Victory

By John Labriola - Tuesday was a remarkable night for America. President Donald Trump performed the greatest political comeback in the nation's history, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris to take back the White House in a sweeping electoral and popular vote victory after being impeached, indicted and convicted and surviving an assassination attempt by his political enemies. 

Voters across the nation had clearly soured on the Democrats' gross mishandling of the country, especially President Joe Biden's decision to open the U.S. southern border to millions of illegal and criminal migrants, years of runaway inflation, and Biden's demented promotion of insane woke policies like taxpayer-funded sex-change operations.

In Florida, Trump enjoyed a massive 13-point victory, even winning historically blue counties like Miami-Dade, where no Republican presidential candidate had won in 36 years, and carrying Citrus County by 72 percent. 

In a huge victory for the right to life of the unborn, Florida, under the courageous leadership of pro-life Gov. Ron DeSantis, also became the first state in the nation to buck the trend of states voting to enshrine abortion on demand in their state constitutions. Pro-abortion Amendment 4 not only failed to reach the required 60 percent threshold, but it was rejected by the majority of Citrus County voters. I personally delivered many hundreds of pieces of literature about the dangers of the amendment door to door and took time to explain its deceptive language to voters. A group of us also personally urged the Citrus County Commission and the city councils of Inverness and Crystal River to pass resolutions opposing Amendment 4. Although they chose not to, 19 other county and city commissions across the state did, including right next door in Hernando County. That opposition from local elected officials helped turn the tide against the amendment by generating substantial local media attention which helped educate voters about its dangers. Because of this great victory over the abortion industry’s evil and bloody agenda, the majority of Florida's unborn children will continue to be protected once a heartbeat can be detected. 

Apart from President Trump, all the other candidates the Citrus Crusader recommended were successful, with just two exceptions. 

Paul Grogan, running as a no-party candidate against liberal "Republican" County Commissioner Holly Davis, was unable to overcome the built-in advantage anyone with an R after their name receives. Unfortunately, many voters were simply unfamiliar with Davis' atrocious record and just voted the straight Republican ticket.  

In Inverness, I challenged a popular long-time incumbent who was expected to win and did. Although I did not take the seat, I still managed to win a sizeable percentage of the vote and increased my vote count from when I first ran for Inverness City Council in 2022 by nearly 500 votes. I want to thank everyone who voted for me or volunteered their time or money to my campaign. While the election is over, our fight to end woke and wasteful government spending, cut taxes, and stop overdevelopment isn't. Let's continue showing up at council meetings and let them know we expect them to listen to our concerns (including by bringing back the Christmas nativity scene that was canceled a number of years ago). If they don't, we've laid the groundwork for victory in two years, when four seats, including the mayor's position, will be up for grabs.

But there's plenty to celebrate in Tuesday's election results, so for now, let's enjoy the victory!