In the least shocking news ever, Kathy Hochul became the first woman elected Governor in the history of the Empire State. It was a 53/47 race, and New York should have more Democrats going to the House, but at the moment it’s not looking as good as it should. DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney just conceded to this Republican opponent in NY-16, for example.
In my home district of NY-25, Democrat Joe Morelle is leading shitty candidate La’Ron Singletary by 20,000 votes for a relatively easy win. True to his Trumper roots, Singletary is being a sore loser and hasn’t conceded, claiming ballot irregularities. Zelding (Hochul’s opponent) hasn’t conceded either.
Non-presidential years are hard for Democratic turnout in New York, and none of the numbers here surprise me. We still have work to do, but overall the horseshit “red wave in New York” media narrative was the product of partisan polls and illiberal “liberal” media like the NYT. It was never going to happen, and, lo and behold, it didn’t.
Baud
Media has been absolutely terrible over the last month and a half. I wish there was some way to measure how much damage they did.
A Ghost to Most
Sorry to intrude, but a sign of the apocalypse just happened in your neck of the woods. My fascist brother there called, only the second time in 15 years, and tried to make nice. Fuck that, but it is a stunning data point.
Carry on.
Nicole
I’m very proud of NYS for electing Hochul in her own right. Were she a guy, the margin would have been much bigger, but a win is a win, and NY residents get another 4 years to learn that a woman in the state’s top job does not mean an apocalypse.
Alison Rose
@A Ghost to Most: I hope you told him to fuck off nine ways to Sunday.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The MSM has been coopted by the Republican party. Ds need to build their own media ecosystem.
Alison Rose
@Nicole: I’m hoping California might follow suit after Newsom’s second term. Never had a woman governor here, which feels crazy, especially since we have had a Terminator governor. Our Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis is pretty great, as is our state senate president Toni Atkins–and not only would she be the first woman but also first out queer person.
Mike E
@schrodingers_cat:
I’d really like to see your plan to achieve this! I seriously doubt Rachel Maddow or all of the Air America alums can turn back the clock, nor can they survive a media war when the opposition hold the equivalent of nukes in their arsenal.
tobie
Didn’t the NY Court of Appeals also fuck things up for Dems in redistricting? If I recall correctly, they empowered a Republican judge to draw district lines. Dems on the Appeals court were apparently too goody-two-shoes to let even one Democratic gerrymander stand. We’re seeing the consequences now.
Baud
@Mike E: Yeah, I agree that it needs to be done, but it’s easier said than done.
dmsilev
Completely and utterly off topic, but via the Post right now:
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat:
Amen. TBF, it’s been tried – Al Gore buying Al Jazeera, Air America – and the corps controlling access, especially cable, have fought like hell against them. Warner being owned by a wingnut is a real problem here.
ArchTeryx
In a way New York is a lot of good news. The dark money tsunami crashed directly on the shores of Manhattan. Signs and ads for Zeldin were everywhere. YouTube and local cable stations were just one long Zeldin ad, which of course was both negative and one big lie. Those obnoxious “I did this!” anti-Biden stickers started reappearing, too. The right was pouring resources into this state at an unbelievable rate.
And they lost big time. How much money that NY vacuumed up didn’t end up in states where it might have made a difference? I mean, Chuck Schumer’s main opponent was a LaRouchie for Pete’s sake.
$8 blue check mistermix
@tobie:
Yeah, there’s a lot of angst about this in my NY politics twitter feed. Maloney is being blamed for making a “too liberal” map that was bound to be overturned. Others are blaming the state party for apparently not spending to bolster a referendum measure on redistricting.
PsiFighter37
That is far too optimistic a take. Yes, the courts screwed us on redistricting, but NY Dems overall ran terrible campaigns. Too much sugarcoating of what was an awful result for state Dems.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Mike E: Start small. Listen to the voices that have no voice in the MSM or even the leftie media environment which also skews white. Your example of Air America did not reflect the D electorate and mainly attracted white crunchy folk as their viewers.
Build a media organization that reflects the Democratic electorate. And report the news.
Alison Rose
@dmsilev: I saw the NYT notification and cackled. Also, LOL forever at the idea that russia gives a shit about saving lives.
joey5slice
I dunno – Democrats lost some winnable races here in New York. It’s not quite a “red wave” but I think we should examine how well the state party apparatus is working – I was out canvassing this weekend in NY-3 and I was underwhelmed by the party infrastructure. That was a winnable race. NY-4 was a winnable race. NY-19 was a winnable race.
Especially since we *didn’t* see the red wave elsewhere, I find myself disappointed by New York’s relative performance.
Eolirin
@$8 blue check mistermix: That referendum measure was never going to pass. It went down by a pretty huge margin. We’d have needed to turn out a lot of people, many of whom are squeamish about cheating via gerrymandering, during an off-off cycle election held alongside a gas price spike, for a referendum that was transparently an intensely partisan power grab.
PsiFighter37
@ArchTeryx: And Schumer won by less than 20 points, despite being a heavy retail politician who visits every county in New York every year. He has won by 40 points in the past.
On a relative basis, Democrats did badly in NY. Winning all the statewide races doesn’t change that. And dare I say, maybe Andrew Cuomo had a point about reigning in the impulses of the DSA wing of the party? He went about it in a crappy fashion (see the IDC) but these results should prove that NY is not a lefty’s paradise.
Eolirin
@PsiFighter37: Zeldin seemed like a credible candidate for gov, and drove turnout upstate. All of the statewide races were in a similar margin, only off by a few points. Zeldin was the top of the ticket and where all the energy was, the rest is just turn out.
It’s an open question whether that persists going forward. But for the house, we definitely got screwed by our maps, and otherwise, despite margins being lower, things would have been fine in terms of outcomes.
schrodingers_cat
@PsiFighter37: DSA wing of the party more often than not ends up helping Republicans, wonder how that works.
