About this episode
It’s time to adjust your expectations for November. For weeks, pundits have homed in on the special election in New York’s 19th Congressional District as a national bellwether. The seat is a true toss-up — one of those rare districts won by Barack Obama in 2012, Donald Trump in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 — and the national parties responded appropriately, sending in huge sums of money and organizational resources to win it. The race would offer a trial run of the parties’ general election messages. Democrat Pat Ryan's “ads hammered on the need to elect a representative who would fight for abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision undoing Roe v. Wade,” writes Bill Mahoney , while Republican Marc Molinaro's campaign “centered on crime and inflation.” Last night, Ryan defeated Molinaro. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook. Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.