Category: Blaze Media
The 2026 map tilts left if Republicans ignore what voters just told them
The Associated Press told us a partial truth after the November 4 elections: Republicans delude themselves when they brush off their losses. AP then added its usual spin, claiming GOP leaders deny that “affordability” drove their defeat. According to AP, soaring costs and economic uncertainty explain why Republican candidates collapsed across several high-profile races.
Republicans did not simply underperform. They were routed. GOP candidates lost in the marquee races in New Jersey and Virginia, and Democrats came within striking distance of a supermajority in the Virginia legislature. Democrats even clawed back ground in places like Luzerne County, Pennsylvania — a longtime working-class stronghold that had tilted red for decades.
The left treats politics as a total struggle. Republicans cannot keep treating it as a polite debate.
The GOP took a real shellacking.
AP captured only part of the story. Republican leaders keep denying the obvious, insisting the mid-cycle results followed the usual pattern for a party out of power. That excuse collapses when measured against the magnitude of the losses.
In New Jersey, a scandal-scarred, aggressively pro-LGBTQ Democrat crushed a strong Republican challenger by more than 14 points — in a state battered by high taxes, rising crime, and deep voter frustration. Jack Ciattarelli was supposedly running neck-and-neck with Mikie Sherrill. The final tally proved otherwise.
Virginia delivered an even starker picture. A hyper-progressive Democrat won the governor’s race against a conservative black Republican woman. The new attorney general prevailed despite revelations that he sent violent, disturbing text messages expressing rage toward a Democratic opponent and his children. Voters shrugged and voted for him anyway.
This election was not routine. It was a decisive, unmistakable rejection of the party in power. The results cannot be explained away by economic anxiety. Voters responded to ideology and identity — not affordability indexes.
Democratic voters turned out as a unified bloc against what they have been conditioned to believe is a dangerous, authoritarian movement. Media outlets, universities, Hollywood, and most major cultural institutions spent years drilling that narrative into the public. The left absorbed it fully and voted accordingly.
It’s hard to square AP’s affordability argument with the fact that voters rewarded Biden’s economically disastrous administration in the 2022 midterms — and continued to do so in these off-year races. By every major metric, economic conditions have improved dramatically since Trump returned to the White House. Inflation fell. Energy prices dropped. Markets hit record highs. Food and housing costs remain problems, but they remain high largely because the Federal Reserve refuses to cut rates — something Trump intends to fix when he replaces the current chair.
Meanwhile, Biden’s border catastrophe flooded the country with roughly 10 million illegal migrants, burdened taxpayers, and fueled a surge of crime. Yet he paid little political price. Voters did not punish him or his party.
To understand why, look at a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll. Georgia Republicans list inflation and the economy as their top concerns. Georgia Democrats list something else entirely: a “tougher response” to Trump and MAGA Republicans. They rank economic issues and even abortion behind their desire to defeat an ideological enemy. For them, politics is a moral crusade.
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Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
This reveals the central mismatch. Republicans speak the language of policy: inflation, taxes, energy, spending. Democrats speak the language of existential struggle. They believe they are at war with a malevolent force, and that belief animates them far more than grocery bills or mortgage rates. Trump derangement syndrome is very much alive and well with these voters.
Republicans just want to return to normal politics — debates over issues, clean contests, and sportsmanlike disagreements. Their media allies keep telling them nothing has changed since Trump beat a ditzy, verbally inept opponent in 2024.
Wrong. Everything has changed.
Republicans face a massive, highly motivated voting bloc determined to strip them of power. Democrats aim to defeat and humiliate their opposition, not negotiate with it. Their rhetoric against ICE, their nonstop attacks on Trump, and their saturation campaigns across media and education paid off. They fought harder. They fought longer. And they won nearly everywhere that mattered.
The GOP cannot afford to treat this moment as another cyclical setback. The left treats politics as a total struggle. Republicans cannot keep treating it as a polite debate. Until the GOP grasps the scale of the conflict, election nights will keep looking like this one.
Undercover video reveals Ohio school official IGNORING ban on boys in girls’ sports
One of the first things President Trump did when he got into the Oval Office was to take action to protect children in this country by signing an executive order to ban men from women’s sports.
