Dave Weigel

We campaign reporters need to appreciate that our interests of writing interesting stories and new stuff every day or so are across purposes with candidates who want to be consistent.

So I was noticing in the last week as I was in these states and last place I went to were New Jersey and New York.

And finding it looked like a Democratic electorate looked like they were probably going to win that they didn't think they win by this much.

And then I would see commentary that said, well, look at this boring Mikey Sherrill answer.

Look at Abigail Spanberger having a long winded answer to something.

And I was thinking, well, yeah, because they want to get to the cost issue.

They want to explain the cost they're talking about.

And there was this idea also of magic that Trump was able to perform that Cittarelli might pull off to a lesser extent.

Earl Sears could pull off.

But sticking with Cittarelli.

Hudson and Passaic County, Patterson, the Lake Union City, these places that were moving towards Trump, he really did campaign in those places.

His campaign bus, like the biggest picture on the bus was Chittarelli and North Bergen, which is a very Hispanic community surrounded by Hispanic voters.

He put in the time.

He got excitement when he was in the parades there, just got destroyed.

And he was not able to convert those people who took a chance on Trump into Republican voters.

And if you're a Republican making maps and target lists for next year, assuming that the electorate is what it was in 2024, it's not going to be.

Well, you're talking a little bit immigration and that that was part of it.

So this is the first real test.

We had the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

We've had these races in Iowa.