5 Critical Elections To Watch Out For In 2025

 by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

Next year could be pivotal for both Democrats and Republicans, as the former will look to regain ground after an array of losses in 2024, while their opponents are eager to grow their existing electoral advantages.

Even though 2025 will lack the same decisive electoral landscape seen in general election years like 2024—where control for both Congress and the White House was hanging in the balance—there are key contests next year that could test both Republicans’ and Democrats’ viability moving forward.

These races will also determine the extent and strength of public support for President-elect Donald Trump and whether his victories across the Electoral College and national popular vote are indicative of a broader mandate, as he and his allies have suggested.

Here are some of the critical races to watch in 2025.

Virginia Governor and Legislature

Virginia is one of several states where Trump improved on his 2020 numbers. That year he secured 44 percent with roughly 1.96 million votes. But this year, Trump climbed to 46.6 percent, with 2.01 million votes.

Virginia governors are limited to a single term, which means Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin cannot run for reelection. When Youngkin won in 2021, he was the first Republican to win a statewide election in the Old Dominion since 2009.

While Virginia has voted for a Democrat presidential candidate in every election since 2008, Vice President Kamala Harris’s margin of victory was 5.2 percent, compared to then-candidate Joe Biden’s 10.1 percent margin of victory in 2020.

Virginia’s Republican attorney general Jason Miyares has decided not to run, leaving the field open for Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican who Younkin endorsed as his successor.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) launched her gubernatorial campaign in late 2023, which could create a scenario for Virginia to elect its first female governor if she wins the Democrat primary and runs against Earle-Sears, the first woman to serve as the state’s lieutenant governor.

Trump’s performance next year could be critical for the race, particularly among voters in Virginia’s Washington suburbs.

Two years ago, Democrats were able to flip control of Virginia’s House of Delegates, one-half of its state legislature, to give them a slim 51–49 majority.

After Trump halved Democrats’ White House margins between 2020 and 2024 in the Old Dominion, these races next year could be a critical test of whether that GOP performance will endure past 2024.

Democrats also hold a narrow majority in Virginia’s state Senate, 21–19. They will try to hold onto those advantages while Republicans will battle for potential upsets, which will be critical if Democrats win the governor’s race.

The GOP would need control of Virginia’s Legislature to check the agenda of a potential incoming Democrat governor if Republicans lose that race.

New Jersey Governor

Like Virginia, Trump’s numbers vastly improved in New Jersey in 2024. Four years ago, Biden carried the state by 15.94 percent, but Harris’s win this year was by a far smaller margin of 5.9 percent.

This was indicative of a broader trend in 2024, where Trump made considerable gains in multiple blue states compared with 2020.

In New Jersey, Republicans are hoping to carry that success into 2025 by flipping the governor’s mansion.

Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy is term-limited, and his margin of victory in 2021 was just 3 points, far smaller than his 13.5-point win in 2017.

State Reps. Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller, and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney are among Democrats mulling the gubernatorial primary.

Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who lost to Murphy in 2021, is considering next year’s GOP primary along with radio host Bill Spadea, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, and former state Sen. Ed Durr. Trump’s looming endorsement could impact who clinches the Republican primary in 2025.

New York City Mayor

In another historically blue state, there’s a critical test for New York City Major Eric Adams, a Democrat, who is up for reelection next year amid low approval ratings and federal corruption charges.

According to a Justice Department statement, prosecutors allege in September that Adams “has used his prominent positions in New York City government to obtain illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel” and “solicited and accepted these benefits from foreign nationals, businessmen, and others.”

“By allegedly taking improper and illegal benefits from foreign nationals—including to allow a Manhattan skyscraper to open without a fire inspection—Adams put the interests of his benefactors, including a foreign official, above those of his constituents,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in the statement.

Adams has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the charges. The federal trial is set to begin in April 2025.

Many Democrats have entered the race to challenge the incumbent, including New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, state senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former Obama White House aide Michael Blake, and Democrat donor Whitney Tilson.

Attorney Jim Walden, an independent, will also run in the race.

Wisconsin Supreme Court

In 2025, partisan control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court will be on the ballot.

Currently at a 4–3 liberal majority, Wisconsin’s high court will split to 3–3 after Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s retirement.

Those running for Bradley’s seat are Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, a liberal, and former state Attorney General Brad Schimel, a Republican.

In addition to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Crawford also represented the Madison teachers union during their lawsuit challenging former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10, which restricted many public workers’ collective bargaining rights.

Schimel, who is now a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge, handled several prominent cases as attorney general, including an appeal to state legislative maps that were struck down as an unconstitutional gerrymander in 2016.

The case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and successfully appealed.

Schimel also appealed a case trying to revive a 2013 law that said physicians with admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of an abortion procedure were the only doctors who could perform the procedure.

