Democrats Flip Key New York Seat in Possible Sign for House Control

Democratic state Senator John Mannion has defeated Republican Representative Brandon Williams, marking an important victory for New York Democrats in the states 22nd congressional district.

Mannion earned 53.9 percent of the vote with 84 percent reporting.

For months ahead of the election, Williams was the only House Republican whose seat “leaned Democrat,” according to Cook Political Report, making it an essential marker for Democrats as they attempted to retake the House. Williams narrowly won the seat by fewer than 3,000 votes during the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans flipped four seats across the state.

Like many pro-Trump Republicans, Williams has attempted to paint his opponent as weak on crime, spending nearly $3 million on attack ads with help from the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund, according to The New York Times.

Despite Republican spending, Mannion appeared to have a sizable lead ahead of Election Day. One Democratic PAC called the 314 Action Fund canceled a $600,000 ad and mailer blitz effort for Mannion because he didn’t appear to need the extra boost, according to Syracuse.com.

An anti-abortion, Trump-endorsed Republican propelled by Mitch McConnell and cryptocurrency PAC dollars has won the Ohio Senate election—flipping a key seat for Republicans.

Republican Bernie Moreno beat incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown 50.5 percent to 46.1 percent according to the Associated Press, which called the race on Tuesday evening, with 91 percent of votes counted.

This is a much-needed win for Republicans,  who now hold a nine-seat majority in the Senate, with 11 votes still remaining to be called.

Thanks to dark money, the only Democratic senator in the state was finally unseated after first being elected in 2007. The race had garnered more ad spending than any other Senate race in history with nearly $500 million spent between the two candidates.

On the Republican side, Defend American Jobs, a super PAC tied to the cryptocurrency industry spent over $40 million to support Bernie Moreno. While the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spent over $160 million for Moreno, more than any other Republican Senate candidate this year.

Their investment made up for the fact that Moreno continued to flaunt his extremist MAGA views on the campaign trail, rallying against “wokeness” and bashing reproductive rights.

“You know the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said back in September. “Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion’s it! If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else!’

“It’s a little crazy, by the way, but, especially for women that are past 50. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you,’” Moreno continued.

Moreno also made headlines for allegedly lying about his business dealings and for appearing on a gay hookup app, despite his anti-LGBTQ+ record.

The Colombian immigrant Moreno later went on to copy Trump’s playbook and spread racist rumors about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.. In September, Moreno wrote that thousands of “illegal Haitians” were “sucking up social services and even reportedly killing and eating pets.”

“We need to deport illegals, not invite them to wreak havoc on our communities,” he added.

The MAGA Republican won out as Trump won the state, as he did in 2016 and 2020.

Donald Trump has won North Carolina, securing 50.8 percent of the vote over Vice President Kamala Harris.

It’s the third time in a row that the Tar Heel State has sided with the MAGA leader since he entered national politics in 2016. That year, Trump convinced North Carolinians to turn out en masse for him, winning by a margin of nearly four percent, with more than 177,000 votes over Hillary Clinton. But that level of support crumbled after Trump spent four years in office, after which he won the swing state by just 1.3 percent over President Joe Biden.

The outcome in North Carolina brings Trump to 230 electoral votes. He needs just 40 votes more to return to the White House.

Elon Musk says his America PAC isn’t going anywhere after Election Day.

At the end of an X Space event Tuesday evening, Musk told his fans that his political action committee will “keep going after this election.”

Musk added that he is already “preparing for the midterms and any intermediate elections, as well as looking at elections at the district attorney level.”

The billionaire has already donated nearly $119 million of his own money to the PAC.

America PAC spent more than $19 million this election boosting Republicans in over a dozen House races around the country. Some of the races where Musk spent big, such as New York’s 17th district and New Jersey’s 7th district, could go his way—but for the most part Musk’s investments so far are a mixed bag. What he did succeed in, however, is dominating the airwaves and majorly sucking up to Donald Trump throughout the past several months. The PAC has spent a whopping $152 million to attempt to elect Trump as president.

While leading the America PAC, which essentially ran Trump’s ground game, Musk faced many struggles and legal challenges, mostly propelled by his sketchy actions. These included a data-scraping operation, a glitchy app, poor treatment of door knockers, and of course, his $1 million bribes to swing state voters.

Musk’s frightening QAnon turn, coupled with his willingness to spend, unfortunately means his PAC will be something to watch going forward.

Donald Trump’s campaign took a shot Tuesday at Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, after the former president declared victory in that state.

Selzer’s Iowa Poll in the Des Moines Register found last week that Kamala Harris had “leapfrogged” Trump in Iowa and was leading him 47 to 44 percent—a shocking result in a state that had previously gone for Trump twice. The Iowa Poll had correctly predicted Trump’s victory in the state in 2020 and 2016.

After Iowa was called for Trump Tuesday night, his campaign released a statement gloating about the win—and calling out the gold-standard pollster by name.

“Starting on Day 1 President Trump and Vice President JD Vance will help to ease costs, secure the border, and protect Social Security for retirees like Ann Selzer,” the statement said.

Trump won Iowa with 56.5 percent to Harris’s 41.9 percent, with 65 percent of votes reported.