Yesterday’s voting results
School boards in Florida went conservative in yesterday’s vote, after Governor DeSantis focused on them. School board elections are exceedingly important but till recently most people didn’t understand the danger posed by the left dominating there. The left had quietly and steadily been paying a great deal of attention to getting their school board candidates elected, and had been quite successful in many parts of the country.
I think that one of the things DeSantis has been purposely doing in Florida is to use the state as a demonstration and a general model of how it is that conservatives can improve a state when they come to power. I hope a lot of people in other states are watching. Of course, the Democrats and the MSM have already labeled him as the Demon-In-Waiting.
In a very different state, New York, a court redistricting had pitted two old-time allies and US House Democrats, Jerry Nadler and Carol Maloney, against each other. Things got vicious, and Nadler is the last person standing. Thing is, the election was predicted to be close, and it wasn’t even close to being close; Nadler won by a ratio of 2:1. What does that mean, besides the fact that predictions and polls seem less and less reliable these days? Maybe voters just went with the more well-known person, since both Nadler and Maloney have basically the same politics. It was a difference without that much of a difference – and turnout was low as well.
There’s also been a lot of punditry about a Democrat winning in a special election in a so-called “bellweather” district in New York state: NY-19. Bonchie of RedState writes about its possible significance here:
The recriminations are going to center on why that happened. Was Molinaro just not exciting enough for the voters in the district? Or was there something else at play? I think it’s probably a little bit of both, and I’m going to point out something that I’m not seeing others mention. Namely, that this is a special election that is going to be redone in a little over two months. Would you be excited to go to the polls knowing that it means essentially nothing? Especially when you live in a deep blue state where the topline primary battles (i.e. other possible motivations to vote) are meaningless? Lee Zeldin isn’t going to come within a dozen points of beating Kathy Houchel in November…
So what should we take from all these conflicting results? I think it means the states are just that polarized. You simply aren’t going to get Republican victories in deep blue states in close elections anymore. Almost all these “bellwether” special elections have happened in California, New York, and Minnesota. What do those states have in common? Mass emigration to red states. Republican voters are leaving, and those that remain know the status quo will remain.
You can find more about that NY-19 race and its possible meaning here and here.
My analysis – and “analysis” is probably too sophisticated a word for it, so let’s call it a feeling – is that 2022 will not be the enormous Republican sweep once predicted, but that it might be pretty decent for Republicans. I certainly hope the right does well, because this really is one of the most important elections of my lifetime. Actually, I think they all are, going forward.
nadler was perhaps the second worst, see the january 6th and other travesties, mondaire jones, the congressman who was hanging in the riviera, while handing other the proxy vote, got zapped
New york is going straight to hell, sadly,
It is very likely that Nadler, who keeps getting re-elected by brainless New Yorkers despite his horrid ideas and his hardly appealing persona, was lifted to (unfortunate) victory by the endorsement from the NYT, the relatively small number of voters who showed up simply performing as programmed by Pravda-on-the-Hudson. Meanwhile, Gotham continues to deteriorate as the preening popinjay perhaps even worse than his predecessor devotes most of his time to playing dress-up and socializing at expensive restaurants and the latest trendy nightspots.
Will all those school board victories trigger an FBI investigation?
Report said that Molinaro primary loss in upstate NY was concerning. Abortion was supposedly a factor.
I assume NY, like my state has very liberal abortion laws, so the issue doesn’t affect them. Are liberals now a single-issue voter like pro-life conservatives have been for years?
The problem is the country is going swimmingly if you’re only source of news is the MSM. Even if there was a source of news to break through the fog of propaganda with a reality check, deprogramming takes time.
Or was there something else at play? — Bonchie
Probably a very long shot of a notion, but my first thought was “Molinaro?” Susan was a fourth generation pol and a disaster, is this guy a fifth generation disaster waiting to happen? But no. It was Susan Molinari. No relation.
Name recognition or misrecognition in this case can be important.
My regionally biased reaction is, “Well, New York …”
its a very thin reed, they are leaning on, trump won the district, obama won it twice, the one who was hochul’s lt governor had it last,
The school board elections in Florida, my stomping grounds, are earth shattering. I have not seen the like since I started watching elections in 1952. The voters in Florida didn’t just pick off the big names, they shot the non-coms. They put the Raid to the grass roots. They wiped out the bench, the door knockers, and the $10 contributors. It was a masscre that counted – they shot the women and the chilren and salted the earth.
When did I get so bloody minded? Must be TDS.
It failed in highly liberal University(of Florida)-dominated Alachua county. The liberal dem coterie got fully endorsed by the libtard idiots.
No surprise, the students of UF and the local feeder CoCo total about 90k of the locale, which is itself about 35% of the 250k residents in the Metro Area. Some of them are not registered voters but every one of them helps pay the job of someone teaching at the two schools, which adds up to a lot of Extra Liberal Idiots.
Equally no surprise: Alachua county went for Biden in 2020, one of only 12 out of 67 counties to do so.
}}} Of course, the Democrats and the MSM have already labeled him as the Demon-In-Waiting.
Indeed, but this is one of the good things about Trump, and why I hope he continues as he has done — I hope he does not run in 2024, because he’s getting a bit long in the tooth, despite his apparent health. But as long as he’s not eliminated, he acts as a lightning rod for all of that vitriol which otherwise would be directed at DeSantis as his heir-apparent.
}}} I think that one of the things DeSantis has been purposely doing in Florida is to use the state as a demonstration and a general model of how it is that conservatives can improve a state when they come to power.