ETA: Wisconsin now called for Johnson. DSA is electoral poison everywhere other than deep blue areas.
Tazj
@PsiFighter37: Could you elaborate a little more about what you mean by terrible campaigns? I promise I’m not being snarky. Were these candidates just talking about being tough on crime and things Republicans might say? I know SP Maloney made some comment advising families to eat Chef Boyardee like he had to as a child during tough economic times but what else?
Searcher
@schrodingers_cat: I think the tricky part is two-fold.
First, you need to build a media empire that is resistant to all the corrupting influences of money and power, that reports truth while holding to progressive value in its editorial choices.
Second, you need to produce content that people want to watch and listen to 24/7, that they can leave on in their living rooms and waiting rooms, only switching away briefly when it’s time for their stories.
Neither of these is an easy, small problem.
brendancalling
A lot of fuckers in the media let the mask slip over the past few months, and I’m not talking about the op-eds. So-called “straight reporting” was heavily slanted toward the GOP (I’m looking at YOU Washington Post and specifically Pinnochio-boy Kessler who still has dreams of growing a real dick that will never come true).
NPR’s coverage this morning was outright hilarious. Absolutely no acknowledgement that their predictions were wrong, and of course they were having Republicans on to discuss the results. As you do: why interview the winners, when you can have a sore-loser? It’s the first time I’ve listened in over a month, because their coverage was so biased and crummy.
Roger Moore
The news here in California is generally good. It looks like there might be a nail biter for the State Controller, but all the other statewide offices are going to be easy Democratic victories. Ballot measures have also turned out well, with ones enshrining reproductive rights in the state constitution, giving more arts funding to the schools, and preserving a law outlawing flavored tobacco products winning, and ones in favor of expanding gambling losing. A measure to boost employment at dialysis clinics is now a three time loser, and one backed heavily by Lyft because it would subsidize a required shift to electric vehicles also lost.
PsiFighter37
@Tazj: Hochul did not do any retail campaigning except for the last few weeks, when it was apparent things were tightening up. And crime – even if low by historical standards – is higher in NYC (I would know – I live here). That resonates far outside of the city itself because so many people who live on Long Island and in the northern suburbs commuted in (or used to). The bail bill passed a couple years ago was hung around every Democrats’ neck.
Zeldin is an election denier, but the fact he got more than 45% of the vote suggests that Democrats did not effectively combat his message on crime – which allowed him to skate on his more egregious shortcomings.
As for Maloney, his incompetence speaks for itself. He’s not to blame for the gerrymander getting struck down, but he is to blame for awful messaging. The Democrats that are winning in tough races are based purely on their own personal political skill and no thanks to any kind of coordinated strategy at all.
Eolirin
@Tazj: I think the only thing you can maybe say is that there was not much effort to energize the upstate population.
The Democrats ran more on protecting abortion rights and the extremism of their opponents, while the Rs ran inflation and crime scare stories non stop, while downplaying abortion issues by saying that no matter what happened NY wasn’t going to lose its abortion rights.
And we ran a woman for governor.
It may have been better for there to have been a heavier focus on infrastructure investment, and we desperately needed a counter to the crime bullshit, but I’m not even sure what would have a chance of working there, and Hochul was probably a drag on the ticket. I think we win at least three more house seats if there hadn’t been any scandals and Andrew Cuomo had been on the ticket.
Matt McIrvin
This blog is the closest thing we have to a Democratic media ecosystem.
Brachiator
@Baud:
A lot more irritation than damage. The supposed red wave didn’t happen.
Part of the reason may be that fewer people are paying attention to traditional media. Newspapers are still dying and many are killing themselves by hiding behind a paywall without offering alternatives to access.
And the stupid conventions of political reporting are backfiring. They are overly relying on polls, which are not sufficiently accounting for changes in demographics and technology.
And the media keeps booking the same old pundits, many of whom are more obviously uninformed political grifters.
ETA. I was watching a few video clips of reporters who wasted time referring to the red wave that did not happen. Stupid framing that delayed getting into actual results.
lee
@joey5slice: Texas was a red wave. It wasn’t even close for any of the top 3 positions. Even the criminal Paxton got re-elected.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Haha. Too true.
PsiFighter37
@schrodingers_cat: I know I will get flak on this, but in hindsight, the overly broad calls for police overhauling, with little to no nuance, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, is going to hurt Democrats for a very long time. It basically reignited a weakness for the party that Bill Clinton had nullified a generation ago. It also simply does not have the majority support of most of the people of color who live in communities that have higher-than-average crime.
Mike E
@schrodingers_cat: Nice in principle but hardly likely in this rigged game. Political change can happen using the TEA/GOP party tactic of fighting for every election from school board to lt governor, but they are fascists with billions in dirty money behind them and pithy knee-jeek messaging that disconnects reason. You certainly can see how this has worked, here and abroad.
I am not giving up, I really can’t, but it’s a bleak reality. Also, I refuse to piss on any ally in this fight either but ymmv.
Baud
@Brachiator:
But did the media stop a bigger blue wave?
I know that that’s unknowable, but I still think media framing adds to our obstacles.
Bupalos
@schrodingers_cat: We’re the party of reality. We don’t need a stilted national “media ecosystem” like the R’s have, quite the opposite. We need investigative reporting from the local level up. “The Media” is for when you want to distort and propagandize. Investigative reporting is for when you want to live in reality and make reality better.
OverTwistWillie
@dmsilev:
Quick, somebody wake up Silverman!
PsiFighter37
@Eolirin: I think there was some degree of Cuomo fatigue already setting in, but no doubt: if he was not as handsy as it turned out to be, Democrats would have done better, because Cuomo took a very personal interest in running up the score – and having people ride his coattails. Hochul came across as expecting to coast to victory without having to introduce herself to the broader electorate.
schrodingers_cat
@PsiFighter37: You won’t get any flak from me on that. I agree with you.
