Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) asked John Reid, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, to step down over explicit photos that Reid denies he reposted on social media, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
Said Reid: “As long as I have been in the public space, I have been a target for malicious and salacious lies.”
Cory Bowman (R), the half-brother of Vice President J.D. Vance, is running for mayor of Cincinnati, the AP reports.
Split Ticket: “Democrats swelled with confidence after their victory in the State Supreme Court race in Trump-won Wisconsin. It seemed that public opinion swung sharply against Donald Trump and the GOP despite Elon Musk’s eight-figure investment in the state. But the full story is not so simple.”
“Our pre-election modeling and preview pointed to an obvious turnout advantage that Democrats enjoyed, flagging it as a sign they could win big on April 1st. This is because the higher-propensity voters who vote in off-cycle elections tend to lean left of the low-propensity voters who only show up in presidential years. The election results validate that theory, showing how an overwhelmingly blue electorate left Wisconsin Republicans in the dust.”
“Our estimate is that the voters who voted in the 2025 Supreme Court election backed Kamala Harris by 7 points in 2024. In other words, roughly 70% of Susan Crawford’s win margin was attributable to changes in who was voting, rather than changes in how people voted.”
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Former Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) “was projected to win a special election to become the next mayor of Oakland, according to Decision Desk HQ, in what became a closer-than-expected race amid growing voter dissatisfaction over the direction of the city,” The Hill reports.
Loren Taylor took a slim lead over Barbara Lee early Tuesday night with just over 51% of the vote in a nail-biting Oakland mayor’s race, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Politico: “The tight margin all but guarantees the vote tally will stretch into the coming days as mail ballots are counted and could come down to voters’ backup selections under the city’s ranked choice system.”
MAGA loyalist Bill Ackman donated $250,000 to a super PAC supporting ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) run for New York City mayor, Politico reports.
“A race once seen as a coronation of former Rep. Barbara Lee has morphed, instead, into a truly competitive clash between Lee and former Councilmember Loren Taylor as the voter dissatisfaction that produced two November recalls remains rampant,” Politico reports.
“The campaigns have each framed the vote as a fundamental choice: Lee’s is a message of unity and revival, while Taylor’s is about fixing a broken city by defying the establishment — and rejecting career politicians like Lee.”
Results will come in later tonight after the polls close.
“New York City’s campaign finance regulators rejected mayoral front-runner Andrew Cuomo’s request for around $2.5 million in public matching funds Tuesday, an embarrassing glitch for a bid predicated on experience and competence,” Politico reports.
The Illinois Democratic Party backed 280 candidates on the ballot for various local offices across the state last week and 222, or 79% of them, were victorious, the Chicago Tribune reports.
In most suburban communities, the GOP was virtually shut out.
“I think the way Judge Crawford ran her race was disgusting… I’m not looking forward to working with her. She’s bought and paid for by the Democratic Party.”
— Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, talking to a reporter about Susan Crawford, the victor in this week’s election.
“Mayor Eric Adams is opting out of New York City’s Democratic primary and running for reelection as an independent — embarking on narrow path as he further isolates himself from the city’s dominant political party,” Politico reports.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis escalated his attacks against Randy Fine on Wednesday, blaming the representative-elect’s ‘unique problems’ for a special election victory he said should have been won by a higher margin,” Politico reports.
He said voters did not want to support Fine and that President Trump “really had to bail him out in the end.”
Said DeSantis: “These are voters who didn’t like Randy Fine but who basically are like, ‘You know what? We’re going to take one for the team. The president needs another vote up there, and so we’re going to do it.’”
More: “Just the way he conducts himself is somebody — he repels people.”
“I’m honestly shocked. I thought we had it in the bag. I thought Musk was gonna be an asset for this race. People love Trump, but maybe they don’t love everybody he supports. Maybe I have blinders on.”
— Pam Van Handel, Chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s Outagamie County, quoted by Politico.
Playbook: “In truth, Dems had been desperate to make yesterday’s elections all about Musk, who has several significant drawbacks in his unlikely new role as GOP election figurehead. They include dismal personal poll ratings, unfathomable wealth and a tendency to talk about Social Security as if he’d quite like to give it the chainsaw treatment.”
“But Musk played right into Dems’ hands — plowing not just millions of dollars into the race in Wisconsin, but huge amounts of personal and political capital, making himself the most visible GOP campaigner on the election trail.”
New York Times: “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.”
CNN: “Musk’s high-profile gamble – and loss – in Wisconsin raises questions about the effectiveness of his money and brand moving forward as he works to help Republicans next year attempt to buck the trend of the president’s party losing ground in the midterms.”
Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, preserving liberals’ 4-3 majority, according to projections from Decision Desk HQ and the Cook Political Report.
NBC News: “The outcome is a setback for President Trump and his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk. Trump endorsed Schimel in the final stretch of the race, while Musk injected himself into the center of it, spending huge sums of money, visiting Wisconsin days out from Election Day and frequently posting about the race on his X feed.”
New York Times: “For Democrats, the result is a jolt of momentum… Her win showed that, at least in one instance, Mr. Musk’s seemingly endless reserves of political cash had energized more Democrats than Republicans.”
For members: Wisconsin Race Carries Major Political Implications
Milwaukee election officials are reporting ballot shortages at voting sites due to what they say is “unprecedented high turnout” in Tuesday’s election, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Officials urged patience and said confirmed that anyone in line by 8 p.m. will be able to vote.
Florida chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis (R) was projected to win the special election to replace former Rep. Matt Gatez (R-FL) in the 1st congressional district, defeating Gay Valimont (D), according to Decision Desk HQ.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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