This is an opportunity for the membership to decide not only who the next leader is going to be, but what the future of the party is going to look like. That gives me hope that despite the election result, the NDP is here to stay.
In perhaps a vain attempt to prove themselves moderate, the Democratic lawmakers helped override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's vetoes. Voters responded with the kind of ballot-box fury that should serve as a lesson to other incumbents. It wasn't just a case that the incumbents lost. They were buried, with several of them getting trounced by margins of 40 points or more.
Early results show that the far-right candidate Louis Aliot has held the town of Perpignan with 51.4 percent of the vote, while the centre-right mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart has also been re-elected with 59.5 percent. In the town of Vernon in the greater Paris region, mayor Francois Ouzilleau - a close ally of prime minister Sebastien Lecornu - was also re-elected in the first round.
O n January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol insurrection, many people were transfixed by what they saw in Washington. It was only a heroic effort by the police that kept the insurrectionists out of the House of Representatives, where elected members and staff took refuge behind chairs and under desks. In one sense, the riot, with its outlandish characters wearing costumes and face paint, felt like an absurd exclamation mark that punctuated the end of an erratic presidency.
The first 2028 presidential primaries are just two years away. And for the first time since 2016, both parties are expected to have serious competition for their nominations. While Vice-President J.D. Vance is likely to enter the cycle as a formidable front-runner for the GOP nod, recent history suggests there will be lots of other candidates. After all, Donald Trump drew 12 challengers in 2024.
Around 5,000 seats across 136 local councils will now be up for grabs, following the government's U-turn on council election delays. Ministers had granted 30 authorities permission to delay elections until May 2027 - including five areas where polls had already been put back from May 2025. But in February, the government said those elections would go ahead in May this year, following legal advice in the wake of a challenge from Reform UK.
