Fresh signs of the tide turning against New York’s leftist cadres keep popping up.
Consider the lackluster results in the first two days of early voting for the June 27 primaries for the City Council, DA slots and judgeships.
Fewer than 10,000 Gothamites voted in that window. But as one veteran consultant put it: Why turn out when “most of the races are not contested and it’s in the interest of the incumbents that no one turnout because then they’ll be reelected”?
In other words: One-party rule by lefty machines is driving Big Apple Democratic voters into numb apathy. They know that even most primaries give them no alternatives to the same old disastrous policies on policing, public schools, public health and more.
Yet there are some signs of political life. Take one of the few seriously contested races — for a new, majority-Asian Council district (the city’s first) in Brooklyn.
Susan Zhuang, a longtime Democratic operative fighting for the seat, was caught on tape telling a potential constituent that “My ideas are the ideas of the Republican Party.”
She wasn’t specific, but her thrust was clear: Fund the police, save the schools from the teachers unions and free the city (and state) from the terrible economic policies holding back their recovery.
She even dinged her opponent Wednesday for accepting the endorsement of the anti-Israel CUNY faculty union — highlighting yet another issue where Democrats’ embrace of far-left stances infuriates many once-loyal Dem voters.
It’s no coincidence that Zhuang (sincerely or not) was calling herself a Republican to score votes in the district: The Democratic Party is alienating Asian voters with its fervid embrace of anti-meritocratic education policies and pro-crime stances on public safety (with a healthy dash of anti-Asian racism); these communities’ swing rightward is perhaps the biggest local political sea-change of the decade.
Indeed, the voters (overwhelmingly registered Democrats) in this district backed GOPer Curtis Sliwa over Eric Adams in the 2021 mayoral race.
Those forces also contributed to Republicans’ gains in the last City Council elections, where they netted three seats (including one post-election, due to a surprise defection from now-ex-Dem Ari Kagan). GOP gov candidate Lee Zeldin got creamed in deep-blue Manhattan, but vastly overperformed in some outer-borough areas — managing to win in some Asian-majority districts in Queens and Brooklyn.
That shift (and swings in other communities, too) can be seen clearly in the massive victory enjoyed by Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education (PLACE) in the late-spring elections to the Citywide and Community Educational Councils, parent-run bodies with a strong voice in district-level school governance.
Nearly three-fourths of the candidates PLACE endorsed won. That means some 40% of CEC seats will be filled by parents elected for supporting rigorous standards-based education with advanced instruction for all those capable of keeping up and merit-based admissions to selective schools.
That is, for opposing the endless effort to degrade and ultimately eliminate all school standards in the name of “equity” — a central project of progressive Democrats.
Meanwhile, a left-liberal parent group, Parents for Middle School Equity, saw a humiliating electoral rebuke.
Make no mistake: These are green shoots, not a full-circle turn.
But they sure show New Yorkers getting sick of woke tyranny, and the increasingly broad appeal of “Republican” (i.e. sane and sensible) ideas in Gotham’s politics.
So if our lefty overlords don’t correct course soon, they may well be looking for new jobs.
