In recent months, Emily’s List and other reproductive-rights-focused groups have been telling abortion-rights voters to register to vote and get out the damn vote in the midterms. As it turns out, the Democratic Party’s message of “if you’re mad about Dobbs, then vote” is pretty effective. Emily’s List reports that they’ve got millions of newly registered voters this year, based almost solely on the very real reproductive rights rollback. Earlier this month, Kansas voters marched to the polls to protect a woman’s right to choose by a significant majority. Then, on Tuesday, a Democrat won a “bellwether” special election running specifically on abortion rights. It’s happening, folks.
A victory in a bellwether House district in Hudson Valley gives fresh hope to Democrats ahead of a daunting 2022 midterm election and raises questions for Republicans who have been expecting a “red wave” this fall.
Democrat Pat Ryan won the hotly contested special election Tuesday, defeating Republican Marc Molinaro, NBC News projected. The outcome reveals the power of Democratic messaging on abortion: Ryan had put the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade front and center to try and galvanize his party’s voters to the polls, drawing on his military service to argue that fighting for American freedom means protecting reproductive rights.
It was pitted against the Republican message, carried by Molinaro, that the election is a referendum on President Joe Biden, economic pain through inflation and crime. Molinaro ran as a check on “one-party rule” by Democrats in Washington, which Republicans have long seen as a winning pitch. On Tuesday morning, Molinaro urged voters to show up and “send a message to Washington.” It wasn’t enough.
The district in Hudson Valley has tracked the national mood for years — it voted for Joe Biden by about 2 points in 2020 after voting for Donald Trump and Barack Obama in their successful presidential campaigns. It was a Republican-held House district until it flipped to Democrats in the 2018 wave election.
It’s pretty interesting that Republicans thought they could just whine about the economy and somehow sweep the midterms, like they haven’t spent the last forty years systematically dismantling the advancement of women’s rights and reproductive rights across the board. This is also what the anti-choice people always predicted too – that once they got what they wanted (the criminalization of reproductive rights, the criminalization of women’s bodies), there would be a huge backlash. Welcome to the backlash. Incidentally, Pat Ryan won by almost four points. He didn’t win by the skin of his teeth at all. Voting matters. Voting works. VOTE.
Screencap courtesy of CBS News.
Yay! His was another campaign I wrote postcards for, it’s really affirming to see him win!
Great job with the postcards. We need more wins like these. Every race is so important.
How did you get involved with postcards? That might be something I could do.
Postcards to Voters. It’s super easy, they do all kinds of campaigns all around the country. The messages are always positive and encouraging, not negative. I keep a stack of stamped post cards in my desk and try to do 5-10 or so of each campaign. They have a website and FB page.
I’ve never heard of PTV before but it seems awesome. I might sign up to mail some. Thank you for telling us about it 🙂 🙂 🙂
That’s great, I hope you sign up!
Love to see it!!
Vote in your school board election too! MAGA is concentrating efforts there so they can keep kids ignorant. There was a district in FL that went from 3-2 Dem to 4-1 MAGA.
I never cared much about school elections because I don’t have kids so I thought I didn’t really need a say in it, but I have noticed a shift of MAGA and anti-vaccine and mask individuals running for these positions so yes, definitely do your research on even the small positions you’re electing to represent your community!
The children in school today will be the ones in charge when you are old & infirm, their education matters!
@colby 💯
I’ve heard it’s important to vote in every election big and small because it gets your preferred people experience and increases the likelihood your people will have like minded allies through all layers of government
May this momentum build and sweep the midterms! It is NOT an overstatement to say that a GQP win this fall means federal legislation to ban abortion, and then the rest of our privacy rights dominoes start to fall. We can’t let that happen, we just can’t.
Molinaro is a very popular figure in Dutchess county and it is really maga country- the posh people tend to skew GOP.
this win is HUGE and such a positive development. I also wonder how many new voters (who relocated to the country during the Covid exodus from NYC) were Dems.
regardless, progress. while it’s disheartening I appreciate that you contextualize the recent decisions as criminalization of women’s bodies. it’s really not hyperbole.
To be fair, though, the massive relocation that has occurred during COVID has likely turned some of these areas purple, if not blue. Greene county here and we have seen a massive change in our population since the pandemic and it’s a lot of city transplants. And they vote.
Def needed to see this win. 1. Molinaro is actually a prick. Met him several times during a prior election cycle and was unimpressed.
2. In a district not far away, Carl Paladino got 46% of the vote. Locals need no introduction but he was endorsed by Elise Stefanik, had a WILD history of racism. He didn’t win, but nearly half the voters wanted him to.
F–king around, finding out.
Can I just say that it’s great this website is making a point of voting being important?
Great job
Agree. Thank you to all the writers at Celebitchy!!
This is wonderful news and reading the commentary and the comments so far is giving me hope. Good luck to you all US CB’s, we’re cheering you on from around the world.
