A Few Deeper Dives

Let’s look at a few races that may be interesting indicators for 2026.

First, I’m seeing a lot of Hispanic New Jersey counties racking up huge flips. Example:

There are many others. I guess sending masked goons into Hispanic areas isn’t very popular? Hoocoodanode.

In addition to the ballot initiative to keep people from voting that lost in Maine, Question #2, a red flag law, passed by an overwhelming, landslide majority:

Janet Mills opposed this initiative, which was spurred by a mass shooting in Lewiston where the current yellow flag law was ineffective.

Now, back to my former state of residence, New York. Let’s begin with the continuing Republican drift of Long Island. In Nassau County, all the Democrats for county office lost:

This result was in sharp contrast to Western New York, where Onondaga County (Syracuse) had the county legislature flipped to Democratic control for the first time in almost 50 years. Syracuse also has its first black mayor in its history.

Monroe County (Rochester) also saw a good night for Democrats.

Jay Jacobs, the problematic chair of the New York Democratic Party, is from Nassau County and he thinks running centrist candidates there is the solution to New York Democrats’ issues. Clearly that didn’t work. He, Schumer, Jeffries and the other establishment Democrats need to go.

Turning to California, one of the things I didn’t appreciate about Prop 50 is that it is “good to go” — in other words, the voters directly approved a new map. There’s no interim fussing and fighting involved. (I learned this by listening to the DownBallot podcast). I was, frankly, expecting a bunch of faffing around before the districts were redrawn, but good on Newsom for making it simple. Here’s a backgrounder on prop 50 and its impact on the seats in California.