Not quite the blue wave people wanted

By: Sam Jones, Columnist

Ever since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, the left has claimed that a blue wave is coming. Sure, they took over the House of Representatives in 2018, but failed to make any progress in the Senate. Additionally, a lot of the Democrats that won office in 2018 were moderate candidates in Trump districts, that did not run on an anti-Trump platform. So no, 2018 was not your blue wave.

Now, the 2019 elections are in the books, with many eyes pointing to the governorship of Kentucky. Now, it is important to remember that Republican incumbent Matt Bevin was the least popular governor in America. Bevin spent four years aggressively pushing a conservative agenda, that involved extremely unpopular bills such as requiring health providers to show patients pictures of fetuses before performing abrortions. Another wildly unpopular bill included a “right to work” policy that undercut unions and repealed public works employees base salaries.

This unpopularness opened a large opportunity for Democratic Candidate Andy Beshear to step in and take the governorship for the Democrats. Beshear won by a mear five-thousand votes, and the state of Kentucky which Trump won in 2016 by nearly 30 points now has a democratic governor.

President Trump flew to Kentucky the night before the election to endorse Bevin. The media made this governorship race headline news for the next 24 hours, until eventually Bevin was defeated. However, the media ignored other results from Kentucky that were largely in favor of the GOP. 

Republican Daniel Cameron made history, winning the attorney general seat over the former Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo. Cameron also is set to become the first African-American to be elected to the state’s attorney general. In fact, the only position in the state of Kentucky that the Democrats won was the governorship. 

Another key race that the media claimed had implications on Trump’s 2020 race was Virginia. Democrats won majorities in the State House, and Senate giving the Democratic Party full control over the state that had previously been a swing state. Among the many Democrats elected in Virginia, Joe Morrissey defeated incumbent state Senator Rosalyn Dance. Morrissey, who is now 61 years old, was jailed in his 50’s for having sex with his 17-year-old secretary, to whom he later married. Morrissey claims he never did anything wrong, but plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and spent six months in jail for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” 

With Trump constantly claiming he will “drain the swamp” and attacking the elites of Washington D.C., it doesn’t surprise me that Virginia has now flipped in favor of the Democratic Party. Northern Virginia absolutely carried the election for the Democrats, as most of the counties voted for Repulican candidates. Virginia could definitely be against President Trump’s re-election bid in 2020, however I don’t think any strong conclusions can be built from election results of 2019.

Republicans elected a Republican governor in Mississippi, and again elected majority republicans in Kentucky. Yes, Democrats had a large win in Virginia and a smaller win in Kentucky, however these two states will not be enough to defeat Donald Trump in 2020. Candidate choice will play a large roll into the hypothetical stoppage of Trump’s presidency, along with battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio that all went for Donald Trump in 2016. In order to defeat the president, the media should focus on those states, instead of crying “blue wave.”

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