Election results: Murphy hangs on in New Jersey as Democratic blame game over Virginia begins

Former President Donald Trump went after Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell while speaking to Real America’s voice on Wednesday morning.

Mr Trump called Mr McConnell a “terrible terrible leader,” adding that “he just doesn’t get it, never has”.

“He’s the most overrated man in politics,” Mr Trump said. “It took him forever to get me the wall and in the end, he couldn’t get it, I had to get it, I had to go through the military.”

He added that if the Republicans take the senate “you’ll have a new majority leader”.

The former president said former House Speaker Paul Ryan “is basically running Fox now. That’s why it’s not a primer for us, not great, not great”.

About Republican Glenn Youngkin’s win in the Virginia governor’s race, Mr Trump said: “I’ve heard Virginia is blue but I’ve never believed it was blue ... without MAGA he would have lost by 15 points, more ... instead of giving us credit they say, oh he’s more popular than [Mr Trump].”

Mr Trump once again pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that he lost the 2020 election because of fraud.

“I don’t believe we lost Virginia and I think they tried to get away with murder in Fairfax,” he said. “They were doing something in Fairfax then gave up, too many eyes.”

Democrat Terry McAuliffe has conceded to Republican Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race.

“While last night we came up short, I am proud that we spent this campaign fighting for the values we so deeply believe in,” Mr McAuliffe said in a statement.

“We must protect Virginia’s great public schools and invest in our students,” he added. “We must protect affordable health care coverage, raise the minimum wage faster, and expand paid leave so working families have a fighting shot. We must protect voting rights, protect a woman’s right to choose, and, above all else, we must protect our democracy. While there will be setbacks along the way, I am confident that the long term path of Virginia is toward inclusion, openness and tolerance for all.”

“Congratulations to Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin on his victory. I hope Virginians will join me in wishing the best to him and his family,” Mr McAuliffe concluded.

Former President Donald Trump unloaded on the Democratic Party in a wide-ranging interview on a conservative broadcasting network early Wednesday after it was reported that Republicans had won the Virginia governor’s mansion and performed well in other key races.

Speaking about President Joe Biden’s trip to Glasgow, Scotland for the COP26 climate summit, Mr Trump characterised Mr Biden’s mission abroad as a failure while seemingly claiming that the Democrats’ climate provisions in the two-pronged infrastructure package working through Congress were the creation of Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive who has called for much further drastic action on the issue.

Targeting the young congresswoman as he often does, Mr Trump claimed: “It came from AOC, who never even studied climate. They just made up the stuff.”

“They talk about it, they have no idea what’s going to happen,” he added, apparently referring to predictions from leading scientists around the world regarding sea-level rise and the frequency of severe weather.

Mr Trump also repeatedly claimed, without explanation, that “nuclear weapons” were “the real climate change” that US lawmakers should be worried about.

“The risk we have is nuclear weapons. That’s your climate change,” Mr Trump said, without mentioning which country’s nuclear program to which he referred.

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Democrats are likely in a state of shock not just by the fact that Republican Glenn Youngkin won in Virginia but by how resoundingly he thumped former Democratic Gov Terry McAuliffe Tuesday evening.

Mr Youngkin, a businessman and former co-chief executive at the Carlyle Group, made significant inroads in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, which essentially serve as an extension of Washington, DC and where Joe Biden won resoundingly just last year.

In Loudoun County, Republicans zeroed in heavily on opposing the teaching of “critical race theory”, a niche legal thought that has since become a catch-all for Republicans to describe most teaching about racial inequalities.

One ad featured the mother of a future GOP operative decrying the fact her son had to read Toni Morrison’s Beloved and calling on parents to have more of a say in their children’s education.

The gamble seemed to pay off. In 2020, Mr Biden won Loudoun County, a largely white county, with 61.9 per cent of the vote whereas Mr McAuliffe only won 55 per cent of the vote as of Wednesday morning. In neighbouring Fairfax County, Mr Youngkin added about six points to Donald Trump’s 28.4 per cent loss.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Wednesday that the Republican win in the Virginia governor’s race won’t change the Democratic agenda in Congress.

“The people have spoken. We respect the results,” she said, according to CNN. “And I’m very sad. Terry McAuliffe was a great leader, he was a great governor of the state.”

Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine pushed back on the idea that the Republican win in the state’s race for governor was a rebuke of the Democratic congressional agenda.

But he still said that congressional Democrats were to blame for the loss.

“I think it was on the shoulders of Democrats here who have the majority,” he said. “People had a lot of hope for Joe Biden and the Joe Biden agenda, but Democrats didn’t want to give Biden a win.”

But he rejected the idea that the result was a vote against the Democrats’ proposed expansion of social spending.

“No, they would love absolutely love like pre-K and childcare, are you kidding me? That’s exactly what suburban parents are hungry for especially after a tough pandemic,” he said, according to CNN.

When asked what went wrong on election night, Democratic Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said the poor results were due to a “failure to deliver. Congress has to deliver. [The] window is closing. We have no more time”.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin told reporters on Tuesday night: “There ought to be a clear message to my party and all those who support it to get the job done.”

“We’ve spent enough time talking and enough time thinking and enough time suggesting to America that good things are coming. Now we’ve got to prove it,” Mr Durbin added, according to CNN.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Wednesday that paid leave is now back in the social spending proposal that Democrats are trying to pass.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday said Democrats’ plan for paid family leave will be added back into President Biden’s signature “Build Back Better” legislation after its’ removal sparked a backlash from progressive Democrats.

In a letter sent Wednesday to members of the House Democratic Caucus, Ms Pelosi said the proposal for family and medical leave will be included in the legislative text to be considered by the House Rules Committee but stressed that anything that is put up for a vote on the House floor must have support from all 50 Democratic senators.

“It had been my intention throughout this process to put on the House Floor and pass a bill that would pass the Senate in the same form. Because I have been informed by a Senator of opposition to a few of the priorities contained in our bill and because we must have legislation agreed to by the House and the Senate in the final version of the Build Back Better Act that we will send to the President’s desk, we must strive to find common ground in the legislation,” she wrote.

“As we are reviewing priorities and at the urging of many Members of the Caucus, I have asked the Ways and Means Committee for its legislation for Paid Family and Medical Leave to be included in this morning’s hearing”.

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When asked what Democrats could have done differently ahead of election day, Hawaii Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono told CNN that her “goal has always been to communicate to the American public who is actually screwing them over, and it’s not the Democrats”.

“Even as we’re, as you say, arguing over the provisions of the Build Back Better, what are the Republicans doing? Nothing. Zero. Zip. Effing nothing,” she added.

The key lesson Democrats appear to have learned after losing the Virginia governor’s race is that they need to pass their agenda, fast.

“Terry McAuliffe has been saying for weeks that his fate was tied to the progress of negotiations here on Capitol Hill,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said, according to CNN. “And there ought to be a clear message to my party and all those who support it to get the job done.”

“I don’t want to point a finger or blame,” he added. “But I will tell you this. There’s no time left. This warning to us came early enough for us to do something about it. Now we have to respond.”