Tuesday’s Just Tuesday

There are four elections of note tomorrow. The pundits will over analyze the bejesus out of them. And YSDA will not be left behind in this regard.

Instead of trying to predict the results or to pick apart their meaning, what we’ll do today is analyze the analysis. What do the predictable talking points from these races say about the current state of the Democratic Party?

The Governors Races. New Jersey and Virginia are electing governors. Both are states that Kamala Harris won, but they’re also states that have a history of competitive governor’s races. The Democrats should win both this time on the theory that liberals are angry and fired up while Trump voters don’t show up when Orange isn’t on the ballot. But if they should happen to lose one or both there will be a lot of ‘we told you so!’ on the hard-left. Their argument will be that the relative moderates that the party nominated didn’t resonate with the rage of voters. They’ll argue that we need more oyster fishermen with Nazi symbols tattooed to their chests.

New York Mayor’s Race. This is the opportunity for moderates to freak out, as they have been doing ever since Democratic socialist (or is it socialist Democrat and should I capitalize “socialist” or not?) Zohran Mamdani won the primary this summer. Mamdani’s not my cup of chai, but he won the primary going away because he talked about the cost of living in New York, not because of his position on the Middle East. Democrats need to make a pact between their hard-left and moderate wings. We’ll each push our candidates, but when one of them wins a primary we’ll back the home team. I think my fellow moderates are screwing up big time by way overreacting to Mamdani and by backing the deeply flawed Andrew Cuomo. Moreover, the writing’s been on the subway walls and in the tenement halls all summer and fall: Mamdani’s gonna win. Accept it, even show up at the guy’s victory party (go ahead and participate heavily in the cash bar if necessary), and then try to nudge the new mayor to the center.

California Pro-Gerrymandering Referendum. Barring surprises in those governor’s races, this will be the ugliest thing to happen on Tuesday night. It appears that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initiative to rip apart his state’s bipartisan redistricting process in an attempt to rig California’s maps to match the rigging of Texas’ maps will pass easily. Democrats have long been the party that has championed fair maps, but it turns out we’re only for that when it benefits us. What’s next? Trump has turned the Justice Department and the FBI into his personal retribution squad. When a Democrat returns to the White House will we expect him to use them to go after our Republican enemies in just the same way? The hard-left in the party wants to fight, fight, fight. They want to fight fire with fire. As a result, they risk burning down the whole house. I’m not a Democrat because I want my side to reap the spoils and punish our enemies. This is another step toward becoming just another banana republic.

So, there you have it. I suppose I’ll tune into CNN and watch the breathless reporting of the returns with endless and tedious break downs by county and yadda, yadda, yadda. But really, when the smoke clears, I don’t think this off-off year election with a highly selective electorate will amount to a tea leaf worth reading. In the end it’ll be just another Tuesday.