The case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

In 2023, the last time Wisconsin’s Supreme Court partisan control was on the ballot, groups broke records and spent tens of millions of dollars in advertising on the election cycle.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/5-critical-elections-watch-out-2025

US Reps Urge Biden For Full Pardon Of Julian Assange

 by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

House Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA) have sent a letter to President Biden urging him to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to send a message that Biden will "not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs."

"We write, first, to express our appreciation for your administration’s decision last spring to facilitate a resolution of the criminal case against publisher Julian Assange and to withdraw the related extradition request that had been pending in the United Kingdom," Massie and McGovern wrote in the letter dated November 1, which was first made public earlier this past week.

Via Fox News

Assange was freed in a plea deal earlier this year after spending more than five years in London’s Belmarsh Prison while battling a US extradition request. He was indicted by the Trump administration in 2019 for exposing US war crimes by publishing classified documents leaked to WikiLeaks by former Army Private Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning in 2010.

Under the indictment, Assange could have faced up to 175 years in prison in the US for publishing the documents, a standard journalistic practice. While the plea deal set him free, it required him to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act.

"The terms of Mr. Assange’s plea agreement have now set a precedent that greatly deepens our concern," Massie and McGovern said. "A review of prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes clear that Mr. Assange’s case is the first time the Act has been deployed against a publisher."

The lawmakers pointed to comments from Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who said, "While we welcome the end of his detention, the US’s pursuit of Assange has set a harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers."

Massie and McGovern concluded the letter by saying, "We therefore urge you to consider issuing a pardon for Mr. Assange. A pardon would remove the precedent set by the plea and send a clear message that the US government under your leadership will not target or investigate journalists and media outlets simply for doing their jobs."

According to Fox News, Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, is heading to Washington in January to push for a pardon before Biden leaves office. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-reps-urge-biden-full-pardon-julian-assange

Zelensky More Unpopular Than Ever After Nearly 3 Years Of War, Mainstream Media Admits

 While the war-weary US and European populations have long ago lost their fascination with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, which was on display during his September trip to Washington—largely met with little enthusiasm even among Congressional leaders—it is less common for the mainstream media to admit his star power has completely faded.

However, a fresh assessment in Britain's The Times newspaper details the extent to which there's been a general "disenchantment" with him both at home and abroad as he's clearly lost his "shine".

Amid steady Russian military gains in the east, and under pressure by Washington drop the military enlistment age from 25 to 18 (which would be hugely unpopular among Ukrainians), if a presidential vote were held tomorrow Zelensky would very likely lose.

Youngest Ukrainian president ever, via AFP/Getty Images

"Just 16 per cent would vote to re-elect him for a second term, according to an opinion poll of 1,200 Ukrainians published this week by the Social Monitoring Centre in Kyiv," The Times writes. "The poll, the most comprehensive study of electoral preferences since the invasion began in 2022, also found that about 60 per cent would prefer Zelensky not to even stand for re-election."

The publication comments bluntly that this shows "Zelensky’s popularity is fading" and the reality is "very few Ukrainians envision him as their next president."

Perhaps he himself is fully aware of this, after having canceled scheduled elections last spring, and extending indefinitely the maintenance of martial law across the country which prevents a valid election from taking place.

On the inevitability of Zelensky's popularity fading and plummeting, The Times observes further:

It was perhaps inevitable that Zelensky’s leadership would lose its shine. No Ukrainian president apart from Leonid Kuchma, whose 1999 re-election was marred by suspicions of vote fraud, has secured a second term since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union.

"Maintaining popularity in this country is incredibly challenging, particularly during a difficult war," Ponomarenko said. "It is a pattern we’ve seen before. We elect a new ‘saviour of the nation’ as president with sky-high approval ratings, quickly grow disillusioned and, in the best case, ensure their landslide defeat in the next election."

But the "next election" may be further away than ever, as Zelensky is unlikely to relinquish power so long as the war with Russia continues. If a full truce is eventually secured, he may actually step down soon afterward.

As for the aforementioned poll and potential rivals to the presidency, the same publication notes that "ahead of Zelensky, with 27 per cent was Valery Zaluzhny, the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces who has served as the ambassador to Britain since July."

But again, all of this is reason enough to believe that Zelensky will keep pushing elections further and further down the road, and with no clear timeline of lifting martial law in the war-ravaged nation. Currently, he's still going all-in with pressing Western allies for NATO membership.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelensky-more-unpopular-ever-after-nearly-3-years-war-mainstream-media

War has no winners, Taiwan president says in visit to Hawaii

 War has no winners and peace is priceless, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said on Saturday (Nov 30) in Hawaii after visiting a memorial to the attack on Pearl Harbor on a trip to the United States that has angered Beijing.