DSA stances are not really popular. And he Defund the Police slogan is less popular than Ebola.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
D’s really need to figure out how to maximize social media for outreach. Hire data analytics firms. Pay Facebook and Google millions for user data. Hire effective digital marketing strategists.
Peter Thiel’s helping R’s out with this stuff, whether with Cambridge Analytica or Palintir.
There are no wealthy people, who are willing to risk losing millions to make a Democratic media outfit work. If there were, they would’ve done it already.
It’s maximizing social media outreach or nothing.
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
I think it has hurt us. I don’t think it will be lasting, especially if crime rates fall.
But part of it will depend on how aggressive advocates will continue to be.
schrodingers_cat
@Bupalos: Well we need an ecosystem that supports on the ground reporting. What we have is a pro-Republican media atmosphere and I include the legacy media and leftie outlets like MSNBC.
Rs says jump and everyone else goes how high.
Also the current media environment is hyper focused on one demographic. When they say working class, they mean white working class.
During the 4 years of T, I did not see much if any reporting that reflected the POV of immigrants. The demographic he targeted and scapegoated non-stop. It was always Ohio Dinner time for the media.
kindness
Part of Democrats problem is that in big states run by them, they’ve instituted somewhat strict non-gerrymandering rules into their redistricting rules. Whereas in Republican states they go all in on tilting the map. I know our side is morally right on this matter but we’re being played by our opponents here.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t think that will work. The country is too diverse, the party is too diverse.
What needs to be done, IMHO, is to enforce the antitrust laws and revitalize the media ownership laws.
Follow the money.
Cheers,
Scott.
tobie
@schrodingers_cat: Fetterman’s team was wise to pivot to the center for his campaign. I wonder how much the MSM will make a phenomenon of Summer Lee as they did Cori Bush. If so, that does not bode well for the party.
Kay
I think NYers got a super-dose of “crime panic” and it scared a lot of them. They were really targeted with it, being in the center of the media crime panic bubble.
I’ll never understand Eric Adams. Was it smart to tell people that NYC is this crime-soaked hellhole?
WTF. I understand the billionaire who tried to buy the state more than I do a mayor who runs around telling people how much his city sucks. Mayors are like professional sales people. Boosters! They’re not professional critics.
Crime is, of course, bad (I’m opposed) and people should feel safe (within reason- life is risky) and have responsive and professional police who are paid well but panics don’t get anyone where they want to go, unless you’re a billionaire who is too cheap to pay taxes. NYers pay a shit ton for police. Are they getting good value?
tobie
@PsiFighter37: I agree with you on this. Cheri Beasley was attacked in NC for being soft on crime. The GOP took Cori Bush’s vocal support for defunding the police and tried to tar every Dem with it.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: You know that that reporting that you want to see is out there – you just have to look for it.
E.g. LatinoUSA.org.
ProPublica.org does lots of great long-form reporting (even when they occasionally mess up).
The problem with fractured, democratized media is that it’s fractured. The days of 4 TV channels and three 30 minute nightly newscasts that are watched by 95% of the country are gone and not coming back. But it’s incredibly easy to find diverse voices and information on things that were nearly impossible to find on our own 40 years ago.
We have to find ways to work in that existing fractured and changing media environment, and we need to think smartly about how to manage it so that it doesn’t turn into a monster that destroys the country.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
jonas
@ArchTeryx: Zeldin’s main backer was billionaire cosmetics baron Ronald Lauder, who was supposedly pissed about a wind farm off the coast of his Hamptons estate. Zeldin had pledged to ditch anything that smacked of “green energy” and go back to fracking. Lot of good that did him. Oh and fuck Lauder. Stick to art collecting and quit trying to screw over the rest of the state.
GibberJack
@dmsilev: Not really off topic, as I think the this announcement is a result of the failed Red Wave. Putin now knows there’s not going to be enough republican traitors in congress to help him against Ukraine.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Atomized websites aren’t going to work very well as a substitute for the media.
MazeDancer
Karma got Maloney.
He stole that district. And we all suffered.
joey5slice
@lee: Fair. I guess my expectations were low in Texas to begin with, but I haven’t been paying attention to the margins. Looks bad. Similar in Florida, too (poor Betty). Interesting how different states are seeing different results – two Congressional pick ups in Ohio!
rikyrah
Illinois here
We have 17 members in Congress
As of last night, 14 are Democrats.
Yeah :)
rikyrah
@tobie:
YEP
tobie
So much work to do today so I’ll check out on an optimistic note: Michigan Dems did amazing things. Female Dem candidates won all the statewide offices and now the news says Hillary Scholten won her House race (a D pickup). I want whatever Michiganders are drinking (except for in Flint…tho’ I’d like to know when Whitmer will fix that so we can all take a collective sip of water). Bye for now.
Eolirin
@Baud: Yeah, that’s the core issue right. People aren’t that interested in being accurately informed, and the ones that are are probably already on our side. So what matters more is saturation. Fox News on the TVs in waiting rooms, talk radio in the background all day.
That suggests that the problem isn’t so much that we lack a good media alternative so much that the problem is that bad media exists. At scale. And no amount of good media is going to change the effects of that unless it fundamentally displaces it. Bad media has to get burned to the ground.
We’re better off focusing on organizing, advocacy groups, and GotV.
Geminid
@MazeDancer: Maloney ran in the district he lived in. He stole nothing, and it’s misleading to say he did.
People slag on Maloney because he did not move to a tougher district so as to make room for Mondaire Jones in the 17th. But if Maloney couldn’t win the 17th Mondaire Jones wouldn’t have had a chance. So Maloney did right as far as I’m concerned.
p.a.
From the outside, haven’t New Yorkers here been pointing out the fucked-upness of the New York Dem ‘machine’ for a while? Something about working with R’s against other Dems for something-something ‘reasons’ in Albany within the last decade?
The Truffle
@rikyrah: Yay, Illinois!
Here in NY, I’m bummed about Maloney but happy Hochul and Pat Ryan won. Zeldin is horrible and hopefully will slink away.