Tbh I’m not going to get all excited that some democrat won with a pro choice campaign in a blue state in the northeast. Come back and tell me about it in when it happens here in the gerrymandered deep red south where I live and it will be meaningful.
Democrat Charlie Crist has an excellent chance of defeating MAGAt Ron “DeSatan” De Santos in the Florida gubernatorial race in November.
If you believe in prayer, please pray for Florida; we need all the help we can get!
I’m less inclined to think that. Charlie Crist can win…he’s lost statewide as a Republican, Democrat, and Independent!
Crist has his work cut out ahead of him, but he has some things going for him this election than he did previous elections. For one, the Dobbs ruling could boost him, especially as DeSantis has gone eerily quiet about abortion, which many fear he is waiting after his reelection to do a complete ban (he said during his 18′ campaign that he was in favor of banning it, FYI). Second, results from a series of focus groups on independent/swing voters recently revealed that DeSantis’ popularity is really overblown — he was widely disliked by this group. Don’t get me wrong, Florida has become a lot redder and courting MAGAs alone is still DeSantis’ path to victory, but if undecided or independents can be inspired to get to the polls, a path to winning is not entirely out of the question for Crist.
New York State may be blue, but rural areas of the state are very very red, and support monsters like Elise Stefanik. Heck, even Staten Island has a GOP Congress member and went for Trump in 2020. The way I see it, any blue occupant of a seat in Congress is welcomed. In the meantime, may Walker, Vance and Oz just keep talking – that may be enough to make the Senate blue!
It’s not about the state, it’s about the district. That’s true even where I live in Texas. We are a Red state, but Houston, Austin and San Antonio are Blue cities. If a Republican won a seat in Congress from Houston proper (not the suburbs, though they are increasingly Purple or even Blue), it would be a big deal. Democrats win here.
There are Red areas of New York upstate. There are Red areas of Connecticut, which is one of the Bluest states there is. Where my daughter’s roommate grew up in western CT, there are a lot of houses with Trump signs.
Ryan winning isn’t as big a deal as a Democrat winning in South Dakota, but it still matters.
This district had a GOP representative from 2011-2019, so it’s not solidly blue by any means. Because representatives in the House are allocated by districts and not by state, you can’t determine if it was a hard or easy contest by looking at state trends.
Everything everyone here says, including you, Kaiser. But I’m gonna give the former Republicans and this new fascist version props for having a long-range plan and vision and steadfastly plugging away to get it done for the past forty-plus years. The left needs a dose of that discipline to get things done. Being reactive doesn’t cut it, and I know that getting independent and creative thinkers to work together can be like herding kittens. But if it doesn’t happen, we’re going all the way to Gilead and I truly do not want anyone’s kids and grand-offspring growing up there.
This has been my complaint about the Dems for most of my voting life. We want to be a big umbrella and then argue among ourselves about how to accomplish our aims and nothing gets done.
The opposition, by contrast, votes in lockstep along the party line, regardless of individual differences of opinion on smaller issues. This is how and why they keep winning and they have systematically ruined the economy, environment, personal privacy rights, education, etc.
In a perfect world, we’d have more than two parties. In the real world, we don’t, and while the Dems are too conservative for me, personally, the GOP is literally stripping rights from people who aren’t wealthy white me. They have literally welcomed neo-Nazis into the fold.
Vote blue, no matter who (with exception of Joe Manchin, who has a D by his name, but who is really a Republican).
Yes, I agree. My kids are in their 20s, and they vote strategically, but a lot of their friends don’t. My daughter tells me how her friends are frustrated that Roe was overturned even through Biden won. They wonder why there are 9 people on SCOTUS. I tell her, maybe try to explain to them how this works.
We have to be disciplined and realistic and play the long game.
Was ever thus. Wasn’t it Mark Twain that said, “I don’t belong to an organized political party, I’m a Democrat.”? But yes, it does feel like we are running out of road and if we don’t get our act together there won’t be many more chances.
VIVAVIVA, i agree with you.
Same.
Definitely a cause to celebrate while continuing to work at getting out the vote. It’s a new day and I’m sick of the Dems complaining or revisiting the past. Let’s just keep it moving and go blue everywhere.
The Republicans and the Supreme Court handed us Americans fighting for the soul of the Country… a victory when they tried to kill Abortion. Now they have egg on their faces… Good.
It’s predicted the Republicans will take back the House. VOTE VOTE VOTE! Please don’t sit this one out thinking your vote won’t matter.
I would like to point out, especially for the younger folks here, PLEASE don’t restrict your voting to the big blockbuster elections every 4 years. Vote in local state, municipal and county elections, vote in school board electinos, vote in primaries, vote in runoffs. These affect your life and your community. And always be outraged when someone is running unopposed.
This. All. Day. Those small local elections matter. Everyone in my town keeps complaining about things, but then only a small percentage actually show up to vote and vote the same old guys in.
If your state allows Vote by Mail and sends ballots, it’s a great way to not miss any.
Every little win counts. This is far from over. Vote people, vote!
#Roevember #ShowtimeYall #DemocracyIsOnTheLine