By Matt Rooney
The perception game is almost as important as the results following a special election. At least that’s the consensus among the chattering class.
Venture over to X if you dare! After Democrat Socialist Analilia Mejia’s 20-point win on Thursday over Republican Mayor Joe Hathaway, I’ve seen and heard no less than 1,000 different arguments – largely predicated on hyper-localized data points – explaining how Hathaway OVER performed or Mejia underpeformed. Or, how Mejia’s overpeformance was actually an underperformance? Joey Fox of New Jersey Globe posted a fairly sober analysis. For example, she kicked ass with Hispanics and suburban educated whites. Her support with Jewish voters, however, was soft (or surprisingly strong when you consider she’s an anti-Semite?). Hathaway got smoked relative to 2024 and/or 2025 in this town, but WHOA, check out his margin over there in that township!
I get it. There are undoubtedly some lessons to be learned by scrutinizing how the chips fell across NJ-11. There always are. But at the risk of sounding a tad intellectually lazy or at least disinterested, Save Jerseyans?
I don’t think we can learn too much of value aside from the inescapable, existential crisis facing the GOP:
Republicans still don’t have a compelling answer to socialism.
A dingbat like Mejia who – no joke – once said toilets are a product of socialism shouldn’t be able to win in 99% of House districts in the United States of America.
NJ-11 is a blue district in a blue year (so far). Yes. Hathaway was never going to win. True. But this Morris County-centric, NYC suburban district is populated by capitalism’s most blessed children. NJ-11 was once the heartland of Wall Street stockbrokers, hedge fund managers and banking titans who golfed together and voted Republican almost uniformly. No more. The voters who’ve benefited most from our free market system are now actively voting… against it?
To make matters worse, the white, black and brown working classes who didn’t walk but ran to the MAGA coalilition in 2024 are clearly not defaulting to the Grand Old Party at present. Harris *only* won NJ-11 by 8-points. Minority white towns that were competitive two years ago just voted for a socialist by 30 or 40 points. Many of these voters escaped foreign communist or socialist regimes only to vote for it again in the states? Really?
All of these problems, by the way, are obviously NOT North Jersey specific.
We need to make the American Dream alluring and tangible again in equal measure. I maintain the dearth of a powerful contrast remains the primary culprit. For example, Republicans need to stop talking about “affordability” and advocate for the freedom to thrive. Affordability is relative. Moreover, no one wants to just “get by” in this country. Did your immigrant forebears cross an ocean just to tread water upon arrival? Of course not. Everyone wants to advance. Buy the larger home. Take that vacation. Send that kid to college… or at least to an affordable housing alternative NOT in mom and dad’s basement. Add a modest swimming pool to the backyard, buy a car that actually runs or, hell, not have to choose between air conditioning and expensive prescriptions in the warm summer months!
Better still, we already know the pro-growth, pro-family economic policies which can make this vision a reality. President Trump has made some of these policies a reality, most recently with a dramatically expanded Working Families Tax Credit! But Republicans need to be bolder, and most importantly, Republican candidates need to spend less time recycling badly adapted Reagan era talking points and more time empathizing with the folks they desperately need to support their campaigns.
The choice is simple: evolve, immediately, or spend the next few cycles comforting each other with how underwhelming the latest Democrat overperformance was.
I know what I’d choose.