@lee:
I think maybe Beto has a better future as an organizer. Maybe Texas Dems could focus on city/local races and work their way up?
Peale
@Kay: Yeah. I think there’s quite a bit of reporting on crime waves that’s amplified by the fact that the media is in New York and the city definitely is worse for wear, especially since COVID. Its article after article about how New York and California are in decline and Texas and Florida is where its at, baby. And having a Mayor who acts like New York City isn’t the greatest place to live any longer isn’t all that helpful. I think the decline in support in the state in Long Island and Hudson Valley is in part due to the fact that the media in New York is telling us that we should now be afraid to go into the city and take a subway to see a show, and many of us stopped going in 3 years ago because of COVID and no longer what it looks like on the ground. Sigh.
Nicole
@Kay: And what’s so frustrating is that this is a media-created panic, not something backed up by the data:
https://www.amny.com/news/crime-up-nyc-still-safer/
Yes, crime has ticked up this year… slightly. But compared to 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, as the article says, it’s still down. And, as the article pointed out, in 2000, when the rate was much higher than today, both the Mayor’s office and the Governor’s office were occupied by Republicans, we had more cops on the street and the city was still following the broken windows and stop-and-frisk policies.
I have friends spouting the “crime is up” line and it’s especially annoying because overwhelmingly, they are friends who have a lot more money than I do and live in very expensive areas in NYC. I don’t think they are actually witnessing more crime; I think they are parroting what the media tells them
ETA: And yeah, I can’t figure Eric Adams out. I put the nice boring lady at the top of my ranked choices for Mayor.
Eolirin
@p.a.: The group responsible for that has been wiped out pretty effectively. And with Cuomo gone it’s very dead. That might have actually hurt us here some.
The NY legislature is behaving more like MA or CA now that we’ve had a couple of cycles of actual Democrats in full majorities. Upstate isn’t really ready for that, I think.
The Truffle
@Peale: I live in NYC. It. Is. Fine. Every city has crime. But NYC is nowhere near where it was in the 1970s.
Adrian Lesher
@PsiFighter37: NY has never been a “lefty’s paradise.” Giuliani was mayor if NYC, and NY has also had other crappy Republicans like D’Amato and Pataki. Andrew Cuomo constantly sold out to Republicans, giving cover to Chris Christie during Bridgegate, and triangulating with Republicans in the legislature to weaken Democratic power. Eric Adams is nearly a Republican, and the same could be said of Bloomberg and Koch. That doesn’t mean that progressives shouldn’t stay progressives. One thing the right has shown is that sticking to your guns can give electoral strength over time
@PsiFighter37:
trollhattan
@dmsilev: Here’s hoping Ukraine can HIMARS the snot out of them while they cross that river. Leave and fight another day? Hell with that. We already know the sort of ghoulish wasteland they’re leaving behind them.
Brachiator
@Baud:
An unhelpful and unknowable hypothetical.
Again, the plain fact is that media influence is diminishing. Also, plain fact is that the media is not going to change. The Democrats and their supporters need to stop playing to reporters and pundits who are not going to be fair.
Also, Democrats may need to reexamine what they think they are getting from their own political strategists. One Democratic Party strategist appeared on a pundit show and vehemently agreed that Joe should have been honking more about inflation instead of autocracy. Bullshit. It’s not like the Democrats need to always have a single message. Single mindedness is not the same thing as clarity.
Eolirin
@Nicole: It’s also not an obvious policy issue, as even with that uptick NYC is safer than most places in the country, and especially red rural areas. The R pitch also wasn’t “We have a plan to fix crime” it was literally just “CRIME! DEMOCRATS BAD!! CRIIIMMME! *spooky noises*”
And that kinda works some. Which is depressing.
trollhattan
@The Truffle: SWAG your crime rates, by population, are mid-pack at the most, compared to actual bad U.S. cities.
PsiFighter37
@Kay: I’m convinced that Eric Adams is a much less wealthy of Rick Caruso – namely, a Republican masquerading as a Democrat. He’s quite unpopular now because he’s got a reputation of being a blowhard who likes to party and little else. I thought it’d be harder to have a reputation for perceived laziness that was worse than Bill deBlasio, but that is Adams in a nutshell. If someone has the stones for it, he could very easily be primaried in 2025. Unfortunately he will have all the money men in finance and real estate behind him.
@p.a.: Yes, that was Cuomo’s doing. He kneecapped State Senate Democrats because he did not want to pass a number of initiatives that progressives wanted. When Democrats finally destroyed the long-standing gerrymander in 2018, he would continually slow-walk policies he perceived as being too progressive. Again – in hindsight, given the results yesterday – he had a point. DSA’s growth in NYC has been very bad, IMO, in pushing the city’s politics too far left. You may need NYC to win a statewide primary, but going too far leaves statewide ticket weaker and down ballot more exposed.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yep.
@Another Scott: Not all immigrants are Latino. I am perfectly capable of finding the specific stories that interest me. But I cannot as one individual change the narrative pushed by the MSM which is represented by and large by the demographic that skews Republican
In many of the news stories the white is silent. Take for example the MSM narrative of Ds losing the working class. Ds actually won people making less than 100,000 in 2020 who they didn’t win were white people making less than 100,000. Much of the D coalition is erased by the media and that is a problem.
Unless you vote Republican the MSM doesn’t see you.
trollhattan
@Eolirin: Many consecutive generations have been exposed to “If it bleeds, it leads” journalism and because people do not “do” statistics or risk analysis, they only have their emotional responses to it.
PsiFighter37
@MazeDancer: I never bought into that. And if SPM lost, Jones would have definitely lost. Not sure why Maloney should be asked to move districts. And the fact that Jones then ran for a Manhattan/Brooklyn district afterwards just reeked of opportunism.
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
A lot of New Yorkers were suckered by C. Rice’s “… But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” in 2002. I saw it in some otherwise very intelligent people.
