On the off chance Nate or Eli read this comment: speaking of places where there was a legit red wave in 2024, what do you make of the recent Manhattan Institute poll that shows Elise Stefanik one point ahead of Kathy Hochul for next year's New York gubernatorial race? Even given house effects and the usual admonition not to read too much into any single poll result, that still seems pretty damn striking.
Yeah that was a surprising result. There haven't been many polls of the race, but it was a pretty big outlier: Siena had it at Hochul +25 in September. But both polls still have a ton of undecided voters (~20%). My usual reaction this far out is to throw it in the average and wait for more data.
In my opinion, this is an example of candidate quality and recent events mattering more than indications of a red wave. Hochul is not a particularly popular governor; in 2022 she underperformed Andrew Cuomo’s 2018 margin by almost 20 points, and she’s arguably even less popular now. Furthermore, the poll was taken not long after Hochul endorsed Zohran Mamdani for NYC mayor, a person who is unpopular in the state of NY outside NYC itself.
In my opinion, it was a matter of practicality: a NY D governor cannot get elected (in all likelihood, cannot survive a primary) if the D NYC power brokers are opposing him/her. In today’s era of bringing out your base instead of appealing to the middle/undecided voters, this was IMO the best play on her part, especially considering where her popularity currently is. She can lose ground in various pinkish counties across the state and still win if the NYC/westchester vote is there, but maybe not if there isn’t also a strong turnout for her there (and, of course, also depends on the strength of the R candidate and since Stefanik has not really been tested state-wide, her ceiling as an R candidate in a blue state is still unknown).
There are two more-or-less perpendicular layers to this. In New York, there's partisan polarization between Democrats and Republicans just the same as anywhere else, but that is often rivalled or exceeded in intensity by the regional resentments between Upstaters and Downstaters (particularly by the former against the latter).* Hochul is originally from near Buffalo, so in theory, that changes the math a little bit and gives her a certain measure of instant credibility "in various pinkish counties across the state" that, for predecessors like Cuomo, was hard-earned at best. On paper, she should have been more vulnerable to a primary challenger from downstate than to a Republican opponent in the general, which makes the current state of affairs all the more confounding.
*For similar reasons, despite the relative purpleness of New York State by comparison with the city alone, a hypothetical Curtis Sliwa gubernatorial campaign would likely fare even more poorly than his mayoral one.
I thought this was a Nate article until I got to the comments. You do a better job of channeling Nate’s voice than anyone who has written for him before. I wonder if it’s tent, AI smoothing, or both.
Solid article, and thank you for not over reaching.
Up front I am a supporter of Mikie Sherrill. The polls have been all over the place so I think it will come down to which campaign turns out the voters. In my area, Morris County, early voting turn out has been steady, so it seems like there is a lot of interest in this election.
I don’t think NJ is a swing state - at least not yet. I’m a NJ resident who was part of the 2020 to 2024 drop off - I canvassed for Harris in PA but simply could not pull the lever for her in blue NJ (I wrote in), because I could not sign my name to the Dumbest Political Party Ever, aka the 2023-24 Dems. I heard a radio show shortly after Election Day where many of the NY-NJ callers were saying the same thing. But it’s not like we all became Republicans. I voted for Sherrill already, and I think a lot of the other “drop off” people will as well, in part bc we’re unhappy with Trump and - *super cynical alert* - I’m thinking 2025 might be our last legit election year, at least for a while. However, if the Dems continue to be idiots - so far not much evidence to the contrary - then sure, I suppose the Rs can and will continue to make inroads here.
The real question is why isn’t New Jersey a red state?
What has Democratic governance done for it?
Electricity prices will only worsen as Democrats pursue climate extremism? As if a fool like Murphy knew anything about engineering or physics to be imposing the costs of net zero on his citizens.
Have you seen the republican party? That’s why any state is not a red state. Democrats may not do enough for them, but republicans will do a lot to them. Climate extremism like banning free enterprise from investing in and building off shore wind energy farms? Democrats will remain free enterprise while Republicans continue to embrace their version of Trump socialism.
Update on NJ voting: early voting ended in NJ tonight at 7:00PM. At 6:35 there were still people in line to vote. The polling place was very busy this weekend. I’m not sure if heavy turnout is more of a benefit to the Republicans or the Democrats but I think it shows that people are engaged.
I think you are missing a story about Orthodox Jewish voters, who have become an increasingly large share of the vote over time, particularly in places like Passaic which you cited. These voters tend to vote en bloc which leads to a sudden shift of a couple hundred thousand votes depending on the endorsement of a couple of rabbis. Judging by the share of Hebrew/Yiddish signs in NJ I would guess they are going Red.
What do you make of the most recent AtlasIntel poll showing 40% of the Black vote for Sherrill and 60% for Ciattarelli - in wild contrast to the other polls where the highest support in the Black community for the GOP candidate is 25%?
I think Virginia is a big one coming up to. The democrats barely won in 2025. For a lot of the time on election night Virginia was looking red. I think there might be something there at least for presidential elections.
Many interesting insights in this article. "the difficulty of polling nonwhite voters": could you explain why? Genuinely curious.
By design, you have fewer Hispanic and Black respondents in your poll than white respondents (because they make up smaller shares of the population). That means your estimates for those subgroups will be less precise. But the bigger problem is that historically, polls have had a harder time nailing down how these groups are going to vote. For example, they picked up the movement toward Trump among Hispanics in 2024, but more underestimated it: https://aapor.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/AAPOR-Task-Force-on-2024-Pre-Election-Polling_Report.pdf. There were similar issues in 2020. There's also some evidence that online opt-in polls (like YouGov, for example) have a hard time with Hispanic respondents: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/
Thanks for your answer and especially for the link to the Pewresearch's article, it's probably a topic that deserves extensive research.
