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Conservative Vivek Ramaswamy admitted that Republicans fell short as Democrats swept highly watched races across the nation on Tuesday. On Tuesday, Ramaswamy shared what lessons Republicans could learn from the election results, including Democrat Mikie Sherrill’s victory in New Jersey. He also referenced Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s win in Virginia’s governor race and Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s mayoral race. “We got our asses handed to us in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City. Democrats swept all three. There’s two key lessons for Republicans, listen carefully: Number one, our side needs to focus on affordability. Make the American dream affordable, bring down costs, electric costs, grocery costs, health care costs and housing costs, and lay out how we’re going to do it,” Ramaswamy said in a video shared on social media platform X. “And number two: cut out the identity politics. It doesn’t suit Republicans. It’s not for us. That’s the woke left skin, not ours. We don’t care about the color of your skin or your religion. We care about the content of your character. That’s who we are,” he added. Ramaswamy earned President Donald Trump’s endorsement after he announced last spring he will be running for Ohio governor in next year’s election. He rose to national prominence during the 2024 presidential election after he made a long-shot bid for the GOP nomination for the White House. While Trump was not technically on Tuesday’s ballot, pundits have argued that Democrats’ strong wins represent a referendum on the president’s policies. In New Jersey, for example, Trump made huge gains last year, losing to then-Vice President Kamala Harris by only 5 percentage points. But on Tuesday, Democrat Mikie Sherrill performed about 7 points better than Harris did in the state in 2024 The race was called less than two hours after polls closed for Sherrill, who is leading by about 13 percentage points with 95% of the vote counted as of Wednesday afternoon. Her opponent, Republican Jack Ciattarelli, was endorsed by Trump in the campaign. In his first Truth Social post commenting on the election results, Trump suggested that the reasons why Democrats won is because he was not on the ballot and because of the government shutdown. Trump has repeatedly blamed Democrats for the shutdown despite Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House. Trump appeared to quote “pollsters” in his post but did not specify who he was quoting.
