Vox Sentences - 3 winners and 1 loser from Election Day

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

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Here’s what’s on the agenda for today: 

UP FIRST: 3 winners and 1 loser from Election Day 2023

CATCH UP: The world’s largest child displacement crisis is in Sudan

—Rachel DuRose, Future Perfect fellow

3 winners and 1 loser from Election Day 2023

Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Tuesday’s elections featured a few key competitions and one clear theme: Democrats did well. Gov. Andy Beshear (D) won reelection in deep-red Kentucky. Democrats held onto the Virginia State Senate and took over the Virginia State House. Meanwhile, Ohio voters enshrined the protection of abortion rights in the state constitution and legalized recreational cannabis.

Here’s a breakdown of the winners:

• Democrats: This wasn’t exactly a blue wave, but considering how the incumbent president’s party usually suffers in off-year elections, and how bad Biden’s national numbers have been, last night was a major success for the Democratic Party. 

• President Joe Biden: It would be a mistake to think that Tuesday’s results directly correlate to how Biden will do in 2024. But Democratic wins will ease some of the pressure on Biden, creating a sense among Democrats that their strategies work when voter turnout is solid.

• Abortion rights: Ohio Republicans previously passed a law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, but it had been blocked in court. Tuesday’s results mean that’s off the table. In the post-Dobbs era, voters have made it clear that they are not enthusiastic about major abortion restrictions.

To read more about the impacts of this vote on abortion rights, check out senior reporter Rachel Cohen’s full story here.

And the loser: 

• Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin: Youngkin hoped to lead his party to trifecta control of his state. That would have allowed him to pass laws like a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, making himself a champion of the right and positioning him well for a 2028 presidential bid. But Democrats took the state house and senate, badly denting Youngkin’s legislative (and presidential) ambitions. 

Read senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop’s full story on last night’s election here.

The world’s largest child displacement crisis is in Sudan

Abdulmonam Eassa/Getty Images

This April, a civil war broke out in Sudan between the forces loyal to the country’s de facto ruler, army Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary leader Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan. Since the fighting broke out, at least 9,000 civilians have been killed and more than 12,000 injured. 

Despite the number of people killed, injured, or displaced by this violence, the plight of the Sudanese people has fallen out of the spotlight. Here’s what you need to know:

• For the last two decades, the Darfur region of Sudan has experienced genocidal violence. As many as 300,000 people have died, and around 4.8 million people have been displaced internally. More than a million Sudanese have fled to neighboring countries like Chad and Egypt.

• Children, as always, are bearing the brunt of the suffering. Just this week, UNICEF issued a report calling Sudan the “largest child displacement crisis in the world,” with more than 3 million children forced to flee their homes and 14 million children in need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance. An estimated 19 million children are out of school. 

• “It is a mistake to attempt to weigh one atrocity against another,” writes Vox editorial director Bryan Walsh. The suffering in Sudan should in no way subtract from the pain in Gaza or Israel. Yet the attention the world pays to these crises has been far from equal and has little connection to the scale of the tragedies.

• The world isn’t helpless in the face of such catastrophes. The UN has access to Sudan but doesn’t have the money it needs to carry out missions. It has said it had only received 33 percent of the $2.6 billion required to deliver needed humanitarian aid.

Read Bryan's full story here. 

A version of this story appeared in today’s Future Perfect newsletter. If you’re not signed up for it yet, subscribe to learn about unique solutions to some of the world's biggest problems every Wednesday and Friday.

• Treatment and diagnosis rates of tuberculosis continue to improve but they remain far below the goal of having everyone safe from the disease. In total, "an estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2022, up from 10.3 million in 2021." [Reuters]

• The orcas struck again. A pod of orcas sank the Grazie Mamma yacht as it made its way through the Strait of Gibraltar last week. Rescuers were able to save the crew. This incident was the latest in a string of recent orca "attacks"  in the Mediterranean. [NPR]

• The US House (including 22 Democrats) voted to censure Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over comments she made on the Israel-Gaza war. Rep. Tlaib posted a video to Twitter on Friday that included a clip of protesters using the chant, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Critics of this phrase say it calls for the dissolution of Israel. Rep. Tlaib defended her inclusion of the slogan, calling it "an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate." [BBC]

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