Now that certified election results are in, I am still waiting for NGO world to reckon with how much Asians swung toward the Republican Party in NYC. The shift is honestly stunning.
Everyone has been focusing on AD40, in Flushing, which Sliwa narrowly flipped against Eric Adams. But Sliwa, the Republican, also dominated two Democrat-represented AD's in Brooklyn that are Asian-majority, AD47 and AD49.
Eric Adams badly underperformed in districts where Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia ran strong. @ShahanaFromBK had MORE raw votes than Eric Adams in her City Council district (Park Slope, Gowanus, Kensington). Very rare for a Council candidate to outrun the mayoral candidate.
The argument for getting people vaccinated is it will save the lives of the unvaccinated, not that it will make your precious vaccinated life safer. The variants are here and vaccinated people spread Covid too. The vaccine keeps you from getting really sick.
So much liberal rage is like IF FLORIDA GOT VACCINATED THERE'D BE NO DELTA ARGGHGH ARGHGH.
No? Delta came from other countries and was going to spread here like wildfire anyway. Vaccines keep you from getting very sick from it. They don't stop you from spreading it.
The goal is once you get most of America vaccinated, most people don't get sick. Covid is never vanishing. The flu won't vanish either. America tolerated 30,000-40,000 annual flu deaths.
I'm in Midwood today where Andrew Yang is getting endorsed by two leading Orthodox Jewish politicians, Simcha Eichenstein and Kalman Yeger
"We need a fresh face," Eichenstein says of Andrew Yang. "Someone who is focused, capable, and driven."
"I believe Andrew Yang has the smarts and the skills to tackle the crises of today," says Simcha Eichenstein. "Andrew understands the Orthodox Jewish community is part of the beautiful mosaic that is New York City."
What @AndrewYang did when he first ran for president was seek out a bunch of popular podcasts on different ends of the political spectrum. Why? Because he was a nobody, and major newspapers wouldn't bother with him. Not a bad strategy.
Liberal writers and voters don't really get Yang, but there's a reason he's leading the 2021 field and became popular running for president. Many voters don't hit neat ideological boxes - they hunt for a compelling message and a person to deliver it.
A few presidential candidates understood going for all media is a good strategy. They're the ones who didn't shun Fox, for example. Yang, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg come to mind
How to actually understand labor endorsements in New York races -
If you've got a small race - city council, state senate etc. - labor matters a lot. Few people have heard of the candidates. Labor raises name rec and mobilizes their members for you. Their money goes far.
If you've got a BIG race - NYC mayor comes to mind - organized labor has diminished returns, UNLESS they all unite behind you. This is how Scott Stringer beat Eliot Spitzer.
If you've got a BIG race - NYC mayor comes to mind - an individual labor union won't move the needle much because most members will pay attention enough to develop their own opinions and views. DC37, UFT, 1199 can't just snap their fingers and tell 20k people how to vote.
Now that time has passed, the dark truth is that a large part of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's legacy will be allowing Donald Trump to nominate a strenuously pro-life Supreme Court justice. It's an unfair system we have but Ginsburg knew this. She chose not to retire.
It is not an exaggeration to say Ginsburg paved the way to allow a right-wing Republican president to pick her replacement. In 2014, it was clear Democrats were losing the Senate. And in 2016, after two terms of Obama, it was very possible a Republican would replace him.
It is difficult for me to be overly celebratory of anyone's legacy when their direct decision to not retire is tied to their replacement, who will hold views diametrically opposed to that very legacy. The Supreme Court is the institution we are stuck with. Ginsburg knew it.
The untold story is how few famous or prominent politicians want to be mayor. A huge departure from 2013, when at least five very viable Democrats tried to replace Michael Bloomberg.
Consider the field today. It's literally two elected officials of note - Borough President Eric Adams and Comptroller Scott Stringer - and a bunch of people who have never held elected office before. It may be the thinnest Democratic primary in modern history.
Going to do a Substack on this but it strikes me there are two factors at play: the terrible state NYC is in, due to COVID-19 and the subsequent economic crisis, and the nationalization of our politics, which has made relative do-nothing perches like Congress much more attractive