Last night was a disaster for Republicans. A Muslim extremist communist was elected Mayor of New York City. That is extremely likely to be a disaster. One percent of the residents of New York City already pay 48% of income tax revenue. Promising to raise taxes on them will only encourage anyone on the fence that it is time to relocate.

Virginia replaced an effective Republican Governor with a Trump hating liberal. She is also promising to resist Trump. Good luck with that.

New Jersey, predictably, elected another liberal Democrat to be governor. Then California decided to throw all common sense aside and redistrict the entire state to prevent anyone other than a Democrat from ever winning a congressional election. Republicans look like the big losers, but the real losers last night were the few remaining moderates in the Democratic Party. The problem is that they predictably won where the outcome was predictable. But nothing they are planning to do is going to have a positive impact on their state or their city. Winning an election is different from governing well. Blue states will continue to be governed by liberal Democrats, and the results are not only predictable, but they are also guaranteed. To be blunt, by winning they have done nothing more than speed up the path to the bottom.

Republicans also need to learn from this. One is to stop trying to win difficult elections with horrible candidates. Curtis Sliwa had zero chance to win the election. The only thing Sliwa accomplished was to make it impossible for Andrew Cuomo to win. That is a good thing, because Cuomo would have done a decent job running New York City and may have fixed some of the problems. He, at least, wouldn’t have made things worse. He would still be a scumbag, but an effective scumbag. New York City is going to get a firsthand dose of Mamdani and that is guaranteed to be beyond bad. Things only change in places like New York when Democrats gain total control and muck things up beyond repair.

In New Jersey, Republicans ran Giacchino Michael Jack Ciatrelli who has now lost his second attempt at running for governor. Very few people win their second attempt at statewide office. They just lose by bigger margins the second time around.

In Virginia, Republicans ran Winsome Earle-Sears. Not only did she lose, she lost by such a large margin that Virginia also elected the worst possible choice for Attorney General. The reality is that mediocre candidates do not win statewide political races.

California continues to have all mail-in voting, with no voter ID and even less cross checking of ballots. In addition, ballot harvesting is legal in California. Until this changes, California will continue to elect people like Adam Schiff and Gavin Newsom. Republicans will become increasingly irrelevant.

Despite the bad news, there is good news. Republicans have an enormous opportunity. The only way things ever change in a Blue state is when Democrats gain total control and predictably mess things up. Republicans need to start preparing now to provide a rational alternative to insanity in four years.

Here are my suggestions for Republicans.

1. Do not even consider giving in to Democrats regarding the government shutdown. Now that these elections are over, Democrats own this lock stock and barrel. Let them hoist themselves on their own petard. Republicans are famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Democrats have shot their wad in a desperate attempt to win races they were almost certain to win anyway. The dumbest thing Republicans could do at this point is to cave to idiotic Democratic demands. Then Republicans would get all the blame, Democrats would get all the credit, and the 2026 midterms would be a disaster. But, if Republicans stand firm, they will increase control of both the House and the Senate.
2. Recruit better candidates. You can’t beat somebody with nobody, and Republicans are famous for running nobodies. The Republican establishment is famous for choosing people guaranteed to lose elections.
3. Help Donald Trump succeed, but recognize that Donald Trump is famous for promoting Donald Trump. But he is equally skilled at making people angry. This works great when he is the candidate. His involvement in local elections may not be as effective as he believes. In too many cases, it helps motivate the opposition more than Republicans.
4. Do a better job of messaging. For example, Democrats routinely claim that billionaires are funding Republican candidates. Perhaps I am wrong about this, but it sure seems like more billionaires are funding Democrats than vice versa. Obviously, a whole lot of extraordinarily rich people in Hollywood support liberal Democrats. If they really thought Democrats were going to tax the rich, they wouldn’t do that. No one voluntarily pays more income tax. When you raise tax on businesses, they don’t lose money, they just raise their prices.
5. Fight back harder against false narratives. Many people believe prices have increased under Trump. Prices are higher, but not because of his policies. They are higher because he inherited a hot mess of an economy. One reason Democrats shut down the government is that they knew it would result in higher prices and chaos, and they knew Trump would get the blame. Remember that Trump was coasting to re-election in 2020, until COVID. Democrats seized the day and shut down the country. The results were catastrophic, and Trump got most of the blame. Democrats are more than willing to do anything that gets them elected. Republicans need to do a better job of pointing this out.

If Republicans cave on the government shutdown, the results will be catastrophic. Democrats will continue to act irresponsibly, without regard to the impact on others, if it works. This is why negotiating with hostage takers is always a bad idea. It just encourages more hostage taking.

In addition, realize that Democrats only thrive in densely populated areas. These areas do not represent how people living in the rest of the country view things. If you look at the post-election map of Virginia, you will see that the results were determined by extremely dense population centers, and most of the state voted red. New Jersey and New York are composed entirely of high-density areas.

The bottom line is that if Republicans learn from this and seize the day it will be Democrats singing the blues in 2026.

TDM