Red Vote Rising

Call it the Red Vote. Every State, “red” or “blue,” has one – except maybe Massachusetts and Hawaii. They almost always live in rural or exurban (not suburban) counties or other units, and dominate local politics there. In States like Oregon, they send the troublemakers to State Assemblies, Houses of Representatives/Delegates/whatever, etc., and sometimes to State Senates. They govern themselves entirely differently from the Big City TV markets that dominate State-wide politics. But they never imagined “carrying” their State for a Republican Presidential or even U.S. Senate candidate. The City Slickers, many of whom are government flunkies (especially in Northern Virginia), always carry the State through sheer numbers. But that was then. This is now. Now the Red Vote can shine – if it turns out and gets out and votes the way the Blue Vote always does – or has.

Red Vote Exhibit A: New York!

Two and a half months ago, Donald Trump was effectively in “State arrest” – in New York State. So if he couldn’t campaign out of New York, he campaigned in New York. The results were more than promising, so people dared ask: could Trump carry New York?

Those results came from Trump campaigning in New York City and its outlying boroughs! But how much better results might Trump had gotten, had he campaigned in upstate New York? There the Red Vote lives. New York State sent more Republicans to the House of Representatives in the 2022 Midterms. That was the only reason they held the House, despite the disastrous complacency – and internal sabotage – that marred Republican performance. Indeed, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) almost became Governor of New York State!

Yesterday the Manhattan Borough President sounded the alarm to Politico.com:

We’re still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been. I truly believe we’re a battleground state now.

The only sense in which New York State is a one-Party State is that Republicans haven’t elected Governors, nor sent Republicans to the U.S. Senate, nor given the State’s electoral votes to Republican Presidential candidates, for those 25 years. (Massachusetts and Hawaii are one-Party States in the true sense of that word: their entire House delegations are Democratic.) We just heard the Manhattan Borough President say that Trump could carry New York. Worse for them, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is up for reelection this year. Democrats also worry about some of their vulnerable incumbents in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island.

Sampling of blue demos spells trouble

Most of the sampling that worried the Democrats so, is not even in upstate New York. It’s in New York City and the surrounding areas, places everyone expects to stay solid blue. But it’s not so solid anymore. The Daily Show recently ran a focus group – of black New Yorkers. Members split down the middle between Trump and Biden.

One focus group member laid it on the line:

For me, I’ve always been a Democrat. And it’s like, for the most part with the Democratic party, they always make a bunch of promises that they can’t deliver.

Everyone expected Democrats to deliver after 2021. After all, they had the trifecta, or even the grand slam! They had the Presidency and both chambers of Congress. Their false-flag pseudo-operation on January 6, 2021 had half the country thinking it had dodged a rocket-propelled grenade from – well, call it the Nationalist Anti-socialist American Patriots’ Party. (Remember that in blue circles, patriotism is a curse word.) Three and a half years of crippling inflation later, the nonwhite lower classes are taking their votes back.

Voter A: I wish I knew. I am not a huge fan of Trump. He don’t respect the black person.

Voter B: And Biden does? Has Biden issued an apology for the things that he’s been caught saying?

And consider this:

He’s never been a good candidate ever. And if it wasn’t for all of those unfortunate events that happened in 2020, I don’t think he’d be president now. “Charlamagne da God”

Notice that they’re not even talking about Biden’s disastrous debate performance. They’re talking about things they’ve wondering about for years, and now are saying out loud. The debate might have broken a dam, but the dam was already weak and the lake already at spillover point.

Exhibit B: Virginia

Virginia is even more likely to flip. In 2021, Virginia famously did flip, electing three Republicans to State-wide office in the off year. True enough, Virginia seemed to be back in Democratic form at Midterms. 2023, of course, was The Abortion Election.

Memo to Lila Rose and Jenna Ellis. If you want to know why Donald Trump erased all mention of abortion in the GOP platform, that’s why. And that’s why your cue is to prick the consciences of individuals, and really play The Long Game. That includes founding new teaching hospitals and founding competing Specialty Boards.

