The Blue Wave Cometh?

So before we begin today's episode, I'm recording another Ask Me Anything episode for New York Times subscribers soon. You can send your question to EzraKleinshow@nytimes.com using the subject line AMA. We'll consider anything in the inbox on or before the morning of Monday, November 10. So write in soon. So Democrats had a big night on Tuesday. They won in New York City, where Zoran Mamdani has been the big story of the political year. They won in Virginia, where Abigail Spanberger became the first woman to become governor of Virginia, and that state's history. They won in New Jersey, a state where the polling had showed it unnervingly close for Democrats, but it turned out to not be close at all, and Mikey Sherrill won by double digits. They won in California, where Gavin Newsom's prop 50, his mid cycle redistricting to counter Texas, passed with, at last I saw, 65% of the vote, but it's California. We will be counting votes there forever. They won in Pennsylvania where there were Supreme Court seats up for election. They won in Georgia in these very little notice statewide, utility board seats. They just won everywhere. Every kind of voter move towards Democrats. And where the polling had made it look like this was still a pretty mixed political moment, these results looked much more like the prelude to a wave election in 2026. Now the counterargument is these were mostly in states, but Kamala Harris had won. New Jersey, Virginia, New York, California. These were not the places where Democrats have been really struggling. But both sides are gonna be looking at this election to try to take some big lessons for 2026 and even, I think, for 2028. So to help me parse Hope from Hopium, Fact from Fiction here, I am joined by my esteemed editor, Aaron Redica. Hello. Aaron, welcome back to the show. Thanks, Ezra. Let's start where you left off there. So if you're a progressive, there was much to be delighted by. If you are a moderate, there was much to be delighted by. If you are a Democrat, there was much to be delighted by. Right? But already people are starting to say, No, no, no, no, no. This shows that moderation is the way to go. No, no, no, no, no. This shows that an aggressive left wing agenda will do it, right? A populist agenda. It seems, though, to show actually that simultaneously pushing both in different places works. Are you saying the Democratic Party needs to be more things in more places, Aaron? Yeah, I mean, there's different versions of this argument, right? Our colleague, Jamelle Bouby, makes a different version of this argument, right? That the party has to be what it needs to be in each of its places, but that the overall coalition has to be pushing one way or the other. But like, what do you draw out of what happened? I have seen so …