Thursday, November 04, 2021
Political Mayhem Thursday: The Day after the Day after Election Day
In a nutshell: That didn't go well for Democrats.
They lost all of the statewide elections in Virginia. They nearly lost the Goverrnor's race in New Jersey. And there is a certain amount of panicking going on among Democrats as they look to the national midterms coming up next year.
I don't claim to know why Republicans did better than expected, though it probably does have something to do with with under-performance of some Democrats in office right now-- and a failure to have an effective message about what will happen in the future, it would seem.
Here in Minneapolis, the ballot measure that would transition the Police Department into a Department of Public Safety failed. It was termed by some a "defund the police" measure, but that really wasn't the heart of it-- resources devoted to crime prevention and investigation were probably going to the same or be increased-- so much as a structural change that potentially could bring reforms. In the end, the vote for the status quo will probably solidify the status quo.
In the long view, I fear that this election cycle will even further cool any interest in criminal justice reform-- where it was an issue, it was one that drove suburbanites to vote Republican out of fear of crime.
And that may be the closing of the window of opportunity that opened in the summer of 2020.
