We're All Trying to Find the Guy Who Did This...

 


Is anyone genuinely shocked by the results in New York?

Zohran Mamdani’s been in the lead since the Democratic primary and barely lost ground.

Curtis Sliwa remains a walking caricature of 1970s New York - earnest in his own way, but hopeless. He couldn’t even beat Mamdani on Staten Island.

Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, drew support mostly from those who couldn’t take Sliwa seriously. A corrupt, scandal-stained has-been, Cuomo barely campaigned and only closed the gap on Mamdani by using grotesque imagery of planes hitting the Twin Towers.

New York City’s GOP establishment is a hamster wheel of turds. Every election cycle, they toss a sacrificial lamb into the race and then promptly forget he or she exists. Joe Lhota. Nicole Malliotakis. Curtis Sliwa (twice!). Lhota pulled 25%. Malliotakis managed 28%. Sliwa? 28% the first time, and this year a staggering 7%.

Going back to Curtis Sliwa is the political equivalent of saying, “Maybe we’ve got something in Tommy DeVito.” My brothers and sisters in Christ, have you looked at him? He's going to have a sandwich named after him and eventually sell Ford F-150's. That's his ceiling. 

New York City has a gaping void waiting to be filled by a moderate - even a center-right voice - who can actually speak to New Yorkers. Someone who understands the daily grind: affordability, family, safety, clean streets. A forward-thinking technocrat who cuts through red tape, dismantles bureaucracy, and makes the city work again. It sounds almost too simple. But that was exactly Mamdani’s message - the same one the president used in 2024 to flip waves of Hispanic and Asian voters, especially in New York City. Mamdani’s policies might be extreme, but his sincerity and clarity aren’t.

Meanwhile, the local GOP seems content hoarding a few Council & Assembly seats and worshipping at the altar of glorious supreme leader, Donald Trump. Until city Republicans learn to take themselves seriously, we’ll keep watching a parade of Sideshow Bob-ass candidates get curbstomped by mediocre Democrats.

If Republicans nominated someone like the hypothetical candidate I described, perhaps Cuomo sees no path and doesn't pursue an independent candidacy. In which case you get a real race on real ideas, all to the benefit of city residents. Maybe then we don't elect a Democratic Socialist who quotes Karl Marx. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

Last night was rough for Republicans. Their spin this morning is that these were just isolated, blue-city anecdotes. Nothing worth reading into long term. But that’s not true. Democrats cracked a Republican supermajority in the Mississippi Legislature. Deep-red districts in Virginia swung six points blue. In that same state, Democrats beat a 36-year (!!) incumbent from a pro-Trump county. And in New Jersey, the governor-elect didn’t just win - she steamrolled her opponent in what was supposed to be a close race.

People vote their reality and their wallet. When the president says “inflation is fixed” or “grocery prices are down,” they know that’s not true. Normal, not-terminally-online-or-sharing-dipshit-memes voters see through bullshit. When Trump insists he has “the best poll numbers ever” (he doesn’t, his unfavorables are abysmal), these results should be a wake-up call.

When a president is genuinely popular, candidates who align with him don’t get crushed in general elections. Even in a small sample, the message is clear: voters are paying attention and see through the ruse. 

No one's talking about "rigged elections" today. Ask yourself why. 


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