Future historians, I’m fairly convinced, they’ll be looking at the 2021 gubernatorial election results and writing lengthy “assessment” papers on how the Democrats, bristling with enthusiasm over pushing Ole Joe & The Gang across the finish line in November 2020, suddenly fell into a painful pothole in November 2021.
Potholes, unless marked, are almost impossible to avoid. The Democrat bandwagon, fueled by increasingly strident left “progressive” nonsense; spiked with virulent identity politics; gross “gender fluidity” inanities; and open in-your-face anti-white racism to satisfy their BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, (and) People of Color] street warriors… fell, head first, into this gaping pothole drilled deep by a remarkable surge of popular dissatisfaction crossing social, economic, and political lines the Dems believed to be inviolable.
The voter switch from the 2020 “Hurrah” to the 2021 “Damn You” was so unexpected that the marching Blue lines of advance wavered, broke, and ran in 24 hours after months of confident pushing forward.
And now, all the thumping-and-trumpeting Blue FN (Fake News) media are in disarray concocting mythical “analyses” of how “Trumpism” had an undetected ace up its sleeve whose exact source of influence remained well below the radar; watch this, for example, to have a taste of how blue-blooded … Blue “experts” deliver their thinly-veiled condescending remarks about what happened in the Virginia gubernatorial election: yep, it was low-education, unsophisticated, suburban moms who did the dirty job in favor of the Trumpist scourge!..
And, also, see how a Blue news source reluctantly accepts a specialist’s logic warning the Dems are in for a massive whooping, in the 2022 midterm elections, if they continue on the path of misguided our-strength-comes-from-diversity BS triumphalism instead of taking serious corrective steps aimed at normal voters.
Twilight of the Blue-Collar Democrat
In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, last week’s election marked the end of a crucial party constituency.
Following the Democratic Party’s widespread losses in last week’s election, President Joe Biden declared that passage of the infrastructure bill in the House of Representatives “is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America.” Though polling indicates that Americans support that bill—not the costly and expansive “Build Back Better” act—voters admonished Biden and his party’s economic stewardship in down-ballot races.
Rejection of the Democrats’ progressive platform, with its identity-politics fixations, was particularly evident among blue-collar voters, who once made up the party’s electoral base. Biden spent his political career courting these voters—and promoting his “scrappy” Scranton roots—with Kennedy-era platitudes befitting an Edwin O’Connor novel. But last Tuesday showed that the Democrats’ working-class constituency has finished its years’ long last hurrah. The divorce was especially acute in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where Democratic affiliation was once synonymous with economic advancement in working-class communities. Blue-collar voters are turning to the Republican Party, further dampening Democrats’ hopes for next year’s midterms.
In New Jersey, the narrow victory of Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy, hailed as America’s “most progressive governor” by The Nation, signals trouble ahead for Democrats. Murphy even underperformed among suburban voters, who have trended blue since the Chris Christie years. But it was Republicans’ South Jersey pickups that proved most surprising.
Another Warning Sign for Democrats
Not even New Jersey was safe for them on Election Night.
Call it a tale of two turnouts. In Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin won a governor’s race that saw the highest turnout in 24 years as voters on both sides of the aisle showed up in massive numbers. By contrast, New Jersey Republican Jack Ciattarelli ran an unexpectedly close race against Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy, narrowly losing (though a recount is in the offing) an election where turnout was the lowest in a century, as unenthusiastic Democratic voters appeared to stay home. Even with Ciattarelli’s loss, it was a startling election in a state where Democratic registered voters outnumber Republicans by some 1 million. New Jersey’s second-most-powerful Democrat, state senate president Steve Sweeney, was defeated by an unknown GOP newcomer, as anger over the state’s high taxes and sluggish economy and President Biden’s plunging popularity took their toll.
While pre-election polls in Virginia accurately charted Youngkin’s rise in support, no poll before Election Day in New Jersey had Ciattarelli closer than six percentage points behind Murphy. (As of Thursday morning, Murphy led 50.4 percent to 48.8 percent.) Murphy’s incumbency, his favorability rating of above 50 percent, and the Democratic edge in registered voters all suggested that Ciattarelli had a steep uphill climb.
Still, warning signs had appeared. Murphy’s approval among independent voters—a key target of the Republican’s campaign—had dipped below 50 percent. Though polls showed that a majority of voters approved of Murphy’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, his tough lockdown policies and the state’s high death rate (third in the nation) also generated intense anger in a sizable portion of the electorate. Murphy also ranked low on his handling of the two other most important issues in the race, according to polls: taxes and the economy.
And, also, read this Back to the Center, Democrats from no other than the staunchly “progressive” New York Times that delivers an unusually rational warning of why “identity politics” could easily & irrevocably hole the Dem boat below the waterline.