Election night 2023 didn't go as planned for many Republicans. In Ohio, voters enshrined abortion rights into their state constitution and legalized recreational marijuana. And Virginia voters handed Democrats full control of their state's congress. So what happened? Glenn and Stu give their take. But it wasn't all losses for conservatives. Glenn speaks with Dom Theodore, program director for The Glenn Beck Program, about an amazing victory in Michigan against an out-of-control township board.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
All right. Do we have Dom on? Dom Theodore. He's the program director of this program. He's actually the guy who saved my career about 20 years ago. And told me, what are you doing, listening to everybody else?
Your show sucks when you listen to everybody else.
Why don't you do what you want to do. And I was like, you know, I will try that because they will fire me anyway.
And now here we are, all these many years later. Dom, how you are?
DOM: I say it worked out for you, pretty well.
GLENN: Yeah. It did. It did. So, Dom, let's talk about what happened in Michigan last night.
Something miraculous happened in your township.
DOM: Yeah. It's really one township over from where I live.
And I think this audience is -- it's the DCP-run Goshen battery factory. That the state of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer tried to shove down our throat locally. And continues to, by the way.
But what's happened, there were a number of local officials, that early on, kind of signed on to that project in a shroud of secrecy. They used secret code names for it. Like project elephant. And they kept the community in the dark. Well, the community eventually found out about it. But, of course, by that point, after the board had committed resources. And taken votes.
And, you know, supported Goshen.
And it was really too late for the public to respond.
And so the public went into action.
And signed recall petitions for all the board members for green charter township.
Eventually, a couple of them had resigned. So there were only five left, that didn't resign.
And last night, every single one of them was replaced. And the recall election. We clean swept all five of those seats.
In addition there was another seat for the township supervisor, in Big Rapids Township, unlike the green charter township board, the Big Rapids Township listened to the public.
And everyone except their supervisor, Bill Stanik, had decided to go with what the public had -- had wanted. Which was not supporting Goshen. The only one that wouldn't change his mind was Bill Stanik.
He also was recalled last night, and replaced.
GLENN: So what does this mean?
Because you have a Chinese communist company, coming in here, to build batteries. It's -- it has in its charter, that it has to have, you know, a young communist club.
And all kinds of crazy stuff. But Whitmer brought all of this stuff in. Jammed it through. The town councils. They all said, okay. So is this going to stop it?
Or -- or -- or what is this?
DOM: Here's the worst part, they did all this without tax dollars. That's the thing. The money that lured them here. And is paying for most of this, is Michigan tax dollars. So, so that's the worst part.
There's a development agreement in place that the previous board left over. And obviously, the new board is going to look at that. With -- with an attorney. And see what the options are, as far as getting out of it.
There are a number of things that Goshen in the past, has basically been able to come in and steamroll over the community. And against the public's wishes.
You know, it's interesting, the former township supervisor, Jim Chapman, completely refused to take a public survey at any point. Because he knew that this would be the result. And, by the way, Glenn, the margins weren't even close. We won by 70 percent in most cases.
GLENN: Jeez.
DOM: It's clear the community didn't want this project. Never wanted this project. And now we have a board with fresh eyes, as you said. That will look at every option on the table. And see how they can get out of the development agreement. And possibly some other remedies as well.
But what they're going to find now, the township boards are not going to roll over like they had been.
GLENN: Good. Good.
Well, congratulations, Dom. I know you guys have worked really hard on this.
And standing up to not only Whitmer and all the state's machinery. Also the machinery of the CCP is not easy. And here's good guys winning. Keep it up.
DOM: It wasn't me. There were so many people involved in the community. All came together.
And we can use everyone's help. And ProtectMecosta.org, because there's still -- there's actually a lawsuit as well, to try to stop them.
So there's a C3, you know, nonprofit set up, to help tax deductible donations at Protect Mecosta, as in Mecosta County, M-E-C-O-S-T-A, dot-org, if people would like to donate.
GLENN: Thank you very much. Appreciate. God bless.
So that's some good news.
Some good news, taxpayers went and said, no to higher taxes. All over the country.
If I were not the guy that I am, and, you know, hadn't done my homework. Wasn't paying attention in Ohio.
I would have voted against -- or for the -- the abortion proposition. Because to me, the way it was worded, is so misleading.
It was, you know, the -- the state is going to be able to have. It will be in the Constitution. Somebody can get in the way of your wife's miscarriage. You know, and have to manage that for her.
What are you talking about?
It was horrible, the way it was worded. And I think there were a lot of people that fell for it, quite honestly.
It wasn't honest. However, it could be that people just are cool with abortion. I don't know.
I don't know.
STU: And if that's the case, then we are going to deserve everything our country gets. You know, that is where this is going to end sadly.
But you're right, the wording was completely ridiculous. Bringing up things like birth control. Which no one was fighting against.
Fertility treatments, which no one was fighting against. Miscarriage care, which nobody was fighting against.
