The legacy media spent much of the past week consoling itself about the outcome of the Virginia governor’s race, where Republican Glenn Youngkin pulled off an underdog victory over former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe. Yet even amidst their hand-wringing and mourning, legacy media outlets managed to selectively highlight certain stories and ignore others to promote an alternate reality.
In this special, all-election edition of this weekly feature, here are the top figures the media ignored:
The Rise Of Winsome Sears.
Few people so perfectly shatter the mythology the legacy media have promoted for the last year than Virginia’s new lieutenant governor-elect, Winsome Sears. The black Republican became the first “woman of color” elected to statewide office in the Old Dominion—a feat all the more surprising since her only previous political experience came from a single, two-year term as a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates (2002-2004). Yet cable news networks alternately ignored her or attacked her as “flaky,” while lavishing media attention on other, less important Democrats.
A search of CNN’s prime time transcripts for Tuesday and Wednesday turns up only one mention of Winsome Sears by name — by a Republican. “I was actually stunned as a former Republican congressman, you know, that Glenn Youngkin prevailed and Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares. It was a strong, diverse ticket,” ex-U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA), a Republican, told Anderson Cooper on Wednesday. “I was thrilled with it.” To his credit, Jake Tapper said on Tuesday night, “If this holds, we will go down in history as the first woman of color lieutenant governor or elected official statewide in the Commonwealth of Virginia.” Although Don Lemon mentioned the Democratic lieutenant governor of New Jersey (Sheila Oliver) by name on election night, he wouldn’t say the name “Winsome Sears.”
MSNBC proved little better. When Ali Velshi announced Sears’ victory, Velshi said he wanted to touch on the topic “for half-a-second.” (Ari Melber had mentioned Sears along with a list of other successful minority candidates in the previous hour). Former Republican Bill Kristol insulted Sears, telling Brian Williams on Wednesday night that this was a “wave election” that swept away “better candidates that were considered very attractive,” like the “lieutenant governor candidate here in Virginia, Hala Ayala, against, I think a pretty flaky Republican, honestly.”
Later that night, guest host Tiffany Cross took a swipe at “the elected lieutenant governor of Virginia,” who “hates the woman’s right to choose but … she certainly loves her guns.”
The lack of media coverage certainly didn’t come from a lack of focus on Virginia, nor did the legacy media overlook stories about “women of color.” The legacy media showered attention on lesser figures nationwide:
- Later in the show, Cross said, “there were some historic elections that happened last night. You had Michelle Wu, Boston’s first female and Asian-American mayor. Ed Gainey was Pittsburgh’s first black mayor, Aftab Pureval, Cincinnati`s first Asian-American mayor, Nadarius Clarke, Virginia’s youngest Democratic delegate”;
- Lawrence O’Donnell dedicated an entire segment to Michelle Wu’s win; and
- On Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid dedicated a full segment to interviewing Democrat Nadarius Clark, who became the youngest elected member of the Virginia House of Delegates. (It is unclear if the network interviewed 18-year-old Saira Blair when the outspoken pro-life Republican became the youngest member of neighboring West Virginia’s House of Delegates in 2014.)
Members of the democratic socialist wing of the House Democratic caucus conventionally known as “The Squad” had nothing to say about the remarkable victory, although they profess to care deeply about equity and representation.
How is Winsome Sears different than these other, more celebrated, if less consequential, candidates? She’s a black immigrant who loves America and hates Critical Race Theory. She is a conservative Republican who describes herself as “100% pro-life.” And she’s a veteran who supports the Second Amendment. (“The Second Amendment tells us we have a right to do so; we have a right to own guns,” she said.)
“My father came to America from Jamaica with $1.75. He took any job he could find, put himself through school with that money, and started his American dream. Now he’s comfortably retired,” she told WJLA-TV. “So, education pulled my father out of poverty.” Her father brought her to the United States from Jamaica at age 6 and, while she says America is not perfect, she tells its critics, “We’ve got to acknowledge we’ve come a long way” toward eradicating racism and prejudice.
There is no message, nor any messenger, the legacy media have any less interest in promoting.
Members of the legacy media are “all racist,” said Greg Gutfeld, “because they ignored [Lieutenant Governor] Sears – the first woman of color to win a statewide election in Virginia. Why? Because she dared to leave the deep plantation of ideology that these white women, and Joy Reid, believe she should stay on.”
The Defeat Of India Walton
The legacy media celebrated India Walton, a self-described socialist who defeated the incumbent mayor of Buffalo, New York, in the Democratic primaries. Her ascension seemed to follow the same arc as that of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other far-Left Democrats, who successfully muscled other candidates out of the way and pulled their party to the far-Left. Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Walton. It appeared that a political star had been born.
But a strange thing happened on the way to Walton’s coronation: The incumbent mayor, traditional Democrat Byron Brown, opted to run as a write-in candidate. On Wednesday, he declared victory. “Ms. Walton won 41% of the vote, while write-in candidates including Mr. Brown accounted for about 59%, according to the Erie County Board of Elections,” reported the Wall Street Journal. Walton mournfully confessed, “While we anticipate that the margins will narrow, it seems unlikely that we will end up with enough votes to inaugurate a Walton administration in January.”
An establishment Democrat stopping the socialist insurgency did not fit the media narrative, so it garnered precious little coverage. Jake Tapper made a passing reference to the race on Tuesday night before the results became apparent. The next morning on “New Day,” Miguel Marquez called her loss a “shocker” and “the most surprising result of the night.”
The election outcome mirrored the fate of former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT). Six years after serving as the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, Lieberman lost the Democratic Party primary to left-wing activist Ned Lamont. But Lieberman went on to brand himself an independent and win the general election as a write-in candidate.
To his credit, Chris Cuomo said the Democratic Party should learn not to “tell people you know better how to live their lives than they do.”
Edward Durr’s Victory Over Democratic Establishment Leader
CNN notwithstanding, the most surprising result of the night came from New Jersey, where a 58-year-old commercial truck driver defeated the longest-tenured president in state Senate history. As The Daily Wire reported:
Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) has been New Jersey’s state Senate President since 2010 and has served in the state Senate since 2002. With 99.37% of precincts reporting in New Jersey’s 3rd District, Sweeney trails Republican Edward Durr, a commercial truck driver who reportedly spent just $153 on his own campaign.
Durr told Breitbart News that he spent $153 before the primary began, and a total of roughly $9,000. He said he maintained his job as a truck driver while campaigning, walking up to eight hours a day even though “I have gout and plantar fasciitis.” He lost his father in late October. Now that he seems to have won the election, Durr said service won’t change him. “I’m always going to be me, the blue collar guy.”
Durr could hardly cut a starker contrast with his opponent. But “his power, his clout, did not scare me,” Edward Durr told local media. The state’s restrictive COVID-19 lockdowns spurred Durr to make a difference.
“The governor was messing with people’s families. When you mess with somebody’s job, their livelihood, their home, their children — people just won’t take that,” he said. “I’m a firm constitutionalist believer, and I believe in people’s rights.”
Curiously, this irresistible story garnered little attention from CNN and MSNBC. A search of available transcripts shows, despite the network’s focus on the unexpectedly close governor’s race in New Jersey, the networks seem not to have mentioned Durr’s stunning victory at all.
For some reason, the movement that says it represents working people has no interest in covering a truck driver defeating a career politician. Draw your own conclusions.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.