Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! DEMOCRATS! In Manhattan’s Westbury tavern, the crowd cheered, the crowd roared. Crowded around the back of the cosy classic midtown pub, a motley bunch of political tragics were, after weeks of tension, pouring out their relief and pouring into their celebration. Half a dozen in suits, the rest funky office dress-down, some old, aged-T-shirted Greenwich village vets: this was the watch party for the NYC New Liberals — along with me, a French journalist and a Japanese TV crew.
“Don’t sit at home alone feeling disappointed,” the invite had said. “Come out and be disappointed together.” They were expecting they would get a shellacking; I expected that too, and so, I presume, did the Japanese TV crew. Indeed, I’d timed my circuit to intersect with them at the moment of their despair, having started at a Republican shindig in Newark, where I’d hoped to get a dose of provincial snottiness before the triumphalism started, and hitting Manhattan just in time for some primo progressive despair. Turned out it was a Young Republican party, and that was too weird even for me, so I hightailed it.
By the time I made it into Manhattan, they were banging the pub’s dark wood panelling with their hands each time there was an announcement, almost all of which were good for them (in not being terrible). The crowd at the front of the bar were watching an ice hockey match, and they asked the New Libs to keep the noise down — they couldn’t concentrate on people pounding each other to a bloody pulp on the ice. It was all woody and cosy — polish and leadlight lamps, mirrors behind the gleaming spirits on shelves, the bartender, hands palms down on the bar, holding court, only missing waistcoat and handlebar moustache. Manhattan taverns are truly one of life’s great pleasures.
They had a lot to yell about, the New Libs. They’re a new centrist outfit — three of them mentioned Malcolm Turnbull, who they regard as a sort of god (no wonder he hangs out here) — whose stance was being vindicated by the results. They actually call themselves NeoLiberal. “That was the original usage of ‘neoliberal’ in the ’60s,” I said to one guy named Wadinya. “Yes!” he said excitedly, and we talked about ordoliberalism for about 15 minutes. If this sounds, dear reader, like a conversation you would have enjoyed, your wife wonders why she married you.
“We were gonna get railed by the left as well as the right if this went down bad,” said one midtown suit guy — cheap fabric, loose knotted tie; not a lawyer, I’m guessing, by the clothing spend — after we’d spent 20 minutes talking about preferential voting. “The whole Bernie crowd. NOW WE OWN THEIR ASS TOO. WOOOOOOO!” “WOOOOOOO!” everyone went. The announcement of JD Vance’s victory in Ohio was greeted with a rare silence, but then the easy victory of Patty Murray in Washington state was announced, and they went wonk-apeshit again. WOOOOOOOO! “Well, IT didn’t happen,” said one double-denim crewcut, a Dukakis badge on her lapel, in a tone suggesting she had never thought it would.
No, it didn’t. The Republican red wave didn’t rise up, all the polls were wrong, the aggregates were wrong, the partisan Republican polls were surreally wrong. The GOP needs 218 seats to win the House, a gain of five. That is exactly what they’re forecast to get, a huge falling short from the minimum 15-20 they were presumed to pick up. In the Senate, the Democrats have won Pennsylvania, and the Republicans are yet to pick up a seat, though they are running ahead in Nevada, and Georgia will get a runoff. Governors’ races? They haven’t taken Oregon, Michigan, Wisconsin or New York, as they hoped to. Anti-abortion ballot referenda have been voted down in Kentucky and Michigan, while pro-choice ones got up in California and Vermont. Last night and this morning, all Fox News focused on was the victory of Ron DeSantis in Florida, and no one ever thought he was going to lose (not even Michael Moore, who called the election correctly, as he had in 2016).
So what happened? Well, Gen Z turned out, they were shifted to the Democrats by 30 points or so, and were totally unreachable by polling. Add to that a Democrat advantage among women of around 12 points. Finally, election denial appears to have kept right-leaning independents at home.
The biggest and most visible loser in all this is Donald Trump. His candidates went down, while his rival DeSantis cruised to victory. Trump feels suddenly, officially, very old, the whole election-denial thing messy and embarrassing. No one seems to be trying it on at the moment, though they will. But without The Donald in a position to lead the charge, it will run out of steam.
The results position DeSantis as the new hope of the GOP: right-shifted but rational and capable of coming at the Dems hard on matters such as the economy. The Democrats may be cursing the paradox of their midterm success: they have destroyed the man they wanted to run against and raised up his stronger rival. They will be hoping that Trump will run anyway, and win with the base in the ’24 primaries, thus creating a nightmare for the Republicans. These results — the best midterm results by an incumbent party since 2002, and back before that — will strengthen Biden in his determination to run, which… arrrrggghhh, who knows anything?
The one bleak spot might be that the results will encourage progressives to believe they no longer need to reach out to the working and middle classes who aren’t of colour. Their numbers are still appalling here. The Dems have won because so many of them stayed home, seeing the Trump push as a busted idea. But they haven’t given up on their demands for more help, less PC, etc, and if DeSantis or someone else can repackage it, they will be back out again, and 2024 will be a different sort of competition. Still, this was a sweet victory.
Back to the party, where a bodybuilder policy advisor was talking to the Japanese TV crew.
“What do you think of the result?” I yelled over the whooping.
“Well, great, except it keeps Joe in place!”
“Too old?”
“Too big-P progressive! Too union.”
“Wow. How’d this group come about?”
“On Reddit. In 2017. We have many chapters now.” He fished out a little pledge card. “Ideas group? No, it was more a Defend Hillary group.”
Defend… Hillary? My God, I’d stumbled into a cult. They were with her. Wait a minute. Didn’t like Biden… 2024… they couldn’t, could they? Not again!
“WOOOO! SHAPIRO!” as the victorious but dull Pennsylvania governor came on the screen. Time to go. I thought of having a last Manhattan night of old, slugging whisky until I was ready to talk to anyone, ending up on the Lower East Side at 4am. I thought of going back to the Young Republicans. I reflected that both might be my last night of all. And like many I am suddenly released from that clenching fear, and eager to see how this turns out. WOOOOOOOOO!