There was one really interesting -- I can't remember the exact wording of it. But the right to be able to keep your own pregnancy. Which, is there a movement of people just walking out of the street, pointing at pregnant bellies and saying, end that one. I don't know. Maybe there is.
GLENN: Never. I've never seen it.
STU: I've never heard it. I've never heard it.
GLENN: So now in the Constitution is the right to abortion. And another measure that they voted for, to legalize marijuana. Margins on both ballot measures, not even close. Abortion and marijuana both won by double digits. Congratulations.
STU: By the way, totally expected. Not a surprise at all. It was something we talked about yesterday, that was going to happen. It's unfortunate. And now Ohio is basically California on abortion. And I know, look, while some people are --
GLENN: Some are not for the -- the constitutional vote over the summer.
STU: That was the vote that mattered. We knew this would happen once the first one happened. Look, if -- there are people that are certainly to the left of us. When it comes to the life issue. And maybe the people of Ohio are in that category. But they're not as far left as California and New York and Illinois, and now they have the same loss. And it's constitutionally enshrined.
So it will be hard to remove. But that is what this is all about. The point is changing people's minds over a long period of time.
It won't always be done with the law. You can't just depend on votes. You have to be able to convince people over a very long period.
It's important. Because what we're talking about is children living.
And I know it's a quaint, little idea, that we shouldn't be talking about anymore. But we kind of think the children should be alive.
GLENN: Looks like the Democratic Party held on to the governor's mansion in Kentucky. The Senate in Virginia.
They managed to flip the Virginia House.
The biggest win came in two ballot measures in Ohio. We just told you about.
One race in the Virginia house was really close. And I don't have -- can you see if they've called this race yet?
Susanna Gibson. Did it go to Susanna Gibson. Or did it go to David Owens. It was too close to call in the middle of the night.
But Susanna Gibson, if you remember, was the nurse practitioner, who people talked about because she made videos of her performing all kinds of things by request for payment.
In her bedroom.
STU: It appears that Owen did win that race.
GLENN: Owen did win it. Not the her.
STU: And probably the porn issue is a difference here.
It's only about a 3 percent race. About 900 votes, give or take.
It was the difference in this race. So probably, I don't know, maybe -- maybe she will lose by 20 points. The porn thing got her close. My guess was, the difference was, this scandal that came out.
GLENN: You have the Mississippi governor, Tate Reeves. The second term for of him. The Democrat conceded last night.
The assembly in New Jersey remains solidly blue. It was a democratic clean sweep. Long Island goes Republican, so we got Long Island.
Colorado voters rejected property tax measures backed by the Democrats.
In Maine, they voted against a new state utility. And they said, they wanted to change their Constitution. And put it -- remains in the Constitution, but for some unknown reason, at least to me. They took it out of the printed Constitution.
And it's all of the tribal obligations.
That Maine has. That, you know, 200 years ago, they made to the Native Americans. And the people there.
But it's full of white people. So you would expect this.
STU: Oh.
GLENN: They said, hey, we should put that back in our Constitution. So we all remember what we -- where we came from.
And our obligations.
So those racists up in Maine, they voted to restore that.
STU: White people are the worst. Am I right?
GLENN: No.
Whitmer and Jackson Lee. Okay. So here it is.
It's Whitmire, actually. It's senator John Whitmire, running for the mayor's role in Houston. Running against Sheila Jackson Lee.
STU: Exciting. Exciting race. They will go to runoff there.
GLENN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
GLENN: So you're going to have one of the two.
You know --
STU: Yeah. Whitmer would probably be the better one.
GLENN: Over Sheila Jackson Lee?
STU: Yes.
GLENN: Just for comedic -- just for comedic purposes.
STU: That's true. We don't live in Houston.
So for our purposes, Sheila Jackson Lee would be a better mayor.
Because we would get constant --
GLENN: I cannot believe that Sheila Jackson Lee is actually being considered by a good number of people in Houston. That's insanity. All of this. All of this, just goes to show you, that we are not a nation.
You know, it's not an open-and-shut case.
Everyone knows it will be close. But I don't think that it is actually running in our favor.
When comes to -- you know, the poll numbers.
I don't think -- I mean, I don't think this is an open-and-shut case. By any stretch of the imagination.
STU: In what way?
GLENN: For any of these presidential candidates.
STU: I think that's definitely true. It's not easy to win presidential elections. Now, you do have a very, very weak candidate running for reelection. At least currently in Joe Biden.
Which makes it possible for --
GLENN: Possible.
STU: But it's not obvious by any means.
And I was looking at the Texas results. And he this voted on -- voted here in Texas. Fourteen different propositions.
Only one did they reject.
They said yes to all 14 of them, except one. And that that one was raising the mandatory requirement age for state judges.
So the -- the state Constitution would be amended to increase the mandatory retirement age. From Texas judges from 279 to 75. So the one thing they rejected from all of these. Like creating funds for water.
And creating funds for internet.
And all these other things. The only other thing that Texas projected. Was no more old people. Please. No more old people.
