Time: “In the final stretch of the New York City mayoral campaign, Curtis Sliwa says he was offered $10 million by a group of unnamed billionaires to drop out of the race and clear the way for Andrew Cuomo—so great was their fear of a Zohran Mamdani victory.”
“What the people allegedly offering that sum couldn’t have known about Sliwa—a veteran of the cutthroat world of this city’s politics—was that he disliked Cuomo far more than he wanted to be a multimillionaire.”
Charlie Cook: “Without a doubt, Mamdani is a bright, talented, and charismatic young man. If I were a member of the American Association of Political Consultants, I would vote his operation as the ‘Campaign of the Year’ and his manager ‘Campaign Manager of the Year.’ Political operatives should use the Mamdani campaign as a case study in social media and creative marketing.”
“But as interesting as Mamdani is, his victory is hardly important in the grand sweep of national politics. No mayoral race has ever been a harbinger of the direction of American politics or an indication of what would happen in any other election anywhere else. Municipal races, even those in New York City, are fought over totally distinct and highly localized issues, often with idiosyncrasies that non-residents of that city do not appreciate.”
“Just about everyone agrees Republicans will win a special House election in a deep-red Tennessee district next month. Both parties are watching the race closely anyway,” NOTUS reports.
“Less than a month after Democrats swept to big victories in November’s races, a special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District will offer another chance to gauge the national political climate, testing whether Democrats can continue their political momentum in a federal contest dominated by conservative voters.”
“Democrats’ sweeping victories last week have the party eyeing gains in even Trumpier territory, where voters in a deep-red Tennessee House seat will soon pick their next member of Congress in a special election,” Politico reports.
“Early voting started Wednesday in Tennessee’s 7th District, a geographically expansive seat that reaches the state’s borders with Kentucky and Alabama and includes swaths of Nashville, to replace retired Rep. Mark Green (R-TN). And Democrats are projecting some optimism in a district President Trump carried by more than 20 points last November.”
“Katie Wilson, a staple of Seattle’s progressive politics, who for years toiled behind the scenes of City Hall in pursuit of higher taxes on Amazon and stronger regulations for renters, is likely to be the city’s 58th mayor,” the Seattle Times reports.
Politico: “Wilson, who like New York’s Zohran Mamdani is a self-described socialist, focused her campaign on affordability — highlighting her own struggles to afford life in Seattle.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told MSNBC today that Democrats are to blame for the affordability crisis that punctuated last week’s elections.
Said Bessent: “We inherited a mess.”
He noted the Trump administration is working to bring prices down and boost working-class wages: “That’s when Americans are going to be feeling good again, and that’s what next November’s election’s going to be fought on.”
“U.S. elections are sending a consistent message: Americans are deeply frustrated with their government’s inability to solve problems,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The latest example arrived Tuesday in a rebuke of President Trump, as voters rallied to Democrats in hopes they can better address affordability and other major challenges. That pushback was delivered just 12 months after the president swept all seven of the top battleground states in a show of Republican dominance.”
“The rapid-fire swing in fortunes for both parties is the result of a narrowly divided nation quick to throw out elected officials seen as slow to improve their lives. To many Americans, government is literally not working, as evidenced by a federal shutdown that has now stretched into the longest in U.S. history.”
“I watched that election, which I was not much involved in. I didn’t support Virginia, the candidate. I didn’t do a lot of support for the other candidate. They asked me about Cuomo, and I said, well, it’s a question – do you want a thug or do you want a communist? So I wasn’t involved in that stuff too much.”
— President Trump, quoted by CNN.
Washington Post: “Much of the attention Tuesday night focused on the Democrats’ big wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, as well as in the New York mayor’s contest.”
“But the party also won hundreds of lower-profile state and local contests — often swamping Republican incumbents with overwhelming turnout, suggesting that voters’ desire to send an a message opposing President Donald Trump was deep and wide.”
“We’re getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today. Kentucky votes next year. You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City or the Governor of Virginia. Sorry.”
— Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams (R), quoted by Newsweek, in a note to voters.
“Republicans have spent a year cheering President Donald Trump’s gains among Latino voters in November 2024. Now, Democrats’ big wins among Latino voters this week have some Republicans sounding the alarm,” NBC News reports.
“Democrats’ double-digit victories in governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as wins in other elections in New York City and California, were driven in part by high levels of support among Latino voters.”
Playbook: “For all the initial noise about poor candidates, Republicans clearly understand the fundamental problem they face: that the oldest cliche in modern U.S. politics — it’s the economy, stupid — still holds true. Cost-of-living issues were the central reason Trump won in 2024, and the central reason Republicans lost badly this week.”
“Unsurprisingly, then, Republicans are now urging Trump to focus more on household issues over the coming months, and less on the global dealmaking (and war-making, and peacemaking) which have been a surprisingly central feature of his second term.”
“Once the votes were tallied, Republican candidates weren’t the only ones who fell short in Tuesday’s elections. The pollsters had a bad night, too,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“As a group, firms that publicly release their polls failed to detect the wave that gave a landslide win to Democrats in New Jersey, where their candidate for governor won by 13 points.”
David Graham: “Off-year elections are never quite the crystal ball for midterms that political junkies want, but one thing that last night’s results seem to convey clearly is that many voters are unhappy with President Donald Trump.”
“Elections for New York City mayor, governors of New Jersey and Virginia, and gerrymandering in California had their own local dynamics, but voters in these heavily nationalized contests were united in their rejection of Trump and his priorities. The results give some reason to doubt Trump’s claim that his 2024 victory was ‘a historic realignment’ of American politics.”
“Johnny DuPree, a Democrat who served as the mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, for 16 years, has won a Republican-held Mississippi Senate seat, helping break the Republican Party’s supermajority for the first time in 13 years,” the Mississippi Free Press reports.
“Inside the White House, there are two main takeaways from last night’s miserable performance for the Republican Party,” Politico reports.
“The first one – that fielding quality candidates matters – is the one GOP officials are eagerly messaging.”
“But the second, perhaps more existential issue, is that President Donald Trump isn’t focused enough on the issues that matter most to the voters the party needs.”
“Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey defeated democratic socialist Omar Fateh and 13 other challengers Wednesday during the final round of counting in the city’s ranked-choice voting election,” the AP reports.
“Frey, who secured a third term, led Fateh by about 10 percentage points after Tuesday night’s first round of counting but didn’t cross the 50%-plus-one-vote threshold he needed to win outright.”
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.
