The door’s wide open now
When the Democrats won the special election on Tuesday, they didn’t just win an evenly matched “toss up” race by ten points. They won in a district (and a state) that was one of their weakest areas just a year and a half ago.
It’s easy to forget that if not for weak turnout in toss up House races in New York and California, the Democrats would have won the House majority in 2022. At the time it felt like voters in those two solidly blue states weren’t as worried about things like the end of Roe as voters in swing states were. And it raised serious questions about how to go about fixing the problem before 2024.
But this special election seemed to give us the answer we were hoping for. It now looks like Democratic-leaning voters in places like New York State realized after the 2022 debacle that they do indeed need to turn out in droves. And it appears that whatever strategic mistakes were made by the Democratic Party of New York in 2022, it’s been firmly addressed. And if this is indeed the case in New York, then it’s reasonable to expect that it’s also the case in California.
In other words, the biggest weakness the Democrats faced in 2022 – blue state voters thinking that their vote didn’t count – appears to have been erased. Even if so, there’s still a lot of work to do. Competitive elections don’t win themselves. Now more than ever, we have to saddle up and prepare to dig in.
Democratic candidate Tom Suozzi said last night that two million phone calls were made to voters on his behalf. You know how I always ask you to sign up for a phone banking shift for candidates in competitive elections? This is why. Suozzi got an overwhelming amount of phone banking, and he firmly won. That’s not coincidence. It’s how elections are won.
So let’s build on this. And let’s tune out of all nonsensical media narratives about how we’re supposedly doomed. Let’s take heart in the fact that our biggest weakness in 2022 appears to be rectified. Let’s roll up our sleeves and go win the 2024 election on every level.
Once the courts finish hashing out the 2024 congressional maps, we’ll get you the definitive list of the most competitive toss up House races, and then we’ll get to work. These kinds of elections really are won by your small dollar donations, your phone banking shifts, and your willingness to retweet the candidates when they ask for this kind of help.
