1. New Jersey isn’t as much of a lost cause as New York.

It’s just borderline enough that Republicans throw their passion and energy into it only to end up with races that seem close, but ultimately aren’t. Virginia, packed full of bedroom community government employees, is occasionally winnable, but mostly not. New Yorkers tend to vote for whoever is on the Dem party line and the Mamdani machine rammed up social media hype that got younger voters to turn out.

All of those elections were long shots for the good guys and the not so good guys like Cuomo.