I have some interest in politics but view American events through Canadian filters and media. Wondering if anyone had opinions or local comments on the, to me, surprising success of Republicans in four House contests in New York. Can anyone provide me with what went wrong?
I do not live in New York, but the gist I am getting is that the losses were caused by:
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The original congressional district maps drawn up after the Census in 2020 being thrown out by the state courts. The maps ultimately set were far more competitive for Republicans.
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Republicans running a relentless campaign trying to convince voters that crime is rampant in New York.
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The state Democratic Party apparatus showing unbelievable levels of ineptitude. Eric Adams (mayor of NYC) made statements publicly that all but agreed with the Republican argument that NYC is a crime riddled hell-hole (crime is up somewhat in NYC, but a crime riddled hell hole it is not). The state party seems to spend more time fighting against AOC and anyone who supports her than the Republicans.
Some people I have read have argued this could be the sort of thing the NY Dem Party needs; losses like these can shake off the rust and force the party bosses to focus (or get replaced by more competent people).
There are large areas of NY state which are quite red. The redistricting process unfortunately wound up increasing the effect of this. Last year I was in a possible swing district; although it usually went R there was some reasonable chance that a D might take it. Now I’m in a solidly red district.
In addition, Hochul’s done a couple of politically unpopular things, which make it easier to present the Democrats as financially venal (stadium funding) and/or politically useless (refusal, at least so far, to sign the cryptocurrency mining moratorium act.) I voted for her, and considering the alternative I’m glad she won; but she doesn’t exactly cause a lot of enthusiasm, and that probably affected the downballot.
Good conversation (with local experts and listener call-ins) about this, here:
Sucks that we (almost certainly) lost the House, but it was pretty amusing to see the DCCC chair lose his own seat, after strong-arming other Democrats to let him run in the “safe” district. Makes me feel happy about my choice to donate to campaigns directly rather than trusting the galaxy-brained experts at the DCCC to decide what the best strategy would be!
What about the Republicans who were elected from the “safe” Democratic districts? Are they all Trump clones who’ll make it their first order of business to shut down the Jan. 6th investigation, prosecute everybody who participated, go after Fauci, open hearings on Hunter Biden, and repeatedly try to impeach President Biden?
Barring a miracle, the House is in the GOP’s hands for at least the next two years. Should we blame the NY State Democratic Party for all the batshit insanity that will result?
First, you have to blame anyone that voted for any Republican, anywhere (or near enough).
No one held a gun to their heads.
Nah. Let’s blame the GOP for what the GOP does. Blaming other people for what the GOP does is neither valid nor useful.
Is there any indication that these new GOP reps from the formerly-Democratic districts are at least sane or are my expectations too high?
Can’t speak for all of them; but we wound up with Claudia Tenney.
A selection from Wikipedia:
In May 2021, Tenney falsely suggested that the 2020 presidential election might have been “stolen”
Tenney was one of the 14 co-sponsors of the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act”, which would make giving transgender minors gender-affirming care a class C felony.[86]
Tenney was the sole member of New York’s House delegation to vote against the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify Obergefell v. Hodges.[87]
In the fall of 2022, after an attacker fractured the skull of Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a number of Republican politicians circulated a baseless allegation that the attacker was a male prostitute—among them, Tenney, who posted on her Twitter account, with the comment “LOL”, a doctored photograph of a group of young men holding hammers next to a gay pride flag.
We weren’t, however, in a formerly-Democratic district; we were in a mostly-red district with significant strongly blue patches that usually went R, but had elected a Democrat a few cycles back, and sometimes came close enough to doing it again to make a good chase of it. Now this part of the state is in a district red enough to be basically no chance at all. Maybe some of the new districts are close enough to matter – though I think the point of gerrymandering is to try to avoid that.
Republican Rep-elect George Santos, who was at Trump’s January 6 rally and declared that, “the president was at his full awesomeness that day,” won a formerly Democratic district on Long Island by nine points. He’ll also be the only openly gay House Republican.
One thing that seems to have helped Rep-elect Santos win his race was to repeatedly lie about his biography. According to a NY Times investigation this morning (article is paywalled), almost his entire resume is false, including his claims to have worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, graduated from Baruch College, and founded a nonprofit animal rescue group.
Of course, it’s a good question why this is only being discovered NOW.
Seems to answer that. There’s a gift link to an article about Santos in this post:
It’s a long article, but well worth a read – nothing this guy says about himself is true, and it’s really not clear where his money is coming from. He was getting evicted a few years ago for not paying his rent, and this year, he lent $700k to his own campaign.
The Washington Post has an article up now asking the important question – why wasn’t this blatant resume fraud discovered by his Democratic opponent or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee? None of this was difficult to check, it’s oppo research 101. And now that he’s elected it’s too late. The Republican majority in the next House certainly isn’t going to vote to expel him over this.
Here is a gift link to the article in the NYT about this apparent shyster.
Who is Rep-Elect George Santos?
He may not be expelled, but sounds like there’s a fair chance he’s involved in financial shenanigans that could result in him going from the House to the Big House now that they’ve been brought to the attention of the authorities.
(And yes, you can serve in Congress while incarcerated, though obviously you can’t do so very effectively)
And it looks like he had no primary contender to do so on his own side, either.
This is the sort of thing that lends support to what was mentioned earlier in the thread, attributing at least part of it to the NY Democratic organization being more preoccupied with other issues and internecine power struggles, especially when they are still largely in disarray from the collapse of Cuomo.
ISTM that in the latest redistribution (NY lost a seat) a district like the well-off suburban 3rd was going to be at flip risk anyway. Too many people buying into the panicmongering about the City next door reverting to its old rot.
Ha! Expel him? He will probably be lauded and be in line for a leadership position.
Well, he didn’t say he is Jewish. He said he is Jew “ish”. Goddamn, I can’t decide if I should laugh or punch the wall.