When the media is complicit in panics[1], there’s not much that can be done. Maybe expensive advert buys saying that a particular panic is bullshit. Actively working on shaming shame-able journalists can help a bit, too, IMO.
[1] E.g. 28 day crime stats are noisy even for a large city, and are affected by factors such as the weather (which affects the entire city): https://compstat.nypdonline.org/2e5c3f4b-85c1-4635-83c6-22b27fe7c75c/view/89 (Murder rate down!. For October vs 2021 October.)
patrick II
Elaine Luria, congresswoman from Virginia’s 2nd and J6 committee member, lost her reelection bid last night. When Younkin won the governorship, republicans also took bare minorities in both houses of Virginia’s assembly. Congressman Luria got gerrymandered out of her job. It is a shame. She has been a fine representative.
The person who ran against her seems like a decent person — also a retired woman naval officer. But it makes no difference. She will vote the way they all do.
Peale
@Geminid: I do think Maloney and the Dems in the state in general did that thing that they do where they just assume that everyone is off sunning at the Hamptons all summer long and can’t be bothered with campaigning until after labor day. I didn’t see my first pro-Maloney ad until October.
Looking at the map, he held Westchester but lost Rockland and Rockland has been trending GOP for a few election cycles. Defund the police was not popular at all in Rockland. And the Hassidic Jews were loyal to Engle and Nita Lowry, but have switched sides because of COVID restrictions and the fact that other Democrats are thinking that maybe, just maybe, the students in Hasidic schools that receive public funds maybe should teach science. Maloney’s ads had two messages – one about abortion and the other that he’s an Anti-Semite, but I don’t think either were well targeted and weren’t enough to work.
Mondaire would have lost in this environment, too.
Baud
The GOP and the media are going to create a panic before every election. I don’t have a plan for dealing with it, but we’re going to have to figure out how to do it somehow.
PsiFighter37
@Adrian Lesher: I know it’s not a lefty’s paradise. I have lived in NYC my entire life post-graduation (going on 15 years) and lived in the suburbs above it since the mid-1990s. But the perception that the average person has is that NY is a very liberal state. It’s not – New York City (excepting Staten Island) is, but it’s different strains of liberalism within the city, with the Bronx, Queens, and good chunks of Brooklyn being more working-class liberals than the very socially liberals that get highlighted in Manhattan or certain parts of Brooklyn.
Eolirin
@trollhattan: Oh, of course. What’s depressing is that they don’t seem to care that there’s not even a proposed solution, not that they fall for the emotional appeal. That part is to be expected.
It’s not being able to see through an obvious con that just requires you to ask one question for the whole thing to fall apart.
Qrop Non Sequitur
I’ve wondered at times about forming a consortium of top 10,000ish lefty blogs. Talk among each other and share more, organize together.
Local newspapers need more support also.
Brachiator
Heard an ABC news reporter say that Arizona may have 95 percent of ballots counted by Friday. So a while until clear results are known in the top races.
Baud
OT
PsiFighter37
@Peale: The alliance that any politician has with the Hasidic community makes me queasy, especially after reading the NYT expose that illustrated how their schools basically leave children uneducated, illiterate in English, and completely unable to function outside of their ultra-Orthodox bubble. You want to talk about welfare queens, they are the prime example of it. And then they perpetuate the system by having extremely large families.
different-church-lady
@Baud: I’ll expound on this more later, but HOLY CHRIST the GOP/media psyops were just off the charts this year.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I don’t know if it fits the definition of a panic, but the double whammy of Dobbs and the general autocratic/election-denialist bent of many Republican candidates got Democratic voters in a hair-on-fire mood.
Eolirin
@Baud: That might have even been a viable route to take the service if he hadn’t caused immediate issues with advertisers, his employees and alienated large portions of the user base.
Pulling that off would require trust he no longer has.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, but those two things clearly arise out of the Republican party.
Republican-sponsored panics attempt to tie things that have nothing to do with Democrats to the Democratic Party.
Also, although this is more subjective, Republican-sponsored panics tend to be overblown.
Fair Economist
Cops are doing the same the Republicans doing – deliberately screwing up, and then benefitting from the mess they cause. Serious crime clearance rates continue to drop as they focus on beating up minorities and arresting black men for owning cars. Then they say they need more money, which they spend on big cars with illegal tints, while still not doing their job.
The problem is the lack of accountability, and we’ve got to get that fact out to the public somehow.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Brachiator: It confuses me a little why most places can count 80 percent of the votes the first night but the rest take days.
Eolirin
@Fair Economist: I think we might be able to get some traction on these issues by tying a lot of them together into a general anti-corruption anti-white collar crime push.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Yes, I felt that way too. Not just spin reflecting a particular point of view. Like Twilight Zone type of reporting. It’s hard to describe.
WaterGirl
@GibberJack: Interesting thought.
Brachiator
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
California modernized its voting system, but only 38 percent of the vote was counted by 3 am. We have mail ballots and counties ultimately control the voting process. They coordinate with the state, but still a crazy quilt process.
Other states have their own issues.
WaterGirl
@The Truffle: He’s a great candidate, but apparently even he cannot move Texas.
Geminid
@patrick II: Republicans won a 52-48 majority in the Virginia House of Delegates last year, but the state Senate was not up for election. Democrats hold that with a 21-19 majority lead by the fierce L. Louise Lucas. Both houses are up for election next year.
Luria’s 2nd CD was drawn* with a slight Republican advantage. I believe she’ll win that seat back in 2024.
* Virginia voted by referendum in 2020 to put redistricting in the hands of a novel Redistricting Commission. It deadlocked, and the state’s Supreme Court tasked two special masters to do the job. They took it upon themselves to draw 6 blue or bluish districts, 4 red districts, and one swing district. That was the coastal 2nd CD.
