‘This Is a Significant Victory For Democrats’: Republicans Lose Special Election in Swing District They Were Poised to Win
Democrat Pat Ryan is headed to Congress after defeating Republican Marc Molinaro in a special election on Tuesday night.
With just a small handful of votes left to be counted, Ryan leads 52% to 48% in New York’s 19th congressional district. Last month, multiple polls showed Ryan trailing by double digits.
Not surprisingly, Republicans were optimistic about capturing the seat, which Democrat Antonio Delgado vacated to become lieutenant governor of the state in May.
Located in upstate New York, the 19th district went for Donald Trump by seven points in 2016 and Joe Biden by two in 2020.
The district is largely rural, which is why Republicans were optimistic about flipping the seat in a midterm election because historically, the president’s party endures a net loss in House seats.
MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki was at the network’s big board parsing county vote data just before NBC News called the race.
“With what appears to be left in the district, that is an incredibly steep hill to climb for Molinaro, to make up basically 3300 votes with what we know to be left in this district right now,” Kornacki said. “Pat Ryan, the Democrat is in a–there it is. NBC News has just called it.”
Ryan, who made abortion rights a focal point of his campaign, will have to face reelection in November. However, that he managed to win this election bodes well not just for him, but other Democratic House candidates, according to Kornacki:
This is a significant victory not just for Pat Ryan in this district. This is a significant victory for Democrats nationally because it gets to the heart of the question that we’ve been asking politically for the last two months – and that is whether the political climate in this country has changed, specifically in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Kornacki said the result indicates Democrats may have a chance at maintaining their slim majority after November.
“In a midterm climate that the Republicans have been saying all year that we live in, in a strong Republican midterm climate, this special election would’ve been a layup for the Republicans,” he continued.
“I think this is the clearest, this is strongest piece of evidence yet – and there have been other pieces of evidence in the last few weeks to suggest that the national political climate has shifted away from a Republican advantage toward a more neutral climate, a neutral climate that gives Democrats a chance, certainly of holding on to Senate, potentially to hold on to the House of Representatives.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
