Bad Week For Team Red (and Red Roses)
Bad Week For Team Red (and Red Roses)
Mainstream democrats beat both the GOP and the far-left in this week’s elections in Philadelphia, Colorado Springs, and Jacksonville.
America’s 6th largest city held a mayoral election on Tuesday. It had the same national media theme as recent elections in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles: “The next battle for the soul of the Democratic Party.”
After major rallies with Bernie and AOC, dozens of hot take articles, millions of Twitter views, and even a branded flyover of the weekend’s Taylor Swift concert, the far-left candidate came in a distant third place with just 22% of the vote. When the dust settled on the vote count, fewer than 55,000 of Philadelphia’s 1,576,000 residents cast their lot with the far-left.
Far-left Philly mayoral candidate Helen Gym’s 22% of the vote share is a familiar number: it is nearly identical to the share earned by the far-left candidate in the first round of mayoral elections in Chicago (21.6% for Brandon Johnson) and New York City (21.4% for Maya Wiley). As we noted in a new fact sheet on The Far-Left Fifth this week, the “progressive activist” cohort that social scientists have found constitutes 6-8% of Americans ticks up to just 1 in 5 voters in the most overwhelming Democratic geographies in the country.
That’s it. That’s the ceiling of the far-left’s support in the bluest strongholds in the country.
Who did the far-left candidate lose to? Here’s Philadelphia’s NPR station on the result:
As the city’s 100th mayor, [Cherelle] Parker will be both the first woman, and the first Black woman, to be mayor of Philadelphia, a city where more than 50% of Democratic primary voters are Black.
Her campaign focused on restoring middle-class neighborhoods, public safety, and education. She’s promised to hire 300 new foot and bicycle police officers for a force struggling to fill vacancies. She has also proposed extending the school day from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and said she would work with state leaders to more than double the minimum wage.
Here’s the New York Times’ take:
Some compared her to Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, noting her willingness to buck the party’s progressives with pledges to hire hundreds of police officers…
More cops, more school, and more economic opportunity. It doesn’t take a PhD in political science to figure out what voters want in a city that Biden won with 81% of the vote. It’s the same thing the vast majority of Democrats want everywhere: mainstream candidates who deliver tangible results, not extreme candidates with celebrity endorsers.
True Blue beats Red Rose Twitter, the home base of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Moderates Triumph in Colorado Springs and Jacksonville
A time zone away, Yemi Mobolade (an independent supported by Democrats) beat a Republican to become the first Black mayor in traditionally red Colorado Springs, Colorado. Here’s the scoop from the Colorado Springs Gazette:
Though the city's municipal elections are nonpartisan, Mobolade, who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, will be the first mayor not affiliated with the Republican party since Colorado Springs started electing mayors 45 years ago. He has promised a more “inclusive, culturally rich city.”
Mobolade highlighted his background as a pastor, Nigerian immigrant and U.S. citizen, small business owner, and moderate unifier. He preached an optimistic message that zeroed in on Colorado Springs and its potential while largely ignoring the polarized frame of national politics. His victory appears to be the result of his ability to galvanize a cross-partisan coalition that combined Colorado Springs’ growing Democratic population with enough unaffiliated and moderate Republican voters to make the difference.
Mobolade’s Republican opponent, Wayne Williams, tried to paint him as a covert progressive, but key endorsements from Republican officials gave him the bipartisan credibility he needed to stave off those attacks and win the middle. Here’s an overview from Colorado Politics:
During the five-week sprint to the runoff, Williams trained his fire on Mobolade, but his relentless attacks proved ineffective. Countering Williams' claims that his opponent was a dangerous liberal, Mobolade won endorsements from several prominent local Republicans, including [city council member and former GOP mayoral contender Sallie] Clark, who finished just behind Williams in the first round.
Take it from a Republican:
“Yemi has tremendous crossover appeal,” Republican consultant Daniel Cole told The Gazette on Tuesday night. Cole, who ran an independent group that supported Williams in the first round but sat out the runoff, said internal polling predicted Mobolade's sweeping win. “Polling showed him winning all the Democrats, the vast majority of unaffiliateds and a significant chunk of Republicans, too,” he said.
The result was that “Mobolade appears to have energized voters from across the political spectrum, while Williams battled critics from all sides, including fellow Republicans” — notching a double-digit victory.
Back in the Southeast, Democrat Donna Deegan won an upset victory in another historically Republican battleground: Jacksonville, Florida.
Deegan, a former television news anchor, ran a campaign that was centered around her story of personal perseverance through three bouts of breast cancer and focused on the need for “good infrastructure, good health, and good economy” in the city.
As the New York Times wrote of her GOP opponent, Daniel Davis:
Mr. Davis, the chief executive of the local chamber of commerce, out-raised Ms. Deegan by a margin of four to one and seemed like the sort of business-friendly Republican that has long dominated elections in Jacksonville.
And yet Deegan beat Davis on Tuesday in a geography where Ron DeSantis had won by double digits just half a year ago, further demonstrating that mainstream Democrats can beat Republicans in right-of-center battlegrounds.
Like in many other geographies, voters in Jacksonville were concerned about rising crime rates (under the GOP’s watch — check out Third Way’s primer on the Red State Murder Problem). As we noted in our live case study on the DC crime resolution overhaul back in March, crime is an issue in red Florida and DeSantis (who is expected to launch his campaign this coming week) should be careful to tout his state as if it were Disney World:
The Florida Governor is susceptible to the Florida Man brand: by more than 2:1, voters believe their own communities are safer than Florida. And just 4 in 10 voters choose DeSantis’ Florida blueprint and “defund” attacks over Democrats’ track record of funding the police.
The road to 2024 is long and there are many bumps ahead. But if there’s one thing that is again clear after this week, it’s that moderates have what it takes to beat the right and the far-left — and it’s a new day for democracy as a result.