Are You Not Entertained?

Watching the Democrat coalition implode is cause for celebration, not despair.

Last night, Rachel and I attended a candidate meet-and-greet at a home in Saddlebrooke, Arizona. Saddlebrooke is a community made up of several precincts that have been regressing from Republicans for a decade to the point they are essentially 50/50 tossups, especially in a tough 2026 campaign cycle. It was important, and the meeting’s location inside a miniature canyon prevented me from tracking last night’s primary results until we were on our way back toward Tucson.

When I finally looked around at the results of what I had anticipated would be a bland evening, I noticed the damage. Two Mamdani-endorsed candidates in New York City had pulled the AOC stunt and ousted sitting Congressmen:

NY-10: Brad Lander, formerly an elected NYC official, knocked off incumbent Congressman Dan Goldman by an astounding 31.8%.

NY-13: Radical socialist community organizer (where have we heard that title before?) Darializa Avila Chevalier, in a real stunner, beat Congressman Adriano Espaillat, head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, by 3.5%.

In an open race to nominate a Democrat in NY-7, Mamdani-backed Claire Valdez cruised to victory over her more ideologically balanced opponent, Antonio Reynoso by more than 20 points. All three of these seats are “safe” holds for Democrats, as described in my New York U.S. House overview last month:

Alright…so the results are that they are, and it’s time to go to bed, right?

Not so fast. As I scrolled, my feed was filled with sheer panic from talking heads, influencers, strategists, consultants, and just your average Joes who follow politics as a hobby.

It’s terrifying what they are becoming!

I can’t believe this has come to America!

Excuse me, but have we already forgotten what the “moderate” Democrats did to us? Do you remember when the Obama administration used the Internal Revenue Service to persecute conservative organizations, or when it was coordinating with cartels causing unrestrained chaos along our southern border (thanks, President Trump, for fixing the border all the whiners forget about). Yet here we are, acting like the Democrats are a necessary force for good now being pulled into extremism.

Let me tell you a story from the pages of history. Do you recognize this region?

Of course you do. That’s New England, where Susan Collins is the only Republican member of Congress out of 33 possible members (21 House members and 12 Senators). You may not recognize the dominant color (red) because it’s been a long time, but New England used to be overwhelmingly Republican. Massachusetts was always a bit of a struggle (the only state to back McGovern in 1972’s national landslide), but Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine were torch red for over a century.

The map above is George H.W. Bush’s 1988 performance, winning the electoral votes of New England 19 to 17. I picked 1988 to be free of the 1984 landslide dynamics; his margins were reduced everywhere, and Rhode Island and Massachusetts flipped from Reagan to Dukakis. Yet still, there he was in the third consecutive Republican presidential win still winning in New England. The only statewide presidential win of a New England state since then was Dubya’s narrow win of New Hampshire in 2000, which he promptly gave back four years later thanks to the opposition to the Iraq War in a very libertarian-minded state.

Now, New England is bluer than a Smurf’s ass. Why is that? It’s because the Republican Party is considered out of touch with modern day New England. It, despite its origins deeply rooted in religious freedom, is highly secular and more like Canada than it is Texas. Starting in the 1980s, the Republican brand came to be more associated with the Bible Belt and religious evangelical conservatism than it had been in the years in which it was dominant in the region. Densely congested cities and urban areas no longer viewed it, with its focus largely perceived to be on social issues and not on infrastructure, education, and socially liberal causes, as a political fit. It changed overnight with the formation of the modern “blue wall.”

Imagine this in reverse in light of last night’s New York primary results and you’ll feel better.