Well, that election didn’t go the way I thought it would.
While here on Long Island Tom Suozzi’s was reelected after his win in the Special Election and Laura Gillen beat one-term incumbent Anthony D’Esposito, Trump carried Long Island – winning even in Nassau County – with 53% of the vote.
After the 2022 gubernatorial and congressional elections here in New York, our party’s left-wing, and political pundits alike blamed the state party for what they described as an anemic get-out-the-vote effort, which they attributed to governor
Hochul’s narrow win and the loss of four congressional seats. Democratic vote was down, but was the party’s field campaign the reason?
The 2024 election established that while field campaigns can turn out votes in the margins, the message drives wins and losses.
This year, due to the amazing fund-raising effort by Gov. Kathy Hochul, the state party was able to mount the largest, most robust field campaign in history. With over 40 field offices statewide, more than 100 full-time field directors and organizers, we harnessed the voter-contact potential of over 27,000 volunteers across the state.
We could not have knocked on more doors, made more calls, sent texts to more voters, and been any more visible. In spite of all of that, Democratic vote in 2024 was down from 2020!
To paraphrase James Carville’s famous admonition from 1992: “It’s the message, stupid!”
Let’s face it: The Democratic brand has been tarnished by the voices of a small but loud minority from the left wing of our party that gave voters the impression – with lots of help from Republican magnification of that impression – that Democrats were
soft on crime, and more attentive to unpopular cultural campaigns than they were attentive to the widespread economic pain voters were feeling.
The result: voters were angry – and they were angry with us.
Too many see our party’s most left-leaning activists and elected officials as out- of-touch and Republicans have been far too successful at painting all Democrats with that same brush.
The far left’s tone-deaf stance on antisemitism and, at times, outright support for Hamas terrorists over the right of Israel to defend itself and their failure to demand the release of innocent hostages, has led us to lose an unprecedented amount of support among our longtime base of Jewish voters.
Hispanic and Asian voters are leaving a party that doesn’t recognize their fears, aspirations and their more cultural and social conservatism.
The truth is that we are a moderate party. Our problem is, has always been and always will be, that we see problems and we seek to solve them. Republicans see problems and they seek to exploit them.
Even the most left-leaning members of our party come at issues from the right place: they want to help people; they want everyone to get the respect that they deserve, and they want the system to be just and fair.
There is much that I agree with. Unfortunately, too often they just go too far ahead of where voters – particularly in more moderate places like Long Island – are ready to go.
All of this is made worse by the Left’s assertion of its moral superiority, its use of “cancel culture” to bully others in our party and an over-reliance on political correctness.
Simply put, America is sick of it all. And Twitter (or ‘X’) is nothing but a small, loud but ineffective echo chamber that too often frightens moderates into not saying what they know should be said. That has all contributed to the decline of our party’s brand.
This election has been a wake-up call. Those on the left wing must realize that they don’t have all the answers and now is the time for all of us to fashion a new way for our party.
We can be progressive without rejecting common sense. We can advance smart solutions to the problems and challenges our constituents face without, condescension, lectures and in-your-face moralizing.
As moderates like Kathy Hochul, Tom Suozzi, Laura Gillen and the overwhelming majority of our party, we must put forward common sense solutions to make New York safe, affordable, and, once again, an attractive place to live and raise a family.
Jay S. Jacob is chair of the New York State and Nassau County Democratic Committees
