‘We Flipped New York 17!’

The two scenes could not have been more starkly different. 

Four years ago this week, I was in Rockland County, New York where former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) was holding an election night party. The event ended up being ground zero for a series of embarrassing election losses that forced Democrats to cede control of the U.S. House to the GOP. 

Last night, that same district was among the many that flipped for Democrats in a midterm election that many are calling a “blue tsunami” that has swept Democratic majorities into both houses of Congress and multiple statehouses. There were several major factors driving the change: President Donald Trump’s record low approval, a sharp swing among Latinos, a wave of Black voters in the South that seemed like a direct response to the Supreme Court’s Callais ruling that threatened to marginalize them, and a youth surge.