Dem
47
GOP
53
Politics, as they say, makes strange bedfellows. And there was a pretty high-profile reminder of that yesterday, as George Conway—ex-husband of Kellyanne, former (?) Republican, former (?) member of the Lincoln Project, and high-profile Never Trumper—officially announced that he's running for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). And, as Conway has hinted in the past few weeks, he's running as... a Democrat.
Barring (unlikely at this late date) redistricting, the district, NY-12, is D+33. That makes clear why Conway has to run as a member of the blue team. A couple of times before Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) gave up her bid for the governorship, we wrote that we did not understand what the theory of her candidacy was, because MAGA + New York State is a bad combo. We certainly understand the theory of Conway's campaign. Yes, Democratic voters tend to prefer actual Democrats, as opposed to Johnny-come-lately Democrats. On the other hand, Democrats really hate Donald Trump, and there aren't too many leaders of the Trump resistance more visible than Conway. So, maybe he gets some votes from blue teamers. On top of that, independent voters are somewhat less concerned with partisan identification, most of them hate Trump, too, and most of them prefer moderate candidates. Meanwhile, Republicans in the district are largely not MAGA, and they might prefer to vote for a barely-Democrat who can win, as opposed to an actual Republican who will go down in flames.
We would not like Conway's chances if this was, say, a three-person race, with one other Democrat and one Republican. We definitely would not like his chances if he had to face off against a Democratic incumbent. But Nadler is retiring, and the race to succeed him has turned into a feeding frenzy, with 11 other Democrats (most notably Kennedy offspring Jack Schlossberg), 3 Republicans and 3 independents having declared. And don't forget that New York has fusion voting, so that someone can be a candidate of the Democratic Party and also, say, the Working Families Party. Anyhow, it is conceivable that if Conway can pick up a few votes from this faction, and a few votes from that faction, and a few votes from that faction, that might be enough to eke out a plurality, particularly if a fractured electorate means that it only takes 20% of the votes to claim that plurality. And whatever Democrat survives the primary, well... D+33 district.
Conway says he's had pollsters poll the race, and that it's possible for him to win. That may not be the likeliest outcome, but it does seem at least plausible, to us. At very least, as an official candidate for office, Conway gets a bigger platform, and will make more appearances on TV and radio where he can rail against Trump. Truth be told, that might be the actual prize he's after. (Z)