Tonight’s election results in the Midwest were grim not only for conservatism, but sanity as well. In the Chicago mayoral runoff, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson (the card-carrying progressive, “defund the police, sort of” candidate) defeated establishment Democrat Paul Vallas and will lead the city for at least four very uncertain years.
Meanwhile, a few miles north over the border in Wisconsin, the rollback of the significant Tea Party–era gains made by the GOP in the state now seems, if not foreordained, then on the horizon. Democrats have seized control of the state Supreme Court — once held by conservative justices 5–2 during the Scott Walker era — and look set to undo the state’s abortion law and legislative map, and may even threaten Act 1o, Walker’s signature legislative achievement.
There will be much more to say about this tomorrow, for the omens are more than merely inauspicious. Suffice it for now to observe that, on a night where not just the GOP but common sense is facing defeat across a region critical for its future electoral success, most right-leaning commentators are talking about . . . Donald Trump.