Republican victories in Virginia show GOP candidates can win by focusing on schools and the economy — and without Trump
https://www.businessinsider.com/glenn-youngkin-virginia-republican-victory-voter-policy-education-economy-trump-2021-11?op=1
A troll at a blog I read agrees with the Molinari loss diagnosis: abortion. Could be correct, time will tell.
Of course we know that Roe v Wade allows NY to select its own laws. The massive intelligence of Blue voters means … they haven’t figured it out. Yet. Still.
“Since Roe, 4 woman registering for every one male”
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-women-voter-registration-dobbs-20220822.html
JImNorCal,
Molinaro. Molinar-O.
JimNorCal – I am shocked at some of the people I’ve encountered who believe the abortion hype/lie machine that abortion laws criminalize normal, non-abortion, pregnancy-related treatments and that we’re on the cusp of banning contraceptives. These are highly-intelligent, educated people who really should know better.
It would be ironic if a bunch of misinformed suburban “intellectuals” in blue and swing states vote for Demcrats at the federal level because the state governments of a few red states have banned abortion.
I would suggest that conservatives that were most concerned about leftist dominating public school boards have been sending their kids to private schools and homeschooling for decades now.
The other conservatives and moderates are finally catching up.
The Democrat candidate sin WA are riding the abortion issue hard. They represent WA voters and the abortion laws here are liberal. But they are saying they will work hard to make abortion legal on a national basis. They completely ignore Federalism and the rights of dates to make their own laws. Of course, this would be expected because they are basically big government/statist radicals.
Abortion as a statewide issue in WA is a strawman argument. They are also pushing the Jan 6th issue, which is also a strawman.
Inflation, crime, the border, energy policy, climate change, China, the war in Ukraine, supply chain problems, the breakdown of our air transport system, homelessness, etc. – don’t exist for them.
TommyJay: “Molinaro. Molinar-O”
Thanks. I had missed you pointing this out earlier.
Crist sounds like one of the Wa Po commenters.
: “Those who support DeSantis should stay with him and vote for him and I don’t want your vote. If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there.” Also from Crist: “In a separate interview on Wednesday, Crist told CNN that Joe Biden has been a ‘phenomenal’ president. ‘He’s the best I’ve ever met,’ Crist said, adding that he wants Biden to campaign for him in Florida.”
Someone help me out here re. Ryan / Molinaro. I googled the political demographics of the 19th Congressional District- in the 2020 election Biden got 60% of the 19th district vote, almost double what Trump got. This is clearly a Dem district. The big shock here is that the Republican got 48% of the vote vs the Dem 50%, sounds pretty close for a heavily Dem district. What’s the panic about? Anybody?
republicans have held the seat, intermittently,
The NY Special election was also scheduled the same day as the Democratic primary.
I’m sure that helped turnout.
I’m surprised it was as close as it was.
Stan (7:36 pm) recounts, “‘He’s the best I’ve ever met,’ Crist said, adding that he wants Biden to campaign for him in Florida.”
Ohhhh, please, pleeeeze, make it be so. Make it happen. Pleeeeze!
The 19th district largely elected Republicans from 1992 to 2018. That’s better than most NY Districts. Apparently the district, unless redistricting has really changed things is more anti-Trump than hard core Democrat.
I also wondered about Molinari/Molinaro. Some people, myself included, thought Carolyn Maloney was the woman who started her political career after her husband was tragically killed by mass shooter Colin Ferguson, but that was actually Carolyn McCarthy out on Long Island.
Carolyn Maloney’s husband died mountain-climbing in Tibet, but that’s another story, as is the possible confusion between Carolyn Maloney and Sean Patrick Maloney. Joe Biden may remember them as Malarkey and Baloney.
Sean Maloney also won his primary yesterday, defeating radical Alessandra Biaggi, who is the granddaughter of the more conservative Democratic Congressman Mario Biaggi. Politics runs in some families.
Nadler must have had a better organization, and must have been more effective at poaching votes on Maloney’s East Side, than Carolyn Maloney was at breaking into the West Side. I guess when your father was a failed chicken farmer and everybody else is a millionaire, you have to hustle (as well as a 300 pound, 75 year-old can hustle, I guess).
@ Patrick > “Will all those school board victories trigger an FBI investigation?”
With DeSantis looking over their shoulder the whole time?
That’s a cage match I would like to see.
DeSantis is indeed showing the way. Education and crime are the state level issues for R’s. They should be hammering D’s with those 2 issues in every state contest. Sadly, here in PA, I see no evidence of that. Maybe after Labor Day, he asked hopefully.
Voting harder and putting more R’s in Congress is not going to do near as much as school board elections–too many of the R’s in Congress are Uniparty and sell us out over and over. (Assuming of course elections aren’t “fortified” against Rs in blue districts and states…)
If Ron DeSantis is truly cleaning up Florida, this is in the end the way that has a chance of working. Fix the red states, get them back into limited government and get rid of the progressives running all their institutions. It won’t be done in one election year or in a dozen, most likely, but it can be done.
If enough states get fixed at least you can move there if you have to, and a critical mass of fixed states will go a long way to helping with what’s wrong in DC.
We will never fix what’s wrong with the top down, it has to be bottom up. The higher up the elections go, the less those officials owe to their constituents and the more they owe to powerful combinations: corporations, higher education, the medicine-health insurance complex, unions of government workers, etc.
Corporations, for example, are getting woke because a critical mass of woke people work there. You fix that by doing what the Left did. Won’t be done on election day.
the crazy stalker fabulist rebecca jones, won the primary to run against matt gaetz,
There was a special election to replace Tom Reed for the final four months of his term in NY 23, my soon to be former district due to redistricting. Despite the Democratic primary conveniently scheduled the same day, the Republican won by a 6 point margin. Reed resigned in May, leaving the district unrepresented.