There is no transitive property for partisanship. It does not