THE WIND IS SHIFTING

Last night’s special election in NY-19 congressional district to fill seat vacated by Rep. Antonio Delgado (D), who became Lieutenant Governor is important in many interesting ways. In itself the race is almost meaningless, since the term is only for the rest of this year, which comes out to about 8-10 weeks in session.

But as an indicator of the political climate it’s much more significant. In a strong GOP year this is a district Republicans should have taken fairly comfortably. The Cook Report calls it a dead even district. Trump won 51-44 in 2016, Biden won 50-48 in 2020.

The Republican, Marc Molinaro, was judged by pretty much everyone to be a perfect GOP recruit for the district. So there’s no excuse. The Republicans should have won this.

The key is that this result is not consistent with a GOP wave election, not even a mid-range one.

As Steve Kornacki pointed out, the only part of the district Molinari did well in was his own Suffolk County, where he is County Executive. Trump got 48% of the vote there in 2020 and Molinari got 51.3 percent. But In all the other counties in the district, Democrat Pat Ryan overperformed Biden, even in the Republican counties Molinari won, and in his own Union County, which Biden won with 60% in 2020, Ryan took it by 62.3%. And Democratic turnout throughout the district approached 2018 levels. Republican participation was up, too, but not enough.

As several election watchers I trust most are putting it, this result is more consistent with a 2020 type environment. Remember that while Biden won the presidency it was just so-so for congressional Democrats and they lost some seats in the House. So that kind of environment isn’t great for Democrats. But it makes the House seem more like a toss-up contest with some advantage to Republicans.

As Matthew Dowd put it, the election proves he (and I) have been right the past four weeks that the wind is shifting in favor of Democrats. Not by much, but enough that one can say there is little likelihood of a Red Wave Election, even a moderate one. As Dowd put it, there are “a lot of cross currents” now.

And that means that if Democrats get out and vote like they did today in NY-19, we can keep the House.

And if we keep the House, and Democrats in the Senate increase their majority as now seems likely in the view of most experienced observers, we can hold 2024.

2024 is going to be a tough year for Democrats in the Senate, with a majority of the Democratic caucus up for re-election.

But if in 2023 and 2024 Democrats are able to carve out exceptions in the Filibuster (if not kill it outright, which I still think is unlikely) and get voting rights passed, and all the other legislation Pramila Jayapal says is written and ready to go in the new congress via another reconciliation bill if there is a Democratic majority in the House - legislation that polls show are supported by 60+ majorities of voters - then there’s not going to be all the angst about Biden, who will have a nice positive approval rating, and people will see Democrats have delivered. Thus, “Re-elect us to get more good things done” will be an argument that holds water.

We can’t read too much into one election. But this victory comes on the heels of another special election two weeks ago in Minnesota in which the Republican won but by a much smaller margin than predicted. As with this contest, it points to a different election climate than most have predicted – even after some of the recalibration of forecasts over the last month.

If you’ve ever done any sailing - I’ve done just enough to not be dangerous as crew - you know that “catching the wind” as quickly as you can when you notice it shift is the road to victory in a competition.

“Catching the wind” is what will work for us in November.

For anyone who’s had doubts, now is the time to set them aside. Getting out and working has now demonstrated it can lead to success in the current environment.

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