Democrats Keep Winning

Democrats take yet another special election. While it may not be a precursor for the November election, it suggests that the Democratic base remains mobilized and enthusiastic.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.

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A couple of quick housekeeping notes. I’m traveling this week to Texas for a speaking engagement at Texas A&M (weirdly, this is the second time I’ve spoken there). So, I’m writing this from the plane, and depending on how my schedule goes, I may not be able to post the rest of the week.

A few readers have asked me about bringing back Zoom chats. I can’t do one this week because of my travel, but I’m aiming to do one next week. In the meantime, I enjoyed my “Ask Me Anything” post from a few weeks back, so if you have any questions you’d like me to answer, please send them my way — either in the comments section below or via email.

I also have two new MSNBC pieces: one looking at how the GOP has become the party of nothing, the other explaining why there is zero chance that Joe Biden will not be the Democratic nominee in November (barring an unforeseen emergency).

Area Man Celebrates

Last night in New York, Democrats won yet another special election in a swing district. The latest victory came in New York’s Third Congressional District, as former congressman Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip in the race to replace serial prevaricator George Santos, who was expelled from Congress last year.

While any win is a good one, this one is not quite as impressive as it seemed initially last night, when early results showed Suozzi ahead by as much as 16 points. As I’m writing today, Suozzi is up by 7.8 points, which is nearly identical to Joe Biden’s 2020 margin of victory over Donald Trump in the district.

Considering that Suozzi once represented the area, had strong name recognition, and significantly outraised Pilip his win isn’t surprising. When you factor in that the district was hit by a snowstorm during the morning rush hour — and Democrats voted by mail in far more significant numbers than Republicans — it’s even less of a shock. One could even argue that with all these advantages, Suozzi should have done slightly better.

Nonetheless, there are some interesting takeaways from the results that modestly bode well for Democrats. Here are my five.

1. Republicans tried to make immigration and border security the campaign's central issue. Suozzi neutralized these attacks by endorsing the border security bill that congressional Republicans killed last week while also talking up the importance of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. In other words, he adopted a moderate position on the issue, which made it easier for him to highlight GOP extremism. So it wasn’t so much that immigration helped him — it didn’t hurt. Considering that Republicans have a polling advantage on immigration issues and want to make it the focus of the Fall campaign, that’s not great news for them.

2. There’s been a lot of talk recently about the Democratic edge in special elections — and that it’s being driven by high propensity voters switching their allegiance from Republican to Democratic. As some, including Nate Cohn at the New York Times, have argued, the fact that high-propensity voters are propelling Democratic gains does not mean that one should assume that these special election victories will be replicated in November. Since presidential elections also include many occasional voters, that could neutralize the Democratic advantage. While I have some issues with this argument, if Democrats were in trouble and their voters were unhappy with the party and its leadership, I’m not sure you’d be seeing these types of special election wins. Indeed, one might expect a swing district like New York’s Third to be the kind of place where Democrats would underperform. That didn’t happen. Keep in mind that two years ago, in this Biden +8 district, the Democratic candidate lost by 6 points to Santos. Indeed, Republicans have been making solid gains across the state for the past several years. While it’s wrong to assume that Suozzi’s win will be replicated in other districts, this result certainly has to bring a sigh of relief to New York Democrats.

   Along these lines, there was a special election for the state legislature in Bucks County, Pennsylvania (where I grew up!), a notorious swing district. The Democratic candidate won by 36 points (this is a district Biden won by 10 points in 2020). It seems clear that Democrats are more than holding their own and showing little weakness among their most dedicated supporters. That might not tell us what happens in November — Biden was polling nine points in the district behind Suozzi. But having a voter base that is energized, enthusiastic, and turning out in record numbers for special elections is a heckuva lot better than the alternative. At the very least, it might allow Democrats to devote more campaign resources to turning out occasional voters rather than focusing so much energy on motivating their base.