What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

In some ways, though, I think getting too specific is the wrong idea. For one thing, the data likely isn’t robust enough to make those distinctions. For another, voters may have a vague directional feeling that one party has gone “too far” or is not standing up for their interests, and then that will manifest itself in lots of specific opinions about specific issues. I do think there’s probably something to the David Shor critique of Democratic elites being out of touch with the electorate, but I don’t know that it’s as specific as CRT or some specific menu of issues.

Or maybe, to go back to Micah’s question, we need to be speaking more broadly about these issues. How much does discussion of CRT actually have to do with concerns about education policy, especially given Alex’s point that it’s not taught in most schools? And how much do views on school closures correlate with views on pandemic restrictions at large?

Ciattarelli is currently just barely ahead of Murphy, 49.92 percent to 49.29 percent, in the New Jersey governor’s race, but it looks like there’s still a lot of Democratic vote left to count from left-leaning counties like Essex, Union and Bergen. It seems likely that Murphy will pull ahead, but the margin will probably be in the single digits.