Glenn youngkin

Abigail Spanberger’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial election should come as no surprise. In the last 50 years, the state has only once elected a governor who belongs to the same party as the president. While the outcome might not be out of the ordinary, it doesn’t bode well for the Republican party in next year’s midterms – Spanberger won by a 15-point lead, much wider than the two-point margin of the 2021 race. Spanberger is a former CIA officer who served three terms in Congress. Her opponent Winsome Earle-Sears has served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor since 2021, but failed to connect with voters in the way that Virginia’s incumbent Governor Glenn Youngkin did.

Speaker Mike Johnson is extending a high-profile olive branch to one of his biggest intra-party foes of the day: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Johnson made her one of the impeachment managers as the House hands the reins of the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas to a less-than-excited Senate. Just days ago, Greene was performatively threatening to oust Johnson hours before Congress headed into a multi-week recess. Now, she’s joining with a group of Republicans in asking Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to expeditiously schedule an impeachment hearing for Mayorkas. It’s not just Greene who is obviously being helped out by Johnson with this announcement.

A studio apartment at the upscale Illume apartments in DC’s Navy Yard neighborhood currently rents for $1,747 a month. The complex boasts rooftop pools, “luxe quartz countertops with modern tile backsplashes” and the chance to “pamper your pup at Luna’s pet spa.” Not mentioned on its sleekly designed website: “escaping gunmen running through the courtyard.”“We have been informed by the police that there is an armed suspect in the area,” the building emailed residents Tuesday afternoon. “We strongly advise all residents to stay inside their home with the door locked until further notice.”A statement from the Capitol Police said, “Our patrol officers spotted a vehicle that was connected to a previous shooting that occurred in MPD’s 2nd District.

Let the handwringing begin! Long before the polls closed in Tuesday’s off-cycle elections, pundits were already racing to assign blame for another underwhelming Republican performance. The usual suspects duly took the predictable hits. Legally troubled former president Donald J. Trump played almost no role in the elections, but it was easy to pin lackluster results on him as the GOP’s runaway favorite for the 2024 presidential nomination and the party’s de facto leader. The only major candidate he endorsed, Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron, lost to Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear.

Republicans no doubt woke up Wednesday morning incredibly disappointed by last night’s election results. Democratic governor Andy Beshear won re-election in Kentucky, the GOP lost control of the Virginia House of Delegates, and Ohio voters opted to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. Political consultants and commentators quickly lashed out at the party’s perceived failure: Republicans either talked too much or not enough about abortion and the GOP will never win again with Trump at the top of the ticket or Trump is vital to its success, depending on who you ask.Abortion obviously mattered Tuesday night; the Ohio referendum results made that clear.

Bristow, Virginia Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin responded to recent accusations from Democrats that he is attempting to buy votes by sending out tax rebates ahead of the 2023 statewide elections. “Had [Democrats] not delayed the budget for seven months, then the tax checks would have gone out a long time ago,” Youngkin told The Spectator during a press gaggle at Piney Branch Elementary School. The governor dropped by multiple polling locations on Tuesday to speak to election volunteers and voters. NBC News reported last week that “the state of Virginia is sending out tax rebate checks to qualified residents, just days before the state’s 2023 General Assembly elections.

My Tuesday evening unexpectedly freed up when a much anticipated (just kidding!) joint Fox News interview with GOP presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie was scrapped. Why? The Republican National Committee threatened to exclude the pair from future RNC debates for violating an agreement they made not to appear in any unsanctioned debates. Although Fox News avoided the term “debate” when advertising the planned special segment, the RNC was not convinced. Christie and Ramaswamy both lashed out at the RNC in response, claiming it was proof of a “broken” primary process and harmful to the party's ability to have substantive “dialogue” about issues.

Virginia Beach, Virginia “Please run. We need you to save our country. Please.” A man pleads with Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, referring to speculation that Youngkin may jump into the 2024 GOP presidential primary — and that Republican donors are encouraging him to do so. Youngkin responds, with a laugh: “I’m busy.” The governor is, indeed, quite busy. It is late August and he has just finished up one of his “Parents Matter” listening sessions, this one in Virginia Beach. Youngkin has been traveling the Commonwealth and hearing directly from parents to fulfill one of his biggest 2021 campaign promises: protecting the rights of parents from government overreach in matters concerning their children.

The Democrats are having a hard time keeping their story straight on abortion. Last week, former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki claimed on her MSNBC show (which should be called The Spin Zone) that “no one supports abortion up until birth,” only to then describe all of the scenarios in which she would support a late-term abortion. Vice President Kamala Harris similarly balked in a CBS interview Sunday with Margaret Brennan when asked if she would support any limits on abortion. Instead, she opted to reiterate several times that “we need to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade.” The inability of Democrats to articulate what abortion limits they support is a feature, not a bug.