quickly. | ||
| He's only 34 years old. | ||
| I think his biggest challenge here is not going to be so much the Islamophobia that he's faced on the campaign trail, but running into the realities of governing one of the largest city bureaucracies in the world. | ||
| And I'm going to be interested to see how he handles that. | ||
| Jasper in Memphis, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Jasper. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First thing, I want to say congratulations to the American people, especially the Democrats, and especially the white woman that came home to preserve our democracy. | |
| Pete Herrickson had put the women down. | ||
| He took them out of power for the military. | ||
| He wanted to bring the equal standards. | ||
| And he doesn't care about people, and Trump is behind that. | ||
| Number one is, first thing I want to say is that the way that this country has went down, when Trump left here the last time he was in power, we had food lines. | ||
| Here we go again. | ||
| We're in food lines. | ||
| The jobs are gone. | ||
| And the people that support Trump, those are the ones that most needed these jobs and his education benefits. | ||
| Now, America is the lasting stock of the world. | ||
| Nobody can trust Trump. | ||
| So the people got together all across all demographics and said, wait a minute, our country is going in the wrong direction. | ||
| We need to change this around. | ||
| We are American. | ||
| We believe in the law. | ||
| We believe in the democracy and the Constitution of our country. | ||
| But the Republicans that's in charge up there now do not believe in our Constitution. | ||
| And they got the Supreme Court going right along with them. | ||
| So that's the reason why that American people came out. | ||
| And the midterm is going to be more powerful than this is. | ||
| This is not just a pilube of it. | ||
| All right, Jasper. | ||
| I think the point here that the negative partisanship and pushback against Trump was universal here. | ||
| You know, we've been reading a lot about the opinion polls right now that show the Democratic Party somewhere between a root canal and a journalist in terms of their approval rating right now, which is a lot worse than they were at this point eight years ago during the first Trump administration. | ||
| So I think that the lesson here as well is that voters, because we're in this two-party system right now, are going to hold their nose and vote for an unpopular Democrat as a way to put a check on an even more unpopular administration. | ||
| Well, take a look at this. | ||
| This is Diane in New Jersey who says, my takeaway from last night was the victory of Jay Jones, that's Attorney General in Virginia. | ||
| It shows Democrats don't really care about anything but power. | ||
| After his text wishing his opponent dead and his children dying in their mother's arms, it's disgusting. | ||
| No pearl clutching here. | ||
| If the races were in red states, we'd be hearing about Republican wins. | ||
| That's what I think is really remarkable. | ||
| The Jay Jones race was the one that I was watching pretty closely last night as well to see how strong Abidel Spanberger's coattails were going to be in trying to drag him across the line despite his controversy over the violent text messages that were leaked out. | ||
| Abigail Spanberger won by about 15 points. | ||
| That's a rising tide that lifts all ships, even someone like Jay Jones here. | ||
| Now, the margin that I was really looking at was the margin between Jay Jones and the lieutenant governor's race. | ||
| Democrats won the lieutenant governor's race as well, and that's seen as more of a straight-up partisan line vote. | ||
| He was only running about maybe two and a half points behind the Democratic lieutenant governor winner, which that's the scandal tax, apparently. | ||
| I think the question now is: does Jay Jones walk away from the Attorney General's spot after these because of these violent text messages? | ||
| And people may be questioning whether he can carry out the office of the highest law enforcement officer in Virginia. | ||
| He's going to probably point to voters have given me a mandate here. | ||
| So I'm very curious to see what happens there. | ||
| But I think at the end of the day, Jay Jones, despite the controversy, outran Kamala Harris in Virginia. | ||
| I mean, I think that's been the most remarkable stat for me this morning. | ||
| And we have, C-SPAN does have a page dedicated to election results. | ||
| So if you go to s-pan.org/slash election 2025, you will be able to see the breakdown of all the key votes in the different races. | ||
| We also have all of our acceptance speeches, all of our victory speeches, the concession speeches, all in full. | ||
| You can visit that and take a look. | ||
| Here is Karen in Barstow, California, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, I am an independent, and I actually voted against Proposition 50, not because I like Donald Trump. | ||
| I have never voted for him. | ||
| I want to send the message. | ||