Kay
@PsiFighter37:
But my impression was property values were the whole thing in NYC. The property is wildly valuable. I would be “stop telling people it’s a lawless hellhole, you idiot” and I would think wealthy NY property owners would be too.The whole arts community, which depends on people going to things– can tehy tell him to maybe just stop talking?
“you’re not that helpful, sir” :)
Paul W.
Agreed, no red wave in NY – just Dem party here being a bunch of power-hoarding losers who would rather keep turnout low if it means they win primaries and keep their seats than do what is best for the party at a statewide or federal level (Maloney hoisted by is own petard here is actually great for me).
I’ll work with my local political groups to change all this, starting with Jay Jacobs going bye bye!
Kelly
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Oregon counts mail in ballots postmarked on election day that are received a week after election day.
trollhattan
@Kay: Except for Staten Island. Screw those guys.
errg
@kindness: This.
If the Republicans controlled CA the same way the Dems do, there would be 3 Democratic representatives from CA. (as opposed to the 2020 result of 42D / 11R)
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Kelly: Yeah makes sense mail could delay the process.
squid696
I am really surprised that Lina Hidalgo held on as County Judge here in Harris County (Houston). She was the target of a massive ad blitz for months here, more than Presidential level attack ads. There were more signs for her opponent in my neighborhood than for any candidate since I moved in 10 years ago. Mattress Mac, who is a local legend cut ads for her. Lina’s early ads were few and far between and not very good. Her ads later in the race were better, but not particularly good. The tons of ads against Democratic judges and the overall Republican message of blaming Democrats for crime I thought would rule the day, but, thankfully, no. Most of the Democratic judges won, too. My local school board elections even went well and the right-wing nuts were defeated. so, overall Texas sucked, but the local results were good.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Fair Economist:
I think we do need this. Talking about competing everywhere, right now radio in rural areas is absolutely flooded with 24-7 right wing talking points. My mom was always GOP, but she became much more hard core listening to right wing radio on road trips after she retired. Its getting where people in these small communities never hear another idea outside of that echo chamber. I would dearly love to see a small network of practically underground radio stations going directly after right wing talking points broadcasting in their communities. I want their kids to accidently tune in and hear something unexpected that makes them question what their parents are angrily telling them. Really competing isn’t just showing up with a candidate every couple of years.
Eljai
@WaterGirl: I think Beto helped push a couple house Democrats in tough races over the line in TX. And he also helped some local Dem candidates, even if he couldn’t win his own race.
Eolirin
@Qrop Non Sequitur: A number of states don’t allow processing of mail in ballots prior to the polls closing too.
Kay
I may never get over that tens of male pundits decided that womens agency and bodily autonomy was not important compared to the price of 2% milk and they’re still employed and probably right now lecturing some woman. She’s sighing and wondering how to get away politely, her whole being telling her to find an escape :)
patrick II
@Geminid:
Thank you. I hated to see her go.
lowtechcyclist
@Bupalos:
Tru dat. What we need are newspapers and cable TV channels that do the job the “liberal” media should be doing.
Covering policy and how it affects actual people; shutting up about the horse race and ‘optics’ and shit like that except when there’s an actual election just a few months away; not feeling a need to ‘bothsides’ stuff that shouldn’t be bothsidesed in any rational world; not chasing after every bullshit issue the RWNJs toss out there, but thinking first about whether they matter; stuff like that.
The only actually liberal thing I’d like to see such a media ecosystem do is in their choice of topics to cover. Labor issues, for instance, are woefully undercovered. Coverage of climate issues is getting better, but it’s hardly where it should be. Stuff like that.
But even in their coverage of those issues, I wouldn’t want anyone spouting a party line in a mirror image of Faux News, but just covering issues and policy in an honest manner.
I think there’d be a market for that. But it’s hard to say: nobody’s tried it AFAICT.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
The Rs have a propaganda infrastructure that organizationally separate from the political party (Fox News, hate radio, etc.). We really don’t have anything similar. For us, it’s (1) the party apparatus and (2) specialized interest groups. It puts us at a disadvantage.
Eolirin
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I think TikTok might be a better target.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: They were lying outright creating a narrative for the Republicans.
topclimber
@PsiFighter37: Yeah, “Defund the police” really hurt us.
Should be “police the police.”
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
What we have more than anything is a media ecosystem that eschews on-the-ground reporting for punditry. When CNN created the concept of a 24 hour news channel, that’s what it mostly was: straight news reporting. Now all the news channels spend most of their time on punditry and only a bit on straight reporting. Instead of telling people what’s happening, “news” has turned into telling people what to think about what’s happening.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@topclimber: Or improve public safety.
But really I don’t think defund would have hurt s so much if it didn’t get so much oxygen.
Too many Rs looking to take cheap shots without really looking at the argument and too many Ds looking for a Sista Souljah moment.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Agreed we need straight news, not Republican propaganda dressed up as punditry. And this cycle it was all about the polling, that became the news and it was a feedback loop.
The Moar You Know
@Peale: it’s very helpful to him and his own personal interests. He’s a cop. If the cops get more money he benefits. So New York, as far as the mayor’s office is concerned, will be a crime-ridden shithole for his entire term. He will never say otherwise.
MomSense
@Alison Rose:
Small world, but her son and mine have gotten to be good friends. They’ve been making mischief in Greece.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@PsiFighter37:
I agree with this 100%.
Martin
@kindness: It’s the long game. CA’s non-gerrymandering isn’t something the GOP can reverse if they win here.
If you establish the game is to cheat, then everyone cheats. CA has forced the situation where nobody can cheat, so nobody will be able to cheat.
You may think we should squeeze out a few more D seats from CA. But CA can’t have their legislature taken by a minority of the popular vote and held hostage like North Carolina where Dems can get 60% of the vote and still lose the legislature.
If you believe that Dems have the national advantage, then gerrymandering undermines that advantage. That may not always deliver results in the immediate term, but it will over time. Look at Michigan – independent districting and Dems now in charge. That’s pretty damn huge. I don’t know if Michigan can press their advantage as CA did once Dems took over, but they at least stand a chance now.
