Blue States Could Decide Congress

New York Times: “Call it Democrats’ blue state dilemma, one that has helped make New York and California, two coastal bastions far from the presidential battlegrounds, the unlikely heart of the fight for control of the House of Representatives as summer turns to fall.”

“In theory, the two states would seem to promise Democrats a tantalizingly straightforward path back to power in the House, where the G.O.P. holds a slender four-seat majority, putting Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, now the minority leader, in position to become speaker. Republicans in California and New York are defending the highest concentration of districts that President Biden won in 2020, including five he carried by double digits.”

“But on the ground, there are signs that districts from the suburbs of Long Island to the California desert are once again generating their own political weather more inhospitable to Democrats.”