IT WASN'T JUST VIRGINIA: THERE WAS GOOD NEWS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY (updated)

The big story yesterday was Democrats winning all statewide offices in Virginia, and winning at least 14 seats in Virginia's House of Delegates, with several races too close to call, which gives them a shot at control of a legislative body where Republicans currently have a 66-34 advantage.

But there was more good news, and I don't just mean Democrat Phil Murphy trouncing Chris Christie's lieutenant governor in the New Jersey governor's race, or Bill de Blasio becoming the first Democrat to win reelection as mayor of New York since Ed Koch in 1985 (and the first liberal to win reelection since John Lindsay in 1969), or Maine approving Medicaid expansion in a referendum that defied the will of proto-Trump governor Paul LePage.

Here's a rebuke of Trumpism: Remember these flyers from the school board race in Edison, New Jersey?



Shi and Patel both won seats on the board, finishing first and second in the at-large election. Also, Ravi Bhalla, a Sikh who wears a turban, was elected mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, despite being targeted as a "terrorist" in racist flyers.

Yesterday, a flyer w/ word “terrorist” above a pic of me was circulated in Hob. Of course this is troubling, but we won’t let hate win. pic.twitter.com/Ri9xrYF4Al

— Ravinder S. Bhalla (@RaviBhalla) November 4, 2017

A black transgender woman, Andrea Jenkins, was elected to the Minneapolis city council, and another trans woman, Danica Roem, was one of the Democrats who beat an incumbent Republican for a seat in Virginia's House of Delegates. You may know that the man Roem defeated, Bob Marshall, proudly referred to himself as the state's "chief homophobe" and sponsored an anti-trans "bathroom bill" in Virginia, while referring to Roem throughout the campaign as "he." But he was also an across-the-board wingnut. He proposed the mandatory arming of some personnel in every school in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. He wanted Virginia to study the possibility of minting its own money "in the event of a major breakdown of the Federal Reserve System." He said God punishes women who have abortions by making children they bear after an abortion disabled:

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.

“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

There's more:

Bob Marshall’s take on the Obama Agenda: "Suicidal deficits, enemies lists, abortion, euthanize seniors, health care that kills capitalism … ‘Live and let die,’ Obama theme song!"

Bob Marshall compares the economic stimulus package to slavery: "It is as much a chain as ankle bracelets were as to African-Americans in the 1860s in this state. It’s just invisible. But it is a chain of death that we’re not going to escape."

On Abortion in the case of incest and rape Marshall said: "Sometimes incest is voluntary." Marshall added, with regard to rape, that "the woman becomes a sin-bearer of the crime, because the right of a child predominates over the embarrassment of the woman."

Marshall on the Morning After Pill: "We have no business passing this garbage out and making these co-eds chemical Love Canals for these frat house playboys in Virginia."

Buh-bye, Bob.

In Washington State, Democrat Manka Dhingra won a state senate race that gives the party control of the only legislative house on the Pacific Coast currently controlled by Republicans. Democrats also have the governors' mansions in California, Oregon, and Washington, so those states now form a "blue wall" on the coast.

And in Westchester County, New York, Democrat George Latimer soundly defeated Republican Rob Astorino, a two-term incumbent, in the county executive's race. Astorino lost despite being backed by an independent expenditure committee that received a million dollars from Steve Bannon's sugar daddy, Robert Mercer.

So yesterday was a very good day.

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UPDATE: This is good, too:

A Republican New Jersey official who posted a meme mocking the Women’s March was defeated in an election last night by a female candidate who was inspired to run by his remarks, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Democrat Ashley Bennet defeated Republican John Carman Tuesday for the Atlantic County freeholder seat, according to the AP.

Carman posted a meme on the day of the Women’s March that featured a woman in a kitchen and the message, “Will the women's protest be over in time for them to cook dinner?"

Also this:

Chris Hurst, a former Virginia TV news anchor from the Main Line whose journalist girlfriend was fatally shot during a live broadcast in 2015, was elected Tuesday to the Virginia legislature, defeating an NRA-supported Republican incumbent in a come from behind race.

And this:

Wow. Meet the first black mayor in the ENTIRE HISTORY of Montana.

Wilmot Collins, who arrived in the US as a refugee from civil war in Liberia, was elected Mayor in Helena, Montana. PROGRESS! pic.twitter.com/hhuzpEsIfp

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 8, 2017