Election results: Warning for GOP … and some Dems

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

Elections over the past 30 days (including last night’s results) tell a story.

• A special election in Tennessee for an open Congressional seat saw the Republican candidate win by only 9% in a heavy Republican district where both Trump and the incumbent had previously won the seat by more than 21%.  The liberal challenger candidate was famous for bad-mouthing Tennessee culture on wild, unscripted tirades online.  Yet, the Republican Party had to spend extra millions to protect the seat.  Despite a flood of cash, a lousy opponent, and a traditional 20% advantage the winner came in at a weak 9%.   That is a disaster.

• The Republican candidate for Virginia Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, was the sitting Lieutenant Governor, but lost by a staggering 15%!    The previous Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin won the seat by 2%.  That is a 17% slide!

• New York elected a socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Zohran ran against the former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who outspent Zohran 3-to-1.  It was so lopsided that even if all Republican candidate votes (7%) went for Cuomo, he still would have lost.

• Seattle elected a socialist mayor, Katie Wilson.

• In Miami this week, for the first time in 30-years a Democrat candidate won the mayor’s office.

• Trump has seen shrinking support.  Last year in November, Trump had 91% support among Republicans, yet this last November polling shows it has dropped to 84%.  Last year in November, Trump had 42% support among Independents compared to just 25% today.  That is a 17% slide.

These are dire warning signs for Republicans.

Democrats face some unique problems as well, especially in Oregon.

Oregon continues to rank in the top inflation states in America and it is showing.  Governor candidate Tina Kotek sees this, and this is why she made her campaign announcement earlier this month all about “affordability” and “costs”.   Kotek even (falsely) praised herself as the anti-tolling candidate, despite her support for creating tolls and voting for tolls.   The stunning collection of 150,000 signatures opposing her $4.3 billion gas tax is a sign that voters are fed up.

WARNING TO ALL 2026 CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES:  If you plan to run traditional campaigns like other similar candidates of the past 10 years, you will lose just like the other candidates in the past 10 years.

Complaining about crime, homelessness, and a bad economy will not earn you votes, just like this exact message failed for the past 10 years — despite being correct.

This strategy failed just in the past few weeks.  NY mayor candidate Andrew Cuomo ran a complaint campaign of how terrible things are in NY (sounds just like Oregon), but got demolished by newcomer Zohran who offered people a lot of new ideas (however flawed).  Winsome Earle-Sears ran a complaint-driven campaign, and she lost by 17%.   When Glenn Youngkin ran, he had an army of positive solutions, and he won by 2%.   Youngkin was different, and it paid off for him.  The better part of Trump’s success has been his choice of ideas (No tax on tips, Border Wall, etc.) that have had extraordinary reach and connection with the public.

Voters are starving for dynamic solutions, new ideas, bold answers and authentic calls to action.

Too many candidates are mesmerized by Oregon’s colossal list of failures and think that voters will flee to them as a white knight on his horse to rescue them.  Voters didn’t do that before; voters are not going to do it now.  There is no reason to trust a complaint-driven candidate to fix anything. Even if the sitting incumbent politician caused the problem, that still is not enough for voters to change.  Voters, especially independents and non-affiliated (which outnumber all other parties), are looking for the best ideas followed by the confidence that it could get done.   It is a two-step process; (1) bold, actionable solutions followed by (2) this is why the candidate can make it happen.  Complaint-driven candidates don’t bother to do either step.

As the 2026 campaign starts early, we see that most candidates look like most of the other candidates and they look like the candidates from the past 10 years who didn’t win.  People need to see the warning sign and adjust to what voters are asking for.  That is a lesson for both parties.

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