Fair Economist
@Eolirin:
I have high hopes for the new LA City Controller, Kenneth Mejia. His campaign included billboard breaking down how LA was mismanaging its money; primarily but not entirely by ridiculous policing costs. There’s other corruption in the city government too and having somebody on the inside exposing it is going to help a lot.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Eolirin: I think TikTok should be a target also.
Eolirin
@Baud: I think we could maybe begin to make some inroads on that problem, though I think we need to solve it differently than the top down approach taken by the right, by helping to connect up more of those issues advocacy groups into a sort of distributed network of action. We’d still need a separate organizational infrastructure to help coordinate things, but if you look at, say the way Balloon Juice is able to leverage its audience to provide flash funding for Four Directions, I think it’s a model that can scale over our existing ecosystem of advocacy groups. As long as we all decide to play nice with each other. Which may be a heavy lift, idk.
WhatsMyNym
@Baud: So much Musk lore from TNYT. In reality,
Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO in Oct 2000.
different-church-lady
You could probably get a lot of people to agree the police need overhauling. But that’s not the cudgel some people gave the Deplorable Party to beat us all on the head with.
Eyeroller
@Qrop Non Sequitur: I blame Twitter for that. It was easy for the big-name journos to find positions like that which are fringe (even if there are a few people who call themselves Democrats who talk about it) and inject it into the mainstream. Apparently all the “elite” journos live on Twitter, since that seems to be about all the work they do, and believe it reflects real life.
PsiFighter37
@Eljai: Maybe further downballot. The way that the GOP state legislature gerrymandered Texas was to actually make the new Democratic seats held by Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred even bluer so that they could shore up a lot of seats that has become marginal / vulnerable in a wave election. The results that turned out were exactly as everyone had predicted based on the drawn lines – Beto did not contribute at all to changing those results.
Eolirin
@Martin: The primary argument for gerrymandering in blue states was to hold the house long enough to get enough votes in the Senate to undo gerrymandering nationally. I think this is perfectly reasonable.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Eyeroller: There are an entire class of journalists whose job it is to find fringe lefties and highlight their excesses, whether legitimately excessive or not.
ETA: This has been the case a long time, Twitter just made.it easier.
Democrats get judged by their wildest activist, no matter what their elected officials do. Republicans get judged by their highest theoretical ideals, no matter what their elected officials do
schrodingers_cat
Stop the presses, Will Stancil thinks its all Nancy Pelosi’s fault.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@schrodingers_cat: Democrats haven’t lost yet. So there is no blame yet to place.
Fair Economist
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
This has been a deliberate campaign. Clear Channel, once Limbaugh’s distributor, actually went bankrupt partly as a result of buying media monopolies. Bankruptcy came and went, but not all those stations are owned by wingnuts.
Layer8Problem
@p.a.: , @Eolirin: “The group responsible for that has been wiped out pretty effectively.”
Wiped out pretty effectively was right. That was the “Independent Democratic Conference,” a group of quislings in the New York State Senate who caucused with the Republicans for big prizes, like bigger offices and nicer state cars. Andrew Cuomo was happy with them; the electorate in 2018, not so much, losing 6 of their eight seats, including conference leader Jeff Klein.
Eyeroller
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Yes, and that asymmetry is a problem and why we need some form of information propagation. I don’t think we can and perhaps should not attempt to form our own media “ecosystem” but we have to work around the MSM somehow. I don’t read Atrios anymore but I think he called them the Republicans’ “puke funnel.” That plus the “hack gap” of so many RW pundits and also Republicans dominating as guests on various talking-head shows.
Rileys Enabler
@squid696: I was also surprised that Lina pulled out a victory. Surprised and pleased. In Houston we are more purple that many parts of the state, which helps a little?
OTOH I thought the R emphasis on crime was overcooked.
The Moar You Know
GOTV did not work here in San Diego. 29% turnout.
All the large blue CA counties had absymal turnout numbers, all the empty blood-red ones were much higher, not that it really matters in the end, but I’m not content AT ALL with how low Dem turnout was across the state. We should be able to do much better.
Eljai
@PsiFighter37: You could be right, but Cuellar in TX-28 and Gonzalez in TX-34 won their races when all the polls had them losing.
topclimber
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Police the police means they don’t get to beat up on their traditional AA targets. It also means, as several jackals alluded have to, that management polices expectations so that cops do their job rather than go on strike.
This is yet another of many issues that we don’t defuse by running away from, but by demanding it be addressed.
schrodingers_cat
@Qrop Non Sequitur: DSA lefties love to blame Ds, especially effective ones like NP.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Some of those people are always on camera.
Kelly
https://www.theonion.com/smiling-fetterman-asks-oz-if-he-d-mind-slowly-repeating-1849763117
Qrop Non Sequitur
@schrodingers_cat: You realize this is the same sort of nutpicking the media and the Bill Mahers of the world do to divide our side, right?
Who is Will Stancil?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Fair Economist: If I had won Powerball, I’d have found a station in an area with few radio stations (including no NPR) and gotten rid of that right wing programming. It woudn’t be hard to track voting trends in the area to see if there was a shift at all over time. I’d do the inverse NY Times. Have interviews with people from the closest big city about political and community events. The right wing’s biggest weapon is fear. These people don’t know any better so they believe it. Take away the fear by demonstrating how exaggerated and overwrought it is, and they don’t have much to offer.
Geminid
@Paul W.: I don’t see anything great about Sean Maloney losing. He’s just a whipping boy for anti-estaishment Dems influenced by New York’s Justice Democrats/Working Families Party/DSA complex.
