Opinion
The election results are hard for me to believe.
Here at home, voters moved our county commissioners’ board closer to a liberal majority. Statewide, Gov. Tina Kotek declared victory in her bid for a second term. She has ranked among the least popular governors in the country in Morning Consult polling. Under her watch, Oregon has ranked 2nd in the nation for homelessness and 3rd for drug addiction, while also posting near-bottom education results and a business climate that many employers openly criticize. Voters re-elected her anyway.
Expect more of the same. Oregon taxpayers already pay for gender-transition procedures and for health coverage for people in the country illegally, while many of us struggle to pay our own bills. To be blunt, I don’t understand why voters keep choosing this.
Nationally, it was no better. Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas, the first Democratic governor there since the 1990s. Democrat James Talarico won a U.S. Senate seat Republicans had held. If Texas can swing like that, I fear we have lost the nation.
In Maine, Sen. Susan Collins lost her re-election bid to Democrat Troy Jackson. In Michigan, voters elected Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive whom his opponents call a socialist, to the open Senate seat.
Networks now project that Democrats will control both the House and the Senate, which means the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will be able to push their agenda in Washington.
So I’ll ask it plainly:
What are we doing?
How much of this was due to slanted media coverage?
