Dear listeners,
Before the polls closed on Tuesday, elections analyst Ryan Brune laid out 18 benchmarks to measure whether Democrats had a good night. The party appears to have hit all 18 of them: winning blowouts in Virginia and New Jersey, and also posting resounding victories in more obscure elections like judicial races in Pennsylvania and elections for the utilities-regulating Public Service Commission in Georgia. And yet — if you take Democrats’ overperformance in Virginia and New Jersey and apply it as a nationally uniform swing from Kamala Harris’s result in 2024, gains like that would still not be enough for Democrats to win states like Iowa and Ohio, where they need to be competitive to have a good shot of retaking control of the U.S. Senate.
Ben, Megan and I take stock of the lessons for Democrats from Tuesday’s strong election result — and we look at how Republicans failed to speak to voters’ concerns about the cost of living. We also talk about our hopes and fears for Zohran Mamdani, New York’s democratic socialist mayor-elect. One interesting Mamdani phenomenon we discuss: his post-primary diplomacy that successfully turned the panic about him among New York’s business elites from a 10 to, well, let’s call it a 7 or so. We also share our delight about the way that Zohran’s flashes of pragmatism and moderation upset his most annoying left-wing fans, like Nathan Robinson.
We also look at the ongoing meltdown at the Heritage Foundation, and the ongoing meltdown on Nancy Mace’s Twitter feed over her treatment by TSA and airport staff at the Charleston airport.
Plus, Ben and I share stories about our own less-than-finest hours at the airport.
We hope you enjoy the episode. If you have feedback, please post in the comments below or reply to this email — we’d love to hear from you.
Best,
Josh