Most Democrats would be glad to have Maloney as their representative. He may not be good enough for you, but 17th District Democrats chose him over Ms. Biaggi and the primary wasn’t even close.
different-church-lady
Same in Massachusetts. But the GOP/Media psyops were so intense that I had been walking around for days in a doom-cloud, afraid that we were going to lose all the easy races, never mind hold out for a chance a the tight ones. “Hansen’s going down OOGA BOOGA!!” “Healy knows she’s losing OOOGA BOOGA!!!” I mean, MA governor got called an entire 120 seconds after the ballot boxes closed, but I was still all freaked out about the polls being THAT impossibly wrong.
I was going to describe the sequence of events that lead me to this state, but it’s just too convoluted.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@different-church-lady: Diehl barely made it over the crazification factor.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
How is this measured? How do they account for mail ballots?
Geminid
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Will Stancil is a voluble self-described “Do Something Democrat” who is very critical of Democratic strategy and tactics. In his day job he is a researcher in metropolitan policy for the Universty of Minnesota’s Law School, I think. Stancil stays on Twitter, and often gets dunked on for his more vehement takes.
taumatugo
@Paul W.:
Holding the leaders accountable, what a radical thing to do among democrats. The dinosaur pack of leaders in the party is leading a stampede over the cliff, and the voters are cheering instead of demanding change at the top.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Geminid: Well far be it from me to deride people for going beyond their day job to make questionable takes on politics.
I only meant to point out that highlighting these people perpetuates the squabbling and gives them attention they otherwise might not get.
This type of nutpicking isn’t helping us.
Emily B.
Hochul became governor by succeeding a governor who left office, not by being elected directly to that position. I think that for some voters, that’s a negative. I’m actually surprised and relieved that she was reelected.
schrodingers_cat
@Qrop Non Sequitur: He has a substantial following on Twitter and is representative of the Red Rose DSA types.
The far left (DSA types) has more venom to spew against other elected Ds than they do against Rs
Pointing this out does make me Bill Maher.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@schrodingers_cat: Let me try this another way.
Perhaps it would be beneficial if all of us took time to find and highlight positive messaging rather than focusing on divisive messaging that won’t do anything more than bring our people down.
Geminid
@Qrop Non Sequitur: I agree generally. Stancil and his critics generate enough squabbling on Twitter we don’t really need it here.
I did bring him up on an early morning thread yesterday just to contrast his pre-election take with Rachel Bitecofer’s. Bitecofer remarked on the unity of purpose and effort she saw across the Democratic coalition, and said it made her hopeful for 2024.
Stancil was gloomy and pissy. He said he wanted Democrats to win, but also in effect said they didn’t deserve to win because of their crappy tactics and messaging strategy:
BobbyK
I live in NY-22 and it looks like the carpet bagger is going to win. I can usually get in and out of my polling place in 5-10 minutes. Last night I waited an HOUR by the time I voted. fat orange turd voters pretty much all I’m sure.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Here’s something we can do.
What if we had a designated discussion day about legislation moving through statehouses and Congress that isn’t getting enough attention?
Same with speeches or other public events that aren’t cutting through the chatter.
evodevo
@PsiFighter37:
Yep…same in Israel…ask any secular Israeli about that…
Mike E
@Qrop Non Sequitur: I’d support that, but with a corporate media hegemony in place whose sole purpose is to thwart rational political discussion it would be equally effective to (at the same time) call out their thumbing the scale AND everyone online who ignores this reality to further their toxic punditry. Tall task, but it’s all we got right now until enough people shun these assholes and embrace meaningful dialogue and change.
Bill Arnold
@Paul W.:
Are you a Republican?
Bill Arnold
@taumatugo:
Are you a Republican?
Miss Bianca
@taumatugo: oh, Christ, it’s this asshole again.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Mike E: Also too, once we identify these missed stories we would need to act together to push then to the broader public in some organized way.
Twitter bombing?
Gravenstone
@taumatugo: Always appreciate how every time you open your yawp, I’m reminded to PIE your ass on yet another PC. Thanks and bye bitch.
Gravenstone
@Miss Bianca: Ah, wasn’t until I saw your reply that I realized they tweaked their name to escape piedom.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca:
@Gravenstone: Hey, you’re going to chase the “miracle worker” away! I want them to stick around so I can work my own miracle. I intend to change them into- poof!- a Blue Dog.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: The one I worried about in MA was the state auditor’s race, which seemed closer than the others, and probably because it seemed gettable the Republicans went all-in with a misleading smear campaign, among other things claiming that DiZoglio was a homophobe because she had belonged to a homophobic church in her youth (this is not consistent with her current positions on anything)
Yes, in this state Republicans attack liberals “from the left” by calling them homophobic.
louc
@Roger Moore:
It’s cheaper that way. If you’re doing straight reporting, you have to hire lots of people to report/produce/edit/film. If you offer punditry, then the wannabe pundits are beating down your door to get some free publicity for whatever they’re selling. This was Fox’s model and CNN reverted to it.
AnonPhenom
@tobie:
Andrew Cuomo stacked the court with conservative judges.
The 4 who judges who sided in favor of the Republican lawsuit were; two Republicans -DiFiore and Garcia, and two conservative Dems -Singas and Cannataro all 4 of whom were appointed to the State Court of Appeals by …wait for it… Andrew ‘il douchebag’ Cuomo
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/2022-midterms-new-york-republicans-cuomo-maloney.html
AnonPhenom
Also Jay Jacobs doesn’t know what his job is unless there’s somebody there to hold his hand and tell him*
https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/State-Democratic-Party-did-not-spend-money-on-16589509.php
*I mean, it’s either that or his job is tripping up democrats to keep them from accomplishing anything.
Bupalos
@Searcher: As to part 2, People stuck on screens as opposed to living real lives is never ever going to redound to a better world, no matter what you put on those screens.
What we need to focus on when we think about “media” is facts, reality and truth that actually impact people’s lives. Which takes 1000 times as much work to investigate, research, and uncover as it does to present. CNN or any 24 hour newsertainment enterprise is destined to serve the interests of authoritarianism, it’s just a question of degree.