By David Dayen, The American Prospect
Last week, elections were held in California, and media desks were ready. They had a district attorney subject to recall in San Francisco, and a high-profile mayor’s race in Los Angeles turning on the subjects of homelessness and crime. If both races broke right, they could bundle Chesa Boudin’s downfall and Rick Caruso’s triumph and pull off the Holy Grail of political reporting: the election trend piece.
That piece was written, and replicated. “Progressive Backlash in California Fuels Democratic Debate Over Crime,” The New York Times warned. The reckoning was here. Progressive calls to defund and rethink policing were being punished in some of the most left-leaning cities on the West Coast.
But then they kept counting the votes.
East Coast media once again neglected an enduring fact about California elections: Votes are counted slowly and deliberately. All state voters receive ballots via mail, and mail ballots can come into registrar offices up to a week later and still be counted, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. Hundreds of thousands of votes have been and will be counted after the Times and others wrote their trend pieces. And in just the first week, several outcomes have materially changed.
Recent Posts
The Trump-Mamdani Show Was Amazing. But Downsides For Progressives Could Turn Out To Be Steep
Take Action Now It’s all well and good to laud Mamdani’s extraordinary political talents and inspiring leadership for social justice. At the same…
ICE Sent 600 Immigrant Kids To Detention In Federal Shelters This Year. It’s A New Record.
Take Action Now This year ICE has sent more immigrant children into the federal shelter system than in the previous four years combined. New data…
The Return Of Nuclear Proliferation
Take Action Now A recent article in the establishment security journal Foreign Affairs makes the case for nuclear proliferation among America’s…
Are Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson Democratic Socialists or FDR Democrats? They Are Both
Take Action Now This is fitting: For more than a century, socialism has been integral to American progressivism, championing early many of the…