It's Election Day

The big day is finally here.

The pundits have had their say, the candidates have done their best to sway voters, and a mind-boggling $16.7 billion is projected to have been spent on campaigns, leaving many to wonder how much good could have been done if that money had been put to other purposes.

It’s Election Day, and voters who didn’t take advantage of early or absentee voting - as more than 1.2 million in New York and 42 million nationwide did - get to weigh in. Then we all will wait for the counting to commence – and wonder when it will finish. Think days, not hours, until the final results are in.

The editorial board weighed in frequently on the 2022 midterms, most recently with a guide to our endorsement picks in 41 races and three propositions. And we helped voters for whom the economy is front of mind with an explanation of what Congress can and can’t do about issues like inflation and Social Security (the answers: very little and an awful lot, respectively).

Bewildered by this campaign? Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matthew Yglesias understands your angst. “These are, of course, not entirely normal times,” he writes, but says that despite that weirdness and the fact that some candidates are “kooky characters,” this campaign is “extremely normal, to the point of almost being boring.”

Though perhaps not in CD3. On Monday, anyway. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, in line to be perhaps the next House speaker or minority leader depending on Tuesday’s results, traveled from Brooklyn to Queens to support Democratic candidate Robert Zimmerman. But a handful of anti-vax protesters tried to drown out Jeffries. “This is Trump-inspired theater,” Jeffries told The Point’s Mark Chiusano, saying the former president “debased our politics all across America.” Others might describe the scene as one that reflects the energy on the ground among backers of Republican Lee Zeldin for governor. 

One thing is clear: The early winner was early voting, especially on Long Island. The Point tracked the numbers and Nassau and Suffolk counties ran well ahead of New York City and the rest of the state in turnout in comparison to their numbers in 2020, a presidential year. In fact, Zeldin’s home county, Suffolk, had nearly twice the relative turnout of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s home county, Erie.

What does it all mean?

Stay tuned.

- Michael Dobie