And in 2024, Ohio passed a law banning males from competing in girls’ sports — but the law isn’t actually being enforced. In fact, it is being actively ignored.
In an undercover investigation carried out by Accuracy in Media, an interview with Jodi Zunk, assistant principal and athletic director of Eastwood Middle School in Pemberville, Ohio, revealed just that.
“We as a school are very open, but I will say in the larger community, there is still some — you know, it’s a small rural community. Whenever you get rural, you get pushback sometimes. But we are here to protect. Pronouns — him or her?” Zunk said in the secret recording.
“Ohio just passed a bunch of laws with the current administration. I’m very left-leaning, and I’ll just put that right out there. And so, this has been a struggle for me. But with the Trump administration and Ohio’s a Republican state, there have been some recent laws in OHSAA, which is our governing athletic body,” she continued.
“Previously, before they just changed some of these laws, we’ve had transgender students participate on the boys’ track team, or the girls’, or vice versa. Like, not their biological gender,” she added.
The reporter then played along, saying, “I do have an adopted birth certificate for my sister. She passes for a young lady. So we have that adopted birth certificate.”
“I wonder if we just don’t even tell anybody,” Zunk responded.
Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette has had his team doing these undercover investigations in more than 250 schools.
“It’s gosh darn everywhere,” Guillette tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales. “You know, we’ve been undercover in Texas. In districts throughout the state, the exact same thing was occurring.”
“This is a part of our investigations in Ohio. I think it’s part seven. Both of them red states. If that’s what’s happening in presumably conservative, Republican states, you know, what’s happening in Illinois, Rhode Island, California, or even the purple states?” he continues.
“These radicals put their agenda ahead of the safety of girls every time,” he adds.
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UK woman said she wanted to be tortured and killed on fetish site — her body was found in shallow grave in the US
The boyfriend of a woman who allegedly paid someone to torture and kill her said that she had been suffering from mental illness before the shocking events, according to Florida authorities.
Sonia Exelby was reported missing in October before police were able to trace her to an Airbnb in Reddick and found her remains nearby.
‘I’m so, so scared. I’m so broken and in so much pain. … I thought he’d do it quick and not give my mind time to stew.’
Exelby boarded a flight to Florida and arrived on Oct. 10, according to an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The FDLE said that Exelby posted on a fetish website that she was willing to pay someone to torture and kill her.
A week after she arrived in Florida, her remains were found in a shallow grave.
Investigators linked her to a man named Dwain Hall, who had used her bank card and tried to use her credit cards.
When they interviewed him, he gave conflicting accounts of how they met.
Police said they gathered evidence pointing to Hall as Exelby’s alleged killer.
Authorities said Hall purchased rope and gun cleaner among other items at a Walmart in Gainesville on Oct. 10. After that purchase, he made a second purchase of a shovel. He then allegedly went to pick up Exelby at the airport, and they both went to an Airbnb that he had rented.
The next day, he charged $1,200 to Exelby’s bank card.
Authorities said he recorded a video of Exelby showing her with cuts and bruises, and asking her to say that she consented to being stabbed.
Exelby sent a message to a friend via the Discord app expressing regret.
“I’m so, so scared. I’m so broken and in so much pain. … I thought he’d do it quick and not give my mind time to stew,” she wrote.
On Oct. 14, Hall allegedly sent a package to a friend that authorities said contained a knife that had traces of Exelby’s blood. It also had a bracelet with DNA from both Exelby and Hall.
Police also said the shovel Hall purchased matched the one they found at Exelby’s grave site.
Hall was initially arrested for fraud in relation to his alleged use of Exelby’s financial cards, but those charges were dropped when he was charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder.
U.K. law enforcement said that Exelby sought someone to kill her in 2024, but she obtained mental health treatment instead after the attempt was thwarted.
Hall allegedly told police he was upset because she promised to pay him $4K, but he only received $1.2K.
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JASMINE THE ‘GENIUS’: Lee Zeldin Torches Texas Rep After Bogus Epstein Claim
Better check those records again.
Florida Congresswoman Indicted for Stealing $5 Million in Taxpayer Funds To Bankroll Her Campaign
A federal grand jury indicted Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D., Fla.) and her brother on Wednesday for allegedly laundering millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to her political campaign in 2021, money she then used to win a seat in Congress by just five votes.