Lai is making a sensitive two-day trip to Hawaii that is officially only a stopover on the way to three Pacific island nations that maintain formal ties with Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.

Speaking to members of the overseas Taiwan community and Hawaii politicians, including members of Congress Ed Case and Jill Tokuda, Lai referred to his visit to the USS Arizona Memorial earlier in the day and laid a wreath in memory of those who died in the 1941 Japanese attack.

"Our visit to the memorial today in particular reminds us of the importance of ensuring peace. Peace is priceless and war has no winner. We have to fight - fight together - to prevent war," Lai said in English, in a speech carried live on television in Taiwan.

As Lai was attending the event, China said it had complained to Washington for arranging for his transit through US territory, while vowing "resolute countermeasures" against a potential arms sale to Taiwan that the US announced hours before Lai started his trip.

China's foreign ministry lodged "stern representations" over the transit, China's Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.

"We are firmly opposed to official exchanges between the United States and Taiwan, and we are firmly opposed to the 'transit' of leaders of the Taiwan region to the United States under any name and for any reason," it said.

Security sources have told Reuters that China could launch a new round of war games around Taiwan in response to his visit, his first overseas trip since assuming office in May, having won the election in January.

China has staged two rounds of major war games around Taiwan so far this year.

In his speech Lai switched to Taiwanese, also known as Hokkien, and said that by uniting together, all difficulties could be overcome. "Taiwan's democracy can become a model for the international community," he said.

Lai and his government reject Beijing's sovereignty claims and say they have a right to visit other countries.

After Hawaii, Lai will go to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, with another stopover in the US territory of Guam. Hawaii and Guam are home to large US military bases.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/taiwan-president-william-lai-ching-te-pacific-tour-hawaii-us-china-4779311

'Biden’s long-awaited Africa trip to tout a win against China'

  Joe Biden sets off for Angola on Sunday on a trip that will deliver on a promise to visit Africa during his presidency and focus on a major, U.S.-backed railway project that aims to divert critical minerals away from China.

The project, partly funded with a U.S. loan, links the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean, offering a fast and efficient route for exports to the West.

At stake are vast supplies of minerals like copper and cobalt, which are found in Congo and are a key component of batteries and other electronics. China is the top player in Congo, which has become an increasing concern to Washington.

China signed an agreement with Tanzania and Zambia in September to revive a rival railway line to Africa's eastern coast.

While Biden's trip is taking place in the waning days of his presidency, Donald Trump will likely back the railway and remain a close partner to Angola when he returns to the White House in January, according to two officials who served under the previous Trump administration.

Tibor Nagy, a retired career ambassador and top envoy to Africa under the last Trump administration, said Trump will likely have two overarching concerns regarding Africa. The first is competition with China and Russia, the second is access to critical minerals.

“This checks both boxes,” he said in an interview, referring to the Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR).

The project is backed by global commodities trader Trafigura, Portuguese construction group Mota-Engil and railway operator Vecturis. The U.S. Development Finance Corporation has provided a $550 million loan to refurbish the 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) rail network from Lobito to Congo.

Biden was set to land briefly in West Africa’s Cape Verde on Monday morning, and meet the president there before flying on to Angola. He will visit the nation’s slavery museum in the capital Luanda during the two-day trip and stop at the Lobito port on Wednesday.

His trip delivers on one of a sweeping set of pledges to Africa. Others remain unrealized, such as backing two permanent seats for Africa at the U.N. Security Council.

Beyond the railway project, Washington has also done little to advance access to vast reserves of African minerals that it says are critical for national security, and has racked up other diplomatic setbacks.

This summer, it lost America's major spy base in Niger and has not been able to find an ally that will host those assets. This leaves the U.S. without military foothold in the vast Sahel region that has become a hotspot of Islamist militancy.

Angola has long nurtured close ties with China and Russia but has recently moved closer to the West. Angolan officials say they are keen to work with any partner that can advance their agenda to promote economic growth and hope the project spurs investment in a range of sectors.

“China has only gained prominence because Western countries have probably not been paying much attention to Africa,” Angola's transport minister, Ricardo Viegas d’Abreu, said in an interview.

GROWING TIES WITH ANGOLA

Biden's visit reflects a turnabout in U.S. ties with Angola after a complicated and bloody history. The U.S. and the Soviet Union backed rival sides in nation’s 27-year civil war. Washington established relations with Angola in 1993, almost two decades after it gained independence.

“It's probably poetic justice that the United States should finance the rehabilitation of this route to which it had contributed destruction so many decades ago,” said Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika, a former Zambian government minister who also ran part of the railway that is to form the Lobito corridor.

Biden administration officials have said the Lobito rail project is not a one-off, but a test run to prove the private-public partnership works, and that it will lead to other major infrastructure projects in Africa. They also hope it will deepen U.S. ties with Angola, including in security cooperation.

Critics have questioned whether the project, which has no date for completion, will deliver the promised goals. A particular source of scrutiny is a second phase, which would connect the railway to Africa's east coast through to Tanzania, potentially offering a rival route to China.

Judd Devermont, until recently Biden’s top Africa adviser, said Congo wants to diversify its mining partners and rejected the idea that connecting the project to an eastern port in Tanzania undermines the effort to loosen Beijing’s grip on Congo's minerals.

“The Congolese have been very clear that they don’t want to see their entire mining sector dominated by China,” he said in an interview. “It benefits everyone if there’s an easy way to move across the continent, whether that’s critical minerals or just moving stuff from India to Brazil to New York.”

https://www.aol.com/news/biden-long-awaited-africa-trip-050348439.html

Why Syria Was Caught By Surprise

 by Andrew Korybko via substack,

The disaster in Aleppo was avoidable and is just as bad as it looks...

The Turkish-backed terrorists’/“rebels’” advance on Aleppo, which was analyzed here, came as a shock to most observers.

There was almost half a decade of peace between the March 2020 ceasefire and now, yet practically nothing was done to prepare for this possibility.

This was in spite of the front line remaining roughly two dozen kilometers away from Aleppo, which should have reminded Assad of how vulnerable his country’s second city is.

Here are the five reasons why Syria was caught by surprise:

1. Complacency & Corruption

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) rested on its laurels because it took the Russian-brokered ceasefire for granted, after which the country’s infamous corruption kicked in to degrade its capabilities. There’s no excuse for why even basic drones weren’t used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to detect the buildup that preceded this advance. A large part of why the SAA didn’t do anything is likely because it assumed that its Russian and Iranian allies would shoulder these responsibilities for them.

2. The Russian-Iranian Rivalry

Russia and Iran fought together against terrorism in Syria, but they’re also rivals who are competing with each other for premier influence over Damascus. So intense is their competition that Russia always does nothing other than occasionally complain whenever Israel bombs the IRGC there, never once giving Syria the means to intercept these attacks or retaliate afterwards. Had they not been rivals, then Russia and Iran could have jointly strengthened the SAA, carried out ISR in Idlib, and bolstered Aleppo’s defenses.

3. Distracted & Crippled Allies

To make matters even worse for Syria, the terrorists’/“rebels’” advance on Aleppo came precisely at the moment when Russia is distracted with the special military operation (SMO) and Iran has been crippled by its West Asian Wars with Israel. Without sufficient Russian airpower and Iranian manpower, including that which the latter could have called upon from Hezbollah, it’ll be extremely difficult for the SAA to push the attackers away from Aleppo. This factor, more than any other, might have even sealed its fate.

4. Ignoring The SMO’s Lessons

Even amidst the Russian-Iranian rivalry and its allies’ aforesaid problems, the SAA could have learned the SMO’s lessons on its own and correspondingly prepared much better for what ultimately came to pass. Masterful drone tactics and strategically dispersed units have characterized the attack thus far, both of which are hallmarks of the SMO, yet the SAA was totally unprepared for this. It must therefore take final responsibility for failing to do its duty in learning from that conflict and adapting its defenses accordingly.

5. Not Compromising For Peace

The last reason why Syria was caught by surprise is because it didn’t compromise for peace by accepting 2017’s Russian-written “draft constitution”, which was constructively critiqued in detail here. It’s chock-full of concessions so one can sympathize with Syria for rejecting it, but in hindsight, this could have finally resolved the conflict and thus averted the ongoing fiasco in Aleppo. For this reason, it could be revived during these desperate times, but the “opposition” might now demand even more concessions.

The disaster in Aleppo was avoidable and is just as bad as it looks.

It’s not part of a “5D chess master plan” to “trap the terrorists in a cauldron” like some members of the Alt-Media Community have implied or claimed.

Observers should reject the “insight” shared by those who already discredited themselves with their fantastical takes on the SMO and the West Asian Wars.

The “politically inconvenient” truth is that Syria was caught by surprise, the SAA is on the backfoot, and the worst might be yet to come.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/five-reasons-why-syria-was-caught-surprise

Korea Official Sees Need to Lift US Energy Imports, Yonhap Says

 

South Korea has the capacity to purchase more US energy, which is competitive in cost with Middle East imports, Yonhap News on Sunday cited the trade minister as saying.

Ahn Duk-geun, minister of trade, industry and energy, told Yonhap that the country needs to expand US imports and plans to fold it into policy “constructively,” while private companies can take it into consideration as part of their business strategies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-01/korea-official-sees-need-to-lift-us-energy-imports-yonhap-says