Newsom’s recall election in California, the upcoming referendum on Phil Murphy, and the 2022 mid-terms are connected by similar themes but have important differences
OPINION | COLUMN | THE BROADSIDE REVIEW
California Governor Gavin Newsome’s recall election win last week is axiomatic of blue-state politics and contributes nothing to the conversation of how future political contests will shake out for Democrats.
But that hasn’t stopped some strategists from trying to draw a winning election roadmap from the Newsome campaign’s drastic turnaround. Polls had the incumbent underwater over the summer in a state that has elected Progressive heavyweights such as Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein to Congress.
But that all changed when a front-runner emerged out of the 46 names on the replacement list. Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host, became the face of change — or, as the LA Times put it: “the black face of white supremacy.” The profoundly unpopular Kamala Harris came out to support Newsome, followed by a last-minute fly-in from President Biden. The blue calvary had responded to California’s wailing klaxons.
Having a face to channel their two minutes of hate toward made all the difference for Democrats, because once there was a candidate in the running, the media and Democratic party writ large had someone they can say is not only “the next Trump,” but is also “worse than Trump.”
This strategy was dutifully put to work by President Biden, who stated that Elder was “the closest thing to Trump that I’ve ever seen.” Newsome went a step further, saying that his opponent was “more extreme than Trump.” Little did the troubled politician know that the media had already given that title to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
But invoking the Trump name isn’t the only trick Democrats are hoping to extrapolate from the California win. The coronavirus pandemic’s revival via the Delta variant has brought the issue back to the political foreground.
Democrats’ invocation of the “science” will continue to be their go-to maneuver, never mind that their masking policies are woefully political, and the “scientists” they follow are often in charge of the United Federation of Teachers.
“‘No’ is not the only thing that we expressed tonight,” Newsome declared to his fellow Californians during his victory speech. “I want to focus on what we said ‘yes’ to as a state.” One may already be able to guess where this is going. “We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic.”
This campaigning strategy may sound like the ghost of elections past, but that is not stopping other Democratic governors from following a similar path.
In New Jersey, incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy is running for reelection against businessman Jack Ciattarelli. Garden State Progressives love to credit Murphy for following the science and defeating the virus.
While this line will be repeated ad nauseum, New Jersey has the largest number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the country. And even though it did not garner the same amount of attention as it did in New York with Andrew Cuomo, Murphy also cast COVID-infected elderly residents back to nursing homes.
While the Jersey governor deserves some credit for not caving to Progressive calls to dole out the vaccine on a social equity basis — instead prioritizing senior citizens and health care workers — the number of vaccinated persons in the state is on par with the rest of the Northeast.
Claims of following the science is not the only Democratic strategy being used to claim victory for the ghost of elections present, however. Murphy is latching on to a timeless Progressive tactic: spending money.
Last week, Murphy announced his plans to introduce universal pre-k to New Jersey. While his plans successfully garnered supportive headlines, it is dangerously irresponsible to impose this bill upon the overly taxed residents of the state. The Garden State remains cash-strapped due to the lavish promises multiple governors have made to public unions; its credit rating has been downgraded numerous times, and the only change it made that could bring in some income — marijuana tax money — has been dedicated to the Left’s social justice priorities.
Murphy’s opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, has avoided attracting negative attention by focusing on the state’s finances and avoiding divisive social issues. But that has not stopped the Murphy campaign from attempting to drag Ciattarelli into the nation’s upcoming fight over abortion that will make up a large part of elections yet to come.
Texas fired the latest salvo in the nation’s abortion fight when it passed a law that allowed private citizens to sue anyone who provides or assists in the act of terminating an unborn child. When Supreme Court declined to strike down the new law — because there was no actor yet harmed by it — familiar attacks against the court’s legitimacy returned.
But the Supreme Court isn’t the only government branch that will face pressure, as another abortion case is set to be decided on by the justices next year. The pro-life, pro-choice divide is one of, if not the largest, cultural and political issues in the country. It mobilizes voters on both the Left and Right more than any other issue with a healthy divide of independents that make predicting the 2022 midterms nearly impossible.
Putting that monumental issue aside, “moderate” Democrats may fear the spending and inflationary practices spurred by the Progressives’ bullying of Joe Biden, who is also facing crises on multiple fronts.
Biden’s approval ratings are underwater with independents. After a disastrous pullout in Afghanistan and an increasing buildup of migrants at the country’s southern border, the president has appeared insouciant on matters that do not involve forcing trillions of new spending through a nearly evenly divided House and 50-50 Senate.
Other than social issues heading to the high court, the only issue helping Biden is the coronavirus. While the president campaigned to “shut down the virus,” the Delta variant has revived the subject, and Biden has responded with heavy top-down commands to create the illusion that he is doing something.
The political calculus is challenging to manage on this issue as well. Biden may very well have exceeded his constitutional authority by ordering every private business with over 100 employees to institute a vaccine mandate, which is the second time he has done so using a bureaucratic agency while combating the pandemic.
But if the Supreme Court strikes down this mandate like it did the eviction moratorium, Democrats may parlay their misfortunes into outrage that they could defeat COVID-19 if only peoples’ freedoms weren’t getting in the way.
Regardless, Republicans have had, are, and will continue to fight tough battles irrespective of the general public rejecting the far-Left policies being propagated by all the nation’s elected Democrats.
Republicans may come off as Scrooge-like for tightening the purse strings as a way to fight back. But if they want to stand a chance at winning, they will need to engage their followers with cultural issues and persuade independents that their answers to these questions are the right ones.
The Broadside Review is a substack column and content partner of The New Jersey Editorial Report. Please subscribe to them or check out their column here.
