Virginia rejects ‘Trumpism’, Dems score major victories
RICHMOND (Virginia) — Seizing his party’s first major Trump-era victory, Democrat Ralph Northam beat back a charge from Republican Ed Gillespie in the race for Virginia governor, a bruising election that tested the power of President Donald Trump’s fiery nationalism against the energy of the Trump resistance.
In Virginia, as in several contests across America on Tuesday, the Trump resistance won. And it wasn’t close.
Northam, a paediatric neurologist and Army veteran, defeated longtime Republican operative Gillespie in the hard-fought contest. “I’m here to let you know that the doctor is in,” a smiling Northam told supporters gathered in suburban Washington, D.C., for his victory speech. “As long as I’m governor, I will work hard to make sure we’re inclusive.”
He added, “Virginia has told us to end the divisiveness, that we do not condone hatred and bigotry and to end the politics that have torn this country apart.”
Northam’s victory set off overnight recriminations and fingerpointing among Trump’s hardcore supporters. The pro-Trump website Breitbart News, which had earlier praised Gillespie as a “culture warrior,” derided him as a “Republican swamp thing.” Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, said Northern Virginia’s voter-rich liberal suburbs should be annexed by the District of Columbia, “to return the governance of (Virginia) to Virginians.”
Democrats also scored victories in the race for New Jersey governor and in Maine, where voters slapped the state’s Republican governor, a Trump ally, by backing a measure to expand Medicaid coverage under former president Barack Obama’s health care law. The Democratic mayors of New York and Boston, both vocal Trump critics, also won re-election easily.
And Virginia voters elected the state’s first openly-transgender state representative, among more than a dozen state legislative pickups for Democrats. The resounding victories marked the GOP’s most significant day of defeat in the young Trump presidency and a rebuke to the president himself as his party eyes a suddenly more threatening midterm election season next year. “The Democratic Party is back, my friends,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez.
Trump immediately tried to distance himself from the loss.
“Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday night as he toured Asia, noting that the GOP won a handful of special