While Republicans did not pick up wins in states where they were expecting to do well during Tuesday’s off-year elections, the party did manage some victories in a blue state after campaigning on local issues of importance to residents.
“GOP candidates successfully ran on issues such as illegal immigration, zoning and crime” in New York, where”election victories … were a bright spot after losses in states such as Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, where Democrats ran on the abortion issue to win,” the Washington Times reported.
Republican leaders were “crediting the immigrant crisis and crime wave for their massive wins on Long Island and stunning upset in the Bronx,” the outlet noted further.
Will Reinert, press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Wednesday: “Every state is a border state with Joe Biden’s open-border policies. Nowhere was that more apparent than in New York last night as the migrant and crime crises promise to be a one-two punch against Democrats’ dreams of retaking GOP-held swing seats.”
Republicans said the New York victories were a good sign that their 2022 wins in the Empire State were outliers, adding that the GOP in the state is well-positioned ahead of next year’s elections.
The Times noted further:
Republicans gained total control of Long Island for the first time in at least 20 years after flipping the Suffolk County executive seat in a landslide victory.
In nearby Nassau County, the GOP held its majority in the county Legislature, and now governs all the cities, towns and county positions for the first time since the early 1970s.
These are significant wins: Nassau and Suffolk counties have large populations that dwarf other metropolitan areas, such as Boston.
Republican Kristy Marmorato won a City Council seat in the East Bronx, where the GOP hasn’t held a seat in 40 years. Her victory gave Republicans seven seats in the 51-seat City Council.
Nationally, meanwhile, new polling data indicates that President Joe Biden is lagging behind former President Donald Trump in five battleground states, which is alarming and perplexing Democratic senators and poses a political challenge to the party’s Senate candidates seeking office in those states.
Democrats are concerned about Biden’s low polling results and what they mean for his electability in 2024, but they also maintain that Biden will be the party’s nominee absent a dramatic change in circumstances.
However, they concede that a lot of voters find Biden’s age (80) concerning.
“I hear immense praise for what he has done and how well he is doing on foreign policy and extremism at home. He’s doing everything right, is what I’m hearing. And yet there’s this lingering concern about electability,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said.
“The question about the polls concerns people,” added Blumenthal, who noted that Trump, 77, isn’t much younger than Biden.
Senate Democrats claim that to inspire young voters, Biden needs to develop a stronger and more progressive political message. Among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, he and Trump are now virtually tied.
In 2020, Biden received 60% of the vote in this group, compared to 36% for Trump, The Hill reported.
“I think the president needs to have a more forceful message, and there are issues in our democracy — like the creeping dark money corruption, and in our environment, like increasingly chaotic climate problems we’re having — that deserve a real fighting stance,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said.
“It’s useless to go to young people who understand what’s happening in climate and tell them, ‘Well, we passed the [Inflation Reduction Act],’” he said, referring to the bill Biden signed into law last year to make historic new investments in renewable energy technologies. “That’s been my pitch. You need to have a more forceful message and get it out there.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said, “We have work to do,” arguing that Biden “has a great story to tell that hasn’t been told yet, and that’s what campaigns are about.”
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