(FiveNation.com)- After a shock victory in a critical special election, Politico Playbook declared that Democrats had “flipped 2022 on its head.”
The results of a special election for the U.S. House of Representative seat representing New York’s 19th congressional district are making political media waves. Democratic Congressman Antonio Delgado resigned from his position to take on the role of lieutenant governor.
In the most recent poll conducted in that campaign, Republican Marc Molinaro had a commanding 8-point lead over Democratic contender Pat Ryan, who had never been in the lead. However, Ryan easily won the election when the votes were counted on Tuesday night, defeating Molinaro by nearly four points.
Media sources portrayed the victory as a positive development for Democrats, who have been gaining ground recently despite expectations that they would lose in November. But Politico Playbook went for it, writing in a piece by Eugene Daniels and Ryan Lizza that “Dems flip 2022 on its head.”
According to Bill Mahoney, Republican Marc Molinaro’s campaign “focused on crime and inflation,” whereas Democratic Pat Ryan’s “commercial pounded on the necessity to elect a representative who would fight for abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June ruling reversing Roe v. Wade.”
Ryan defeated Molinaro last night.
Additionally, in 2020, he outperformed Biden. Ryan Matsumoto pointed out last night that since the Dobbs ruling in June, Democrats have already surpassed Biden’s numbers in each of the four U.S. House special elections.
Democrats winning there would be the most glaring indication that the 2022 race is unlikely to proceed as expected, given that Republican Glenn Youngkin rode a red wave to victory in Virginia’s governor’s house less than a year ago.
They slightly slow down and say, “That doesn’t imply that Democrats will hold the House and Senate. The Republicans won’t be in the majority by 2023, but it’s a promising omen that the Democrats might not take the beating formerly anticipated.
That judgment is supported by recent polling, and many people attribute a significant part of it to the abortion debate and the decline in gas costs. But a wave is not created by a slim bellwether victory. Time will tell if this victory is a sign of a larger pattern.
