The United States midterm legislative elections have left three extraordinary stories. While in Alaska there have been two Senate candidates with the same name; in Tehran, Jerusalem and Moscow, everyone interprets the results as they see fit; and in Texas a singer who has been making Hispanics dance for thirty years has won a seat.
Alaska’s Two Sullivans
John Müller explains in more than one that this is a story worthy of an electoral comedy. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan was running for re-election against Democrat Mary Peltola. But a retired professor named Daniel Sullivan showed up and decided to run as well.
The interesting thing is that, according to research published by The New York TimesDemocratic campaign collaborators participated in the search for that second Sullivan. The idea was that some Republicans would mix up the names and vote for the wrong one.
Peltola claims that she knew nothing. But the Trump Administration went to court to prevent an eventual defeat of the Republican senator from being certified. A judge rejected the lawsuit.
There is a detail and that is that Alaska uses preferential voting, which allows the candidates to be ranked and reduces the effect of these maneuvers. And the count can last up to fifteen days because votes arrive from abroad. So we still have Sullivan for a while.
What do foreign capitals say?
Here we have three very different readings of the same defeat. The three readings of Tehran, Jerusalem and Moscow.
In Tehran, the Iranian regime was quick to celebrate that the Americans had rejected war. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote that voters had said ‘no to war’. But Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei introduced an interesting nuance: “It would be a mistake to believe that the Democrats are going to change Washington’s hostility toward Iran.” That is, they celebrate that Trump loses, but they do not believe that his adversaries are better.
In Israel, the opposition has used the result against Netanyahu, who lost his parliamentary majority in October. Yair Golan argues that Netanyahu has become a toxic politician in Washington. Yair Lapid believes that its continuity harms Israel. In addition, a seat in the Senate has been won by Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat highly critical of Israel who has faced accusations of anti-Semitism.
Moscow is much more cautious. Kremlin spokesman Peskov hopes that Trump will continue his peace efforts in Ukraine, which “consist of subduing Zelensky,” according to Müller. But Deputy Foreign Minister Riabkov recalls that the Democrats maintain an extremely negative position towards Russia. The paradox is magnificent: “the enemies of the United States celebrate Trump’s defeat, but some fear that the winners will be even worse for their interests.”
The singer who beat the Republican
Bobby Pulido, a Tejano singer of Mexican origin, has defeated Republican Mónica de la Cruz in a Texas district that Donald Trump won by eighteen points in 2024. Pulido presents himself as a conservative Democrat and has campaigned at concerts and quinceañera parties. His message was simple: I am not from the red team or the blue team, I am from your team.
And he has a very successful song called ‘Desvelado’, which it turns out he sang last year with our David Bisbal.
