Thursday, Nov. 6 — Virginia’s U.S. Senator Mark Warner told regional media in a conference call today that Tuesday’s election results “demonstrated a rejection of Donald Trump” and affirmed “affordability” issues as they in the minds of voters across the U.S. He said the fact that so many Republican candidates “tied themselves so closely to Trump” going into the election contributed to the strong outcome for Democrats from coast to coast.

     In Virginia, he noted that while the vote for Democrats, including for now-governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, was overwhelming, Democrats in fact also won the rest of the state, including in Southside and Southwest Virginia, where a Democrat won in an area west of Roanoke for an unprecedented outcome.

     He noted that Trump has conceded the Republican-led federal government shutdown has hurt Republicans, and that Democrats prevailed because voters want affordable health care and food assistance. One in eight Americans rely on some form of food assistance, he noted, and the Trump policy of only partial payments for the  SNAP program has only caused more anxiety and is “downright cruel.” He added that Trump’s tariff policy has had the effect of adding an average of $2,400 in costs to the average American family.

     Warner said that he’s co-sponsoring a bill making it illegal to fire a federal employee during a government shutdown, and another calling for the development of data about the impact of AI on employment. He noted that already, it is being estimated that AI is causing a major impact on the availability of “starter jobs” for graduates coming out of college, with unemployment numbers for them rising from 9 percent to 25 percent, and maybe going to 35 percent.