Chris Hayes told MSNBC viewers on Wednesday night there is a very simple explanation for Democrats’ Tuesday electoral wins in states like New York, Connecticut and Virginia — and it is that “Donald Trump is unpopular.”
Hayes began by recapping the outcome of this week’s mayoral and gubernatorial races in Virginia, New York and New Jersey, where the Democratic candidates, including New York City’s Zohran Mamdani, all emerged victorious. “That, honestly, is just the tip of the iceberg, because across the country, it was just a total blowout for Democrats,” Hayes said. “Like a 10-out-of-10 kind of night.”
“When you zoom in, it’s not just a normal night, right? It wasn’t just a win for the party that has more engaged voters, because we have seen Democrats overperform in special elections,” he explained. “No, this was something different. These were high-turnout elections that delivered an absolute electoral drubbing for Donald Trump, for MAGA and the Republican Party.”
“Last night says something deep about the politics of the country, because you can look at all the polls all you want and you can read the reporting, but the voters actually have to vote, right?” Hayes continued. “They get to say in the end. That’s what democracy is, and what they were saying last night is something that a lot of people in the discourse have been weirdly reluctant to come to terms with but is staring us in the face.”
“This is not super complicated,” Hayes stated. “There’s an Occam’s Razor solution for it: Donald Trump is unpopular.” You can watch the full “All In” segment yourself in the video below.
The anchor continued to hammer his point home, suggesting that Tuesday’s elections were a repudiation of Trump’s presidential win in 2024. “He is disliked,” Hayes reiterated. “Him winning that 1.5 victory [in 2024] did not mean that America suddenly became right-wing forever in perpetuity. That we were now and would always be a MAGA nation, that the culture was transformed.”
“It certainly didn’t mean that Trump would continue to overperform with, for instance, young men or overperform with voters of color, particularly hispanic voters, as he had just a year ago,” the MSNBC host added. “Because guess what? It’s just 12 months later and, let me tell you, last night his party decidedly did not overperform.”
“Donald Trump won last year. He did. That’s democracy. He won narrowly with a very, very razor-thin majority in the House and a small one in the Senate and immediately has overplayed his hand,” Hayes argued. “We have tangible proof of that today. It’s not polling. It’s not speculation. It’s not vibes. It’s the real thing right in front of us.”
