Sad Trombone Plays Louder for House Dems After Cook Political Moves Big Race to ‘Toss Up'

Just a couple of months ago, Democrats and the mainstream media were hyperventilating with glee after some special election results in New York state showed what we were reliably told in so many words was bad news for Republicans who were predicting a November red wave.

“The national political climate has shifted away from Republican advantage to a more neutral climate,” MSNBC numbers guru Steve Kornacki stated at the time in what would become an oft-repeated narrative amongst The Usual Suspects.

But since that time, talk of a Joe Biden/Democrat “comeback” has collided with cold, hard reality as – after an oh-so-brief hiatus – voter focus has pivoted back squarely and firmly onto the economy and inflation, two big issues where the current Oval Office occupant and his party have not received high marks at all in poll after poll.

Simply put, “the issue environment has kept shifting toward the Republicans,” New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn observed in late September while stating “whether that continues — and whether it ultimately yields GOP polling gains — is one of the biggest questions as we head into the final stretch.”

It sounds like the “issue environment shift” Cohn talked about is indeed leading to more “GOP polling gains,” if a new report from Cook Political in which they move DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney’s reelection battle in the newly-drawn 17th Congressional District in New York from “lean D” to a “toss up” is a reliable indicator:

“When Republicans’ top Super PAC announced an ad buy against Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-17) in April, many assumed it was a gambit to troll or distract the DCCC chair. But two weeks out from Election Day, Maloney finds himself in deep danger, simultaneously fighting for his political life in his Hudson Valley seat and desperately trying to prevent Democrats from being swept out of the House majority,” wrote Cook Political Report U.S. House editor Dave Wasserman.

Also according to Wasserman, “A Maloney defeat would be historic: a sitting DCCC/NRCC chair hasn’t lost reelection since 1992 (when NRCC Chair Guy Vander Jagt lost his primary in Michigan), and hasn’t lost a general election since 1980, when DCCC Chair Jim Corman lost in California.”

Axios labeled the Cook Political Report news as potentially representative of a “seismic shift in the midterm elections” and pointed to how Maloney was being hit on the crime problems in NYC at a time when Democrats are viewed by most voters as soft on crime.

As of this writing, RealClearPolitics also lists Maloney’s race against New York Assemblyman Mike Lawler (R) a “toss up.”

In addition to the historic nature of a potential Maloney loss and what it would represent for Republican candidates across the country on Election Day, what would also be delicious about a Maloney defeat would be the rampant infighting that would inevitably follow. Remember, the May court-ordered redistricting map for New York sent the state’s most prominent Democrats into an outright civil war, with allegations of racism being lobbed against Maloney and calls for his resignation flying as the redrawn House districts forced incumbent Democrats – some of them longtimers – to decide which of their colleagues they wanted to take on in the primaries.

Maloney’s choice was to switch from the 18th district and run in the district currently being represented by woke first-term Rep. Mondaire Jones. After a week of grumbling over what was widely perceived by Democrats to be Maloney “bullying” Jones, Jones decided to run in another newly-drawn district as well (the 10th) – and lost in the primary.