Thread by @SethAbramson

The McAuliffe loss is about McAuliffe, not the Democrats. 2021 is not the year to run a white male Clinton crony who exudes creepy “DC insider” vibes and is charisma-free. Murphy will win in NJ, and Democrats performed well in other states (like NH). Some folks need to calm down.

The supply-chain issues are largely outside Democrats’ control, but are hurting the party in power, understandably. Biden has done all he can with respect to the pandemic, but the Democrats were still going to face the brunt of Americans’ exhaustion with the state of the world.

I just see a bizarre overreaction from the Democrats to yesterday’s results. When Murphy wins in New Jersey, he will be the first incumbent Democrat to win reelection in that state in about 40 years. Democrats won the reddest city in New Hampshire—a critical battleground state.

The Minnesota referendum isn’t associated with the national Democratic Party, and secondly deals with a historically thorny issue (how to evolve policing) that it’s simply no surprise to find people are still split on. I don’t find anything from yesterday particularly daunting.

Media never just shrugs at a series of election results from across the country very much based on the candidates, issues and states in play. It needs a national narrative. While there’s no question Dems must pass these damn bills in DC, there’s no need to press the panic button.

Incidentally, none of the foregoing means that I think Democrats’ comms aren’t in need of a major overhaul—but that was true before yesterday. The need to get something done in DC was also true before yesterday. I don’t think yesterday was a revelation or teaches us anything new.

(PS) If you check my feed further up, you'll see that I've now posted a slew of major-media reports regarding big mayoral wins for Democrats across America—including in battleground states—and big school-board wins in which anti-vaxxers were defeated. Yesterday was a mixed bag.

(PS2) Don't get it twisted—I agree the GOP is great at stoking racial panic over CRT, I agree misleading GOP messaging on policing (Dems want to defund) is effective, I agree the pandemic and supply-chain issues hurt Dems because they're in power. Yesterday was still a mixed bag.