On the off chance Nate or Eli read this comment: speaking of places where there was a legit red wave in 2024, what do you make of the recent Manhattan Institute poll that shows Elise Stefanik one point ahead of Kathy Hochul for next year's New York gubernatorial race? Even given house effects and the usual admonition not to read too much into any single poll result, that still seems pretty damn striking.
Yeah that was a surprising result. There haven't been many polls of the race, but it was a pretty big outlier: Siena had it at Hochul +25 in September. But both polls still have a ton of undecided voters (~20%). My usual reaction this far out is to throw it in the average and wait for more data.
Thank you for your reply!
In my opinion, this is an example of candidate quality and recent events mattering more than indications of a red wave. Hochul is not a particularly popular governor; in 2022 she underperformed Andrew Cuomo’s 2018 margin by almost 20 points, and she’s arguably even less popular now. Furthermore, the poll was taken not long after Hochul endorsed Zohran Mamdani for NYC mayor, a person who is unpopular in the state of NY outside NYC itself.
the question arises in my mind, why bother endorsing Mamdani when your fundamental challenge is non-City....
In my opinion, it was a matter of practicality: a NY D governor cannot get elected (in all likelihood, cannot survive a primary) if the D NYC power brokers are opposing him/her. In today’s era of bringing out your base instead of appealing to the middle/undecided voters, this was IMO the best play on her part, especially considering where her popularity currently is. She can lose ground in various pinkish counties across the state and still win if the NYC/westchester vote is there, but maybe not if there isn’t also a strong turnout for her there (and, of course, also depends on the strength of the R candidate and since Stefanik has not really been tested state-wide, her ceiling as an R candidate in a blue state is still unknown).
There are two more-or-less perpendicular layers to this. In New York, there's partisan polarization between Democrats and Republicans just the same as anywhere else, but that is often rivalled or exceeded in intensity by the regional resentments between Upstaters and Downstaters (particularly by the former against the latter).* Hochul is originally from near Buffalo, so in theory, that changes the math a little bit and gives her a certain measure of instant credibility "in various pinkish counties across the state" that, for predecessors like Cuomo, was hard-earned at best. On paper, she should have been more vulnerable to a primary challenger from downstate than to a Republican opponent in the general, which makes the current state of affairs all the more confounding.
*For similar reasons, despite the relative purpleness of New York State by comparison with the city alone, a hypothetical Curtis Sliwa gubernatorial campaign would likely fare even more poorly than his mayoral one.
Still... making "not opposed" noises contra "endorsing"
Pre-Trump Stefanik I would be sure would have been strong.
Stefanik after she made the bad bet of whoring herself out to Trump... hmm.
I thought this was a Nate article until I got to the comments. You do a better job of channeling Nate’s voice than anyone who has written for him before. I wonder if it’s tent, AI smoothing, or both.
Solid article, and thank you for not over reaching.
Up front I am a supporter of Mikie Sherrill. The polls have been all over the place so I think it will come down to which campaign turns out the voters. In my area, Morris County, early voting turn out has been steady, so it seems like there is a lot of interest in this election.
I don’t think NJ is a swing state - at least not yet. I’m a NJ resident who was part of the 2020 to 2024 drop off - I canvassed for Harris in PA but simply could not pull the lever for her in blue NJ (I wrote in), because I could not sign my name to the Dumbest Political Party Ever, aka the 2023-24 Dems. I heard a radio show shortly after Election Day where many of the NY-NJ callers were saying the same thing. But it’s not like we all became Republicans. I voted for Sherrill already, and I think a lot of the other “drop off” people will as well, in part bc we’re unhappy with Trump and - *super cynical alert* - I’m thinking 2025 might be our last legit election year, at least for a while. However, if the Dems continue to be idiots - so far not much evidence to the contrary - then sure, I suppose the Rs can and will continue to make inroads here.
The real question is why isn’t New Jersey a red state?
What has Democratic governance done for it?
Electricity prices will only worsen as Democrats pursue climate extremism? As if a fool like Murphy knew anything about engineering or physics to be imposing the costs of net zero on his citizens.
Why is Sherill even a Democrat?
Have you seen the republican party? That’s why any state is not a red state. Democrats may not do enough for them, but republicans will do a lot to them. Climate extremism like banning free enterprise from investing in and building off shore wind energy farms? Democrats will remain free enterprise while Republicans continue to embrace their version of Trump socialism.
Update on NJ voting: early voting ended in NJ tonight at 7:00PM. At 6:35 there were still people in line to vote. The polling place was very busy this weekend. I’m not sure if heavy turnout is more of a benefit to the Republicans or the Democrats but I think it shows that people are engaged.
I think you are missing a story about Orthodox Jewish voters, who have become an increasingly large share of the vote over time, particularly in places like Passaic which you cited. These voters tend to vote en bloc which leads to a sudden shift of a couple hundred thousand votes depending on the endorsement of a couple of rabbis. Judging by the share of Hebrew/Yiddish signs in NJ I would guess they are going Red.
Very interesting intel.
Realclearpolitics.com has the NJ margin at +3 D.
What do you make of the most recent AtlasIntel poll showing 40% of the Black vote for Sherrill and 60% for Ciattarelli - in wild contrast to the other polls where the highest support in the Black community for the GOP candidate is 25%?
It was probably the worst, most inaccurate poll of the season. I'm going to take any poll of theirs with a fistful of salt from now on.
Agree. I think the data for the Black vote must have come from a programming error.
I think Virginia is a big one coming up to. The democrats barely won in 2025. For a lot of the time on election night Virginia was looking red. I think there might be something there at least for presidential elections.