But for now, let everyone take note. Virginia has, for the last twenty-odd years, been two States: Northern Virginia and the rest of it. Northern Virginia is Virginia’s New York City, or “Downstate New York”: solid blue. Its residents are federal employees, who want to protect their careers, and believe in the Mission of the Deep State. The rest of the State, apart from Charlottesville, Ashland, other “college towns,” and Richmond, has the Red Vote. When State Sen. Dick Saslaw (D-Falls Church) proposed a “confiscatory ban” on most handguns and rifles, Red Vote counties adopted Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolutions. (Dick Saslaw is now retired.)

Virginia’s General Assembly (Senate and House of Delegates) is almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Donald Trump, famously speaking in Wildwood, New Jersey, boldly declared Virginia “in play.”

Message to the Red Vote – get out and VOTE!

Here, then, is the salient message for members of the Red Vote. If you’re already in a Red State, now is not the time to become complacent. Complacency is one way that Democrats flipped New Hampshire blue. (The other way was having Bostonians make their homes in New Hampshire, effectively colonizing its southern counties. Those voters combined with the Student Vote at Dartmouth College to capture the State.) Complacency also raised a seawall against the Red Wave in 2022.

But the Red Vote in blue States can do considerable damage, win or lose – and this is The Long Game. Patti Lyman, Virginia Republican National Committeewoman, is right: no State (except maybe Massachusetts and Hawaii) is solid blue. We see islands of blue in an ocean of red throughout the United States. Imagine, then, what would happen if more Red Voters actually voted. The results might produce even more caterwauling than the country heard after Trump won the Election of 2016.

How it must feel

But consider the position of a Red Vote member in a blue State. In all but strictly local races, Democrats dominate. Lower-house Speakers and Senate Presidents (some of whom are Lieutenant Governors) grind their teeth and tolerate Republicans from red counties. The situation is worse in Virginia and New Jersey, because they hold their State and local elections in off years. And maybe in your jurisdiction, Officers of Election know how to do things. (Or so you think! Steve Bannon’s Precinct Strategy is the only reason Glenn Youngkin swept Virginia in 2021. Are you an OOE? Or do you let the Little Old Ladies in Tennis Shoes run your elections?) In blue cities and counties, OOEs are for window dressing, and let Democrats do as they please to win. (And sometimes, RINOs let them get away with it.)

That was then. This is now. What’s changed? Three and a half years of incompetence at best, treason at worst, in official Washington – that’s what’s changed. Maybe knowing how The Big Steal could happen, has also changed. In any event, the Red Vote forgot the First Rule of Politics:

All politics is local. Rep. Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (D-Mass.), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

Strike while the iron is hot

Your future is on the line – yours, and the future of this country you and we love, if no one else does. The Big City Democrats are getting tired of the broken promises. Those promises had their basis in communism anyway, and we all know how well (poorly!) that works. With Democrats weakening in the “islands of blue,” the Red Ocean can rise and swamp those islands.

So how does it work? Did you know that half the OOE contingent in at least one jurisdiction quit?

We’re getting old for this sort of thing!

Do you want Happy Faces Temps to run your elections? Don’t think it can’t happen! The General Registrar’s staff in your editor’s jurisdiction told him personally that that’s what it might come to. But here is the opportunity for the Red Vote. Let them sign up to become Officers of Election, and at least eliminate some opportunities for cheating. Let’s see more resolutions before Boards of Supervisors/Commissioners/etc., and City Councils, for voting on paper.

Until then, take advantage of whatever mechanisms are in place to “make voting easier.” If you request an absentee ballot, no one else can do that in your name. Then fill it out and send it in. (Or, surrender it at your local polling place when you go to vote in person.

You know the kind of country you want to live in, even as former Democrats start to ask themselves that. An opportunity like this will not come again. Don’t waste it.