The Grim Omen From the Midterms Democrats Are Not Talking About

Joe Biden achieved the best midterm election results of a sitting Democratic President since 1998 last week, with the party flipping a Pennsylvania seat to maintain control of the Senate.

The Democrats could emerge with an absolute Senate majority, if Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock beats Trump-backed Republican Herschel Walker in a December 6 runoff.

However, the Democrats didn't have it all their own way, with Republicans flipping four House seats in New York and polling strongly in the state's gubernatorial election.

The GOP unseated Democrats in New York's 3^rd, 4^th, 17^th and 19^th Congressional districts, without suffering any losses themselves.

Democrat Kathy Hochul was re-elected as New York governor, with 52.8 percent of the vote versus 47.1 percent for Republican rival Lee Zeldin.

However, Zeldin performed much better than Marc Molinaro at the 2018 gubernatorial poll, when the GOP candidate then secured just 36.2 percent of the vote.

The poor performance in last week's midterms sparked a blame game within the Democrats, with various explanations put forward.

Speaking to the New York Times, left-wing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed "leaning into Republican narratives on crime and safety hurt Democrats in the state of New York."

However, Howard Wolfson, formerly a close advisor to ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg, took a different view, tweeting: "A good night could have been a great night if NY Dems hadn't screwed up redistricting and ignored voter concerns about crime and disorder.

"These mistakes cost House Dems winnable seats and forced Dems to waste $ millions that could have gone elsewhere. Time to course correct."

Speaking to Newsweek, Dr Steven Cohen, the senior vice dean of Columbia University's school of professional studies, argued the Democrats suffered due to crime, the failed redistricting, and Donald Trump not personally being on the ballot.

He said: "New York is a Democratic state, but its politics are neither left nor right but tend toward the center. In many ways we saw a perfect storm favoring the Republicans. Redistricting was such a joke that the courts had to throw it out, leaving little time for incumbent Democrats in Congress to adapt to the new districts. Some of those districts were less Democratic than the ones they ran in during 2020.

"Zeldin ran a campaign to the center focused on the economy and crime, and Hochul was not successful defining him as the anti-choice, election-denier and Trump-supporting ideologue that he is. The Democrats did better in 2020 because Donald Trump was on the ballot, and New Yorkers tend to dislike and fear Trump.

"Democrats misinterpreted their victories that year as a progressive wave, when it was really a reaction against MAGA extremism. Zeldin presented himself as a family-oriented suburban everyman and that had great appeal in his Long Island home turf and similar areas in the New York suburbs."

In April, the New York Court of Appeals threw out the state's congressional district maps, arguing they were jerrymandered, and ordered them redrawn by a neutral expert ahead of the midterms.

According to policy institute The Brennan Center for Justice, the rejected boundaries were expected to half the GOP's New York Congressional delegation, from eight to just four.

Trump announced he is running for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination on Tuesday, though Fox News cut away from part of his address saying they would return if "news warrants."