The post Florida Congresswoman Indicted for Stealing $5 Million in Taxpayer Funds To Bankroll Her Campaign appeared first on .
Feds charge Democrat and her brother for allegedly stealing millions in FEMA pandemic funds
A federal grand jury in Miami indicted four people, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, for allegedly stealing millions in federal emergency funds.
Federal prosecutors said in a press release Wednesday that Cherfilus-McCormick used some of the stolen funds to support her 2021 campaign to win election.
‘No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.’
The 46-year-old congresswoman was indicted, along with her 51-year-old brother Edwin Cherfilus, for the scheme that involved overpayment to her family health care company.
She is also accused of participating in a straw donor scheme with the funds through the help of 46-year-old Nadege Leblanc, and filing a false federal tax return in 2021 with the aid of her 41-year old tax preparer, David K. Spencer.
If found guilty, Cherfilus-McCormick faces 53 years in prison. Her brother faces up to 35 years, Leblanc faces up to 10 years, and Spencer faces up to 33 years.
“Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” read a statement from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. “No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.”
The congresswoman’s allegedly shady campaign practices were first reported by Inside Elections in 2022. The report noted that she had squeaked out a win in the heavily contested election through the use of expensive ads.
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Cherfilus-McCormick was the subject of an ethics investigation by the House Ethics Committee in January 2024, and that probe was reauthorized in July.
The congresswoman denied any wrongdoing at the time.
“The Committee on Ethics has not yet concluded its review of the allegations, and no decision has been made at this time. As outlined in the Committee’s public statement, the referral for further review does not imply that any violation has occurred,” Cherfilus-McCormick said in a statement to Florida Politics. “I fully respect the process and remain committed to cooperating with the Committee as it works to bring this inquiry to a close.”
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Charlotte ice cream shop shuts down over threat from ICE to Latino workers and customers, owner says
The owner of a Latino-themed ice cream shop in Charlotte says his workers are too scared to drive to the shop over the threat of being picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Javier Morales is the co-owner of Legends Ice Cream & Snacks, but his is not the only business shuttering over the threat from ICE operations in North Carolina.
‘We have shut down. We are an ice cream shop that 80%-90% of our customers are Latino, because we sell Latino ice cream flavors. We have mangonadas, we have Mexican street corn.’
“Right now, I cannot take the risk to bring my employees to be profiled because a lot of them speak Spanish. They look like me. I look like the profile that they’re looking for. So it is a risk that I am not willing to take. My customers — the same thing,” Morales said.
The Trump administration ordered a surge in federal immigration sweeps in Charlotte named Operation Charlotte’s Web. The operation has led to a large drop in school attendance, which many say proves the immense size of the illegal immigration crisis.
“So right now there’s a lot of uncertainty — we have shut down,” Morales continued. “We are an ice cream shop that 80%-90% of our customers are Latino, because we sell Latino ice cream flavors. We have mangonadas, we have Mexican street corn, we have our Legends products, which are our big sellers that are just full of Latino flavor, and it’s what we try to do.”
He said that on Sunday, he only had one customer during a two-hour period.
“Even in their face, you could tell that they were scared,” he added. “They came in, got their things, and left right out. The weather in Charlotte was beautiful this weekend, and as an ice cream shop, we should have been packed. We should have been busy, and now we’re dealing with our shutdown.”
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Morales suggested that ICE was profiling people based on their ethnicity.
“It’s just really unfortunate that by the look of your skin, you’re being profiled and you’re being stopped — you’re being questioned,” he added.
WJZY-TV reported that a U.S. citizen claimed to have been stopped by ICE twice within 10 minutes on South Boulevard, and he was dragged out of his vehicle after his car window was busted out.
One report from the operation indicated that 1 out of every 6 residents in Charlotte are foreign-born.
“We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed,” read a statement from DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens. President Trump and Secretary Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t.”
A closed sign on the business blamed “icy conditions” for the interruption in service.
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Selective Transparency
“Selective Transparency,” editorial cartoon by Tom Stiglich for The American Spectator on Nov. 19, 2025.
