New Republic: “These are the people who made the world worse this year—plus a few who fought the good fight.”

“More than 100 elected officials were recalled by voters or resigned from office in the face of recall votes in 2023, the highest number of public officials given the boot in more than a decade,” Pluribus News reports.

“The recent rash of recalls illustrates angry electorates — but, as has been the case through most of recent history, those sets of voters who ousted their officials tended to be focused on issues of local concern, rather than broad national trends.”

Houston elected Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire as its next mayor on Saturday night, elevating a Texas lawmaker who has represented the city for 50 years by giving him a victory over Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in a runoff, the AP reports.

Celeste Maloy (R) defeated Kathleen Riebe (D) Tuesday night in the race to fill Chris Stewart’s (R) empty seat in Congress, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

“Louisiana’s runoffs on Saturday brought the 2023 legislative elections to a virtual close, settling the final composition of all eight chambers that were renewing their entire membership this fall. That’s in addition to special elections held throughout this year,” Bolts reports.

“The final result: Democrats won five additional legislative seats this year.”

“That’s a small change, since there were more than 600 seats in play this year. But it goes against the expectation that the party that holds the White House faces trouble in such races.”

“A complete failure.”

— Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), quoted by CNN, on the off-year election results for Republicans.

“Karma is real and we have to remember that.”

— Exonerated “Central Park Five” member Yusef Salaam, quoted by the New York Times, after winning a New York City Council race.

Playbook: “We’re beginning to sense a pattern here. Never mind Americans’ nagging concerns about the economy. Never mind an expanding portfolio of global crises. And definitely never mind those year-out presidential polls.”

“There’s no two ways about it: It was another good election night for Democrats, nearly across the board.”

As one Biden adviser said, dismissing pre-election polls: “The best predictor of voting behavior is voting behavior.”

New York Times: “Being the most popular governor in the country turns out to be a good thing if you want to get re-elected.”

“Mr. Beshear spent his first term and his re-election campaign hyperfocused on local issues like teacher salaries, new road projects, guiding the state through the pandemic and natural disasters and, since last summer’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, opposing his state’s total ban on abortion.”

“It’s not as if Republican voters stayed home; all the other Republicans running for statewide office won with at least 57 percent of the vote. Mr. Beshear just got enough of them to back him for governor. A Democrat who can win Republican voters without making compromises on issues important to liberal voters is someone the rest of the party will want to emulate in red states and districts across the country.”

“Virginia voters resoundingly rejected Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s costly efforts to take control of the General Assembly in Tuesday’s elections, according to unofficial results — flipping the House of Delegates to Democratic control and preserving a blue majority in the state Senate that can block his conservative agenda and prevent Republicans from tightening limits on access to abortion,” the Washington Post reports.

“Democrats’ sweeping victories amounted to a sharp setback for Youngkin as he seeks to raise his national profile as a potential last-minute presidential contender and seemed to fit with a national trend that saw Democrats rally around the issue of protecting abortion rights. In Ohio, voters decisively approved a measure to build abortion access protections into the state constitution, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) won reelection after hammering his Republican opponent for supporting the state’s near-total ban on abortions.”

“Youngkin had hoped to set a new model for how Republicans everywhere could win on the abortion issue, campaigning on the promise that if voters gave Republicans control over both chambers of the General Assembly, he would pass a ban on abortions after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”

Politico: “Youngkin bet it all on the Virginia legislative races. And it looks like he is coming home empty-handed.”

Democrats won control of the Virginia House of Delegates, flipping the Republican majority and giving them control of both chambers, according to the Cook Political Report.

Exonerated “Central Park Five” member Yusef Salaam won a seat Tuesday on the New York City Council, completing a stunning reversal of fortune decades after he was wrongly imprisoned in an infamous rape case, the AP reports.

Democrats have won the majority in the Virginia Senate, according to the Cook Political Report.

The win denies Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) control of the state legislature and the ability to pass a 15-week abortion ban as he promised.