Heavyweights such as Biden, Harris or the Clinton couple land in a traditionally progressive state given the high risk of losing it
You know the Democrats are in trouble when you see Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Kamala Harris campaigning for Governor of New York State. Two days before the elections, the heavyweights of the party should be in the hinge territories to support the senators and congressmen who try to snatch seats from the opposition, but this year they play defensively. Very defensive.
New York is a solidly blue state that has never been in contention for the presidential election since Ronald Reagan won it in 1988. The city of skyscrapers is progressive, with a few red spots on its record, like the orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn or Staten Island, former summer residence of the Mafia, favorite of policemen and firefighters. Yet the state, which stretches into Canada, comes to resemble Ohio more than the Big Apple at its seams with Pennsylvania and Lake Erie’s border with Michigan. Thanks to that rural and conservative vote, in 1994 the Republican George Pataky managed to seize the Government from a beloved man like Mario Cuomo. He did it thanks to the ghost of crime and delinquency, which plagued New York City and frightened the suburbs, although in these the danger was more a matter of perception than reality. That is the strategy that served the mayor, Eric Adams, last year to beat his Democratic rivals in the primaries in a city in which the followers of the Biden party outnumber the Republicans by 7 to 1.
So what is Biden doing this Sunday giving a rally outside of New York? The same as Bill Clinton on Friday in Brooklyn or his wife and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday in Manhattan. They shore up a key blue wall state, which Republicans have opened serious cracks in in recent weeks. “When the Democrats go out to vote, we win,” Governor Kathy Hochul told CNN on Friday, who was leading by 16 points two weeks ago and by only four in the last poll.
a humiliating defeat
His rival, Lee Zeldin, has known how to make blood of crime, following the manual that gave victory to Mayor Adams, Pataky and former councilman Rudy Giuliani. The heavyweights of the party have rushed to the rescue of the governor, because if it would be bad to lose the House and perhaps the Senate, the defeat in New York would be humiliating.
There was Adams yesterday, doing penance at the Brooklyn studios, where former President Clinton tucked Hochul in. The mayor has had dissonant notes with the governor in recent days and it was time to make clear the unity of the party at a time when everything threatens to collapse. His past as a police officer was a good card to win the victory that Hochul needs if the Democrats want to continue with the experiment of power in New York.
Chilling commercials with scenes of street violence and bloody crimes, enlivened with heart-pounding music, are repeated on the television screens at every intermission. Among Republicans, crime is the number one concern when voting, followed by inflation, which is common to all political signs. But among the Democrats, the message has penetrated that in these elections democracy must be protected. And that is the message that the barons of the party transmit to them.
“Who won’t agree with reducing violence?” Hillary Clinton wondered aloud during the “Powerful Women” rally she gave at Barnard College on Thursday with Vice President Kamala Harris and the Governor Hochul. But the Republicans don’t care about your safety. What they want is for you to remain scared so that you vote against your own interests », she pointed out.
There is no doubt that the New York of the pandemic is dirtier and less safe than the one left by Michael Bloomberg. The presence of the homeless sleeping on the sidewalks and the graffiti murals that proliferated after the Black Lives Matter riots have increased the perception of insecurity left by the headlines of shootings in Times Square or stabbings in the subway, but statistics indicate that Homicides have dropped this year in the city by 14% and shootings by 13%. What has risen are violent crimes, especially robberies, and above all, warnings from the Police when a citizen calls to ask what they can do to strengthen a case of minor crimes, such as the theft of a postal package or a bicycle. . “Vote for different representatives,” Manhattan Police 9th Precinct Detective Michael Franco advised without hesitation during a call from this neighbor. “With these, they enter through one door and exit through the other.”
So-called law enforcement enthusiastically embraced Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy and his heavy-handed promise. Agents congratulated each other on the streets of Manhattan the night of his victory and took photos with supporters in red Make America Great hats. They turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio at funerals for fallen comrades in the line of duty and are now actively campaigning to replace the Democratic prosecutor, whom they accuse of invalidating his work.
The mass protests that led to the police killing of George Floyd two years ago brought with them a pseudo sit-down strike. “No one is going to risk his life so that later they sue him and even put him in jail,” an agent confided to this Washington correspondent.
It is too late to change perceptions. The cards are laid. More than 35 million people have already voted. It only remains to mobilize the vote of the convinced, make sure that no one takes what they have for granted and remind them that voting matters.
#Democrats #Mobilize #Defend #York #State