Election 2025

Approximately a year ago, we all woke up to the unfathomable news that Donald Trump was voted in for a second term.

I will say that in the months that followed, I wondered if Musk entering the race in October could have changed the outcome. For the first time in history, every single swing state went for DT, yet the rest of the Democratic ballot won. Five million to one chance of that? But I leave that aside. The truth is, we may never know if the 2024 election was fair. Just as Al Gore walked away from what was most likely a win, and Nixon gave it to Kennedy, choosing not to challenge results that were likely tampered with, we too must leave this behind. It would not be the first time in history that an election was not a real win.

And then yesterday’s election results came rolling in after 9 PM. Oh my God, it looked like small buds bursting out of the dark ashes that have been laying on the ground for the last nine months. Small, yes, but very strong and very true.

Mamdani’s win in New York City, with a voter turnout which was the largest in 50 years, was resounding, even though many of the old guard in the Democratic Party tried to make sure he didn’t win. Is it possible we will rewrite the meaning of the negative connotation surrounding the word socialist in the coming year? Is it possible? And the young voters? They came out in droves. And every single borough going for him, which is also unheard of? He’s an outlier to be sure, but right now, for me, outliers are future.

And then Virginia has a Democratic governor, which could also save democracy in its own way, and guess what else? She’s a woman. First one ever. And we know that the data confirms that women collaborate in government and in leadership in a way that has much stronger results than a you-better-follow-me-or-else leader, like the one who presently holds the presidency. No, no, that’s not a question. It’s a fact actually.

And a Democrat New Jersey governor?

And the state of Maine resoundingly voted down making people have to have special ID to vote, to say nothing of no more absentee ballots, which would surely have made Maine a red state again.

And you know what else Maine did? It gave the legislature power to stop giving guns to people who are mentally unstable and exhibiting behavior that could endanger the lives of humans.

Should I go on? I could, but you’re all reading it elsewhere. I don’t need to state the obvious.

What I really want to talk about is a small, local campaign that I peripherally got involved in. One of my inner circle is Carrie Kerpen. She and her husband, Dave, started a company called Likeable Media, a social media firm. They sold it. She then founded The Whisper Group, which is assisting women in both getting funding and also selling businesses. God knows we need that. Her husband, a New York Times bestselling author, decided to run for office earlier in the year, recognizing that it’s the people who show up in the arena, who fight the fights, who are the ones who can say they did everything they could.

He ran for town supervisor in the town of North Hempstead in Nassau County on Long Island. Do you remember Nassau County? The congressman Santos, who ended up in jail before DT pardoned him, and is now probably going to be in the cabinet for all we know? Corruption doesn’t even begin to tell the story.

Anyway, Dave was running against a woman, and I am not even going to put her name here because I do not want to give her any credibility. She’s had the job for two election cycles. She has been lackluster in results, and there are many questionable decisions that seem to be adjectives around a lot of the “Republican” people in leadership. Cronyism I think is the name for it.

So, I served as an informal, friendship-based advisor to Carrie as she was maneuvering her participation in her husband’s campaign and some of the social media. I am proud to say that I feel like I was a support system for her when the Democratic Party was not giving it to her, and that is my opinion, not something she has said to me.

It’s the last month of the campaign, where the Republicans sent out a postcard every few days - fear-ridden, lie-laden mailings that basically said that Dave, who is Jewish by the way, was a socialist and Mamdani’s right hand, and all hell would break loose, the likes of which the Bible warns of, if anybody dared vote for Dave. Neighbor Dave. Good guy who has a passion for baseball and three children who are turning out to be great humans and a fabulous husband and overall supportive, nice guy.

I will not speak for either of the Kerpens around what receiving those postcards was like for them or for their son, who is still at home. He’s not even quite a tween yet.

Because of my national campaign work, I’m used to dirty politics in headlines, but this is different. This is a small community, where a headline is sitting on the kitchen table laptop of the next-door neighbor talking about the person living next door. It’s different.

Their pain, shock and sadness should never have happened.

We all owe Dave a debt of gratitude for standing up last January and saying he was going to put himself out there. He didn’t need to do this. None of us need to do this. But unless people start doing this, the small green buds that are growing up in the ashes this morning can’t multiply and can’t become the trees they need to be so that the future can be better than it ever could’ve been before this catastrophic moment in history.

I thank him for running. I thank his wife for the incredible passion, hope, fear, anger, and drive that she brought to every single minute of the last two months that I was in touch with her about this. She and I are closer than I think we would have been going through it together.

And I hope that every single person who comes across the woman who thinks she beat him, but didn’t, because just as Trump does not win golf matches or tournaments when he kicks the ball back into the fairway, she did not win fair either. That’s not winning. I hope people will, when they cross her path, point out to her that those postcards were beneath the dignity of anybody who truly wants to serve their community. It doesn’t build community. And that they were very disappointed. And then a big smile and a handshake, and on your way. Don’t let her bury her behavior in yesterday’s news. She needs to carry it with her for the next year until she runs again. And do better.

The people who won in this blue tidal wave yesterday did not stoop to lies or fear-based mongering to get votes. Perhaps the best lesson from yesterday is to fight fair, without fear, and with brutal force to win, never stepping over the line in the sand that can never build a better country.

And overall, today’s a great day for America. Not to let our guard down though. I promise you they will come back with things we haven’t even thought of yet. But so far, for today, America won.