Annap – stock.adobe.com
Hear that?
A deafening siren just sounded — a warning to New York Democrats to abandon their toxic progressive policies, and a beckoning to Republicans to offer a genuine alternative.
President-elect Donald Trump’s victory was an undeniable confirmation that Americans aren’t happy with an open border, slumping economy, sky-high inflation and relentless wokeism.
The Winston Group notes that Democrats’ share of the electorate just dropped to a historic low, and for the first time since the Watergate era, there are more self-identifying independents than Democrats.
And voters are revolting in New York, too: From 2020 to 2024, Democratic registration dropped 7% in Gotham and 4% statewide.
The GOP saw a small 2% bump statewide, but the big news was the massive 12% spike in voters registering with no party affiliation.
That is: New York voters are fleeing the Democratic Party.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.
The city’s freebies for migrants have cost taxpayers a stomach-churning $5 billion so far — and the Adams administration predicts the total will hit $10 billion by next June.
Tren de Aragua is treating the city like its own personal ghoulish theme park, while New Yorkers live in fear of being robbed or worse by any of the other 57,000-plus non-gang-affiliated criminal migrants that Harris-Biden let over the border and New York leaders welcomed with open arms.
Soft-on-crime district attorneys, like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, turn the mentally unwell and repeat offenders loose to prey on residents in the streets and subways again and again, while punishing those who try to defend themselves and others.
Smaller quality-of-life creeps, like weed stores popping up on every corner, matter, too.
And if you love New York enough to stick it out for all of that, instead of fleeing like tens of thousands did last year, your reward is getting slammed with Gov. Hochu’s $9 “congestion” toll, supposedly to keep the money-flushing MTA afloat.
Did Democrats think there wouldn’t be consequences to making constituents’ lives worse in every measurable way?
The opportunity for Republicans in New York is obvious: Get their act together, open the door to new talent and build an actual party in the city as well as a real statewide organization.
Quit relying on being voters’ “only alternative” to Democrats who are either corrupt or insanely progressive (or both), stop making your own deals with toxic institutions like the teachers unions and other powerful special interests — and truly stand up for practical, common-sense reform.
As Trump has shown, building a bigger tent means growing beyond the party as it once was.
Let’s hope the Empire State GOP can rise to that challenge.