Get Ready For the Inevitable Spin

No voter in November of 2026 will be casting a vote over the shutdown politics of right now. Neither a Democrat nor a Republican voter will cast a vote a year from now over what is happening right now.

But today, Democrats should have a good day. The commie Mamdani will win in New York. Democrats should keep the New Jersey Governor’s race, though the GOP has a fighting chance. Democrats should also do well in Virginia, though the Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares will probably get re-elected. Down in Georgia, due to the nature of local elections, the two incumbent Republicans on the Public Service Commission might actually lose to two far-left progressives.

No voters a year from now will be casting a vote over the shutdown. In the past week, the press has mostly ignored the shutdown. But you damn well know tomorrow, if tonight goes as I expect, the media will insist it is the GOP that must cave on the shutdown because of today’s election results.

Republicans would be foolish to do so.

The Erickson Rule of the Media is that the American press corps covers the beneficiaries of Democrat policies and the victims of Republican policies. That the media has almost completely ignored the victims of the government shutdown tells me they are struggling to cover the shutdown without blaming the Democrats.

The best the press can do is say the polling is hurting the GOP.

So?

Again, no voter a year from now will be casting a vote about the shutdown. But Democrats, if forced to go along with a clean CR vote, will have hell to pay in their primaries, will risk pushing the party’s candidates further left, and Democrats will have hell to pay in the midterms by replacing a bunch of center-left Democrats with far-left nutjobs during their primary fights.

Republicans, when you wake up tomorrow and find out the Democrats had a pretty good night in the election, don’t panic. The odds are it will happen. However, if the GOP does pull off the New Jersey Governor’s race or holds the line in Georgia, the media narrative Democrats hope for will not hold up. And frankly, if the GOP turns out to have a good night, the Democrats are going to understandably freak out.

Today, while I’d love the GOP to have a surprisingly strong election, the polling averages suggest the Democrats will have a good day. Just don’t expect that to translate as well into the midterms, given voters’ dislike of Trump, but positively hating Democrats nationwide. And do not use today, Republicans, as a reason to cave to Democrat demands on the shutdown.

If anything, Democrats will be able to use today’s results as a way to cave while claiming they’re winning the argument. Let them do that and watch the progressives consume them.