| Obviously, I knew my vote was not going to have an impact, that Proposition 50 would pass, but I want to send the message that, you know, the Democrats better rely on something more than just scheming and scamming with gerrymandering to win elections. | ||
| What they put forth in the 2024 round was pathetic. | ||
| And they need to really get some message, a strong message going. | ||
| They need to get rid of the old stagnant blood that's in there that's dominating their message and move forward. | ||
| I want to vote for something other than Republican. | ||
| I didn't vote for Republican in the last major election. | ||
| I went to the Green Party because I thought there was nothing else. | ||
| I knew my vote at the top was a throwaway vote, but I was voting down the ticket for other issues. | ||
| But they really need to get something going, not just scheming and scamming. | ||
| I don't like the idea of gerrymandering. | ||
| And now, what are the rest of the red states going to do? | ||
| Are they going to start gerrymandering? | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| They need to have a strong message. | ||
| That's my message. | ||
| That's actually more of a mainstream sentiment around gerrymandering. | ||
| When voters are asked how do they feel about partisan gerrymandering, a majority of them are against it. | ||
| Now, that question of what happens next, now that California has done this, is really interesting because the White House has started to put pressure on Indiana, Florida, North Carolina's already redrawn maps, Missouri's already redrawn maps to kind of like find as many seats as they can in the couch cushions. | ||
| They're shaking it up right now and seeing what falls out. | ||
| What I thought was most interesting last night and kind of buried under the election news is that Republicans in Kansas abandoned an effort to redraw the lone Democrat and their congressional delegation out because there was a lack of push from the voters to do this. | ||
| Now, it would have only netted Republicans a single seat, but I thought it was interesting that they're reading the political tea leaves that this might not be the smartest thing to do right now, and we shouldn't give in to White House pressure. | ||
| Okay, one more call. | ||
| Andre, Long Island, New York, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Andre. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I'm calling because I think the elections last night is a result on the pushback on what Donald Trump has been trying to do, this lawless mentality he's have. | |
| I also have a comment for you guys. | ||
| I heard one caller comment about black people coming back to the liberal plantation, and you guys didn't give no pushback on that. | ||
| And that's very disappointing because that's why we ended up in the situation we have. | ||
| I think journalism is supposed to be about seeking truth. | ||
| And sometimes you guys got to step up and say you can't say things like liberal plantation. | ||
| That's very racist. | ||
| And that was my comment for today. | ||
| Okay, Andre. | ||
| Thank you for the comment, Andre. | ||
| I do think it was a lot of pushback on the administration right now, as we're saying. | ||
| Again, the negative partisanship that we're seeing right now overcomes a lot of low favorability for Democrats. | ||
| And I think that's something that the party is going to ride into the midterms heading into next year. | ||
| All right, that's Kirk Bado, National Journal's hotline editor. | ||
| You can find his work at nationaljournal.com/slash hotline. | ||
| Kirk, thanks so much for getting up with us early this morning. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
|
unidentified
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C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country. | |
| Coming up Thursday morning, we'll talk about this week's election results and Campaign 2026 with Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg. | ||
| And then former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield discuss his new book, Redfield's Warning, What I Learned But Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life. | ||
| And Arizona Democratic Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grajalva on the delay in her being sworn into Congress, the government shutdown, and Democratic strategies. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
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| Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a moment of deep division in Washington, former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazil and former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel come together for a bipartisan dialogue on Tuesday's election results, potential impact on the 2026 midterms, and increasing partisanship. | ||
| They join host, Dasha Burns. | ||
| Ceasefire, Bridging the Divide in American Politics. | ||
| Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on C-SPAN. | ||
| And now President Trump touts his administration's accomplishments and remarks at the America Business Forum in Miami. |