It was a good day for Democrats.
In addition to Senator Cory Booker setting the all-time record for the longest talking filibuster of over 25 hours, pleasingly surpassing Strom Thurmond's 1957 filibuster against civil rights, a liberal was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, thereby guaranteeing liberals maintain a 4-3 majority on the court -- which bodes well for an upcoming redistricting case that could give Democrats one or two additional House seats in Wisconsin.
I was thrilled when CNN called the Supreme Court race for Susan Crawford at the surprisingly early time of 7:08 Pacific Time, which is 9:08 Wisconsin time.
Because Wisconsin is such an evenly divided swing state, with statewide races usually being decided by just a few percentage points, leading to it being late night or early morning before a winner is known, Crawford's 10 point margin of victory (55-45) was a blowout by Wisconsin standards.
Even more pleasing was the fact that Elon Musk nationalized this race by dumping about $25 million into support for Crawford's conservative opponent. Musk was his usual obnoxious self, prattling on about how the future of civilization depended on defeating Crawford and handing out $1 million checks to people who supported his Trumpcentric political philosophy.
So the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was the first real test of how satisfied the American public is with all the crap being carried out by the Trump administration, which prominently features Musk as the guy who is taking a chainsaw to important government programs that only deserve a scalpel being used to reduce supposed waste, fraud, and abuse.
A New York Times story, "Democrats Show a Pulse: 6 Takeaways from Tuesday's Elections," says:
Nobody expended more political capital in the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest than Mr. Musk, with the possible exception of the candidates. He invested at least $25 million to elect Judge Schimel, posted about it seemingly nonstop on his social media platform, gave money to voters who signed a petition or posted photos in front of polling places and came to the state for a rally where he handed out a pair of $1 million checks.
And in the end, Judge Schimel lost by just a little bit less than the last conservative candidate for the court, who was all but abandoned by Republican donors two years ago.
Even more than Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk emerged in Wisconsin as the primary boogeyman for Democrats. His involvement altered the terms of the election. Instead of making the race an early referendum on Mr. Trump’s White House and abortion rights, Wisconsin Democrats pivoted to make Mr. Musk their entire focus, while Republicans rode the wave of his largess.
As expected, Republicans won two special elections in Florida that were needed to replace a couple of House members: Matt Gaetz, who resigned, and Michael Waltz, who became Trump's National Security Advisor.
But there was reason for Democrats to celebrate the outcome of those races also. Each were in districts that Trump won by at least 30 points. The New York times story says:
Both seats were widely favored to remain in Republican control. But Mr. Fine faced criticism from Republicans in the final days of the campaign, as private polls showed a tighter race than expected in a district Mr. Trump had easily won.
An energized Democratic base did appear to have cut into the margins of victory on Tuesday: Mr. Fine’s 14-point margin with 95 percent of the vote counted was less than half of Mr. Waltz’s 33-point victory. (Josh Weil, the Democratic candidate, called his performance “an incredible gain” in his concession.)
In the other Florida race, the margin of victory for the Republican was just 15 points, less than half of Gaetz's 32 point margin in 2024. So there's reason for hope that Democrats will retake the House in 2026, given that today's Florida elections indicate that any Republican who won their seat by less than 15 points is in danger of losing to a Democrat.
And likely voters are going to be in an even worse mood toward Republicans in November 2026 than they are now, since Trump's upcoming tariffs stand a good chance of pushing the American economy into a recession, or at least a serious downturn.
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