Do you want to know what that is above? It’s a picture of the Gulfstream jet still waiting for Glenn Youngkin on the runway in Richmond, Virginia, on Wednesday morning. The Republican governor of Virginia was supposed to jump on it Tuesday night and fly to Iowa to throw his red sweater-vest into the ring of the Republican primary as the Great Savior who would lead Republicans to victory on the abortion issue that is beating the hell out of them in every election they’ve even flirted with over the last two years. Well, that didn’t happen, and here’s why:

Youngkin was supposed to be the guy who could “talk about abortion,” in the refrain we have heard again and again from Republicans, most recently last night from no less an empath than Stephen Miller, he of the plan to “put babies in cages” once Donald Trump is in office again to solve the problem of immigration on the border. Abortion wasn’t on the ballot in Virginia, but the “reasonable” abortion option pushed by Youngkin was. He promised that if Republicans took over the state Senate and House of Delegates, he would pass a 15-week abortion ban with exceptions. Yep, that was his reasonable plan, the way Republicans thought they could “get past” the issue of abortion. We’ll let women control their bodies until the end of the 15th week in their pregnancy, and then your body is ours. If it turns out the baby has birth defects, like missing its brain, you’re going to carry that baby to term whether you like it or not.

Voters in Virginia went to the polls and cast their ballots for state reps and state senators knowing that Youngkin, the stealth theocrat who didn’t quote the Bible in every third sentence of his speeches, would take away their right to abortion after 15 weeks and give it to state authorities who would have the power to enforce the new, “soft” abortion ban he was pushing.

And you know what? Virginia voters didn’t buy it. Democrats held on to their majority in the Virginia Senate and flipped the House of Delegates, and here is someone voters in Iowa or New Hampshire aren’t going to be seeing anytime soon:

In Ohio, abortion was on the ballot as an amendment to the state constitution which basically overturned the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

Yes votes: 2,186,962 56.6 percent of the vote.

No votes: 1,675,728 43.4 percent of the vote

Here’s a photo of women in Ohio celebrating the vote last night:

In Kentucky, abortion wasn’t on the ballot, but Governor Andy Beshear was, running for re-election against an extremist who supported the state’s ban on abortion with no exclusions for rape and incest. Beshear hammered on his support for abortion rights, gaining the vote of a woman from Shelbyville, who told an interviewer after she had voted for Beshear, “I think it’s a woman’s right to choose, and I don’t think politicians should be involved in that choice at all.”

Democrat Andy Beshear: 693,370 52.5 percent of the vote

Republican Daniel Cameron: 626,196 47.5 percent of the vote

Gov. Andy Beshear and Britainy Beshear on Election Night 2023

Right here in Pike County, Pennsylvania, our own Christa Caceres won a decisive victory in her race for County Commissioner. It’s a bigger win than it might seem. Right now, a company fronting for Amazon is trying to build a massive warehouse just off the Milford exit on I-84 up the hill from town, right on top of the aquifer Milford has used for its water for more than 200 years. The source is called the Milford Spring, and the town was famous during the years Milford was a resort for people traveling by train from New York and Philadelphia to escape the heat in the summers. Christa will be a reliable Democratic vote against that nightmare warehouse as the application for a building permit winds its way through the state and county bureaucracies and eventually the courts. Here’s a picture of Christa overlooking the Delaware River:

The big win for the night was in Ohio, which passed an amendment enshrining the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Democrats who want to protect a woman’s right to control her own body will have to vote again in two years in Virginia, and two years after that, and two years after that. The Glenn Youngkins of the world are not going to give up, but neither will we.

The biggest message from Tuesday's election results was that polls don’t count. Elections count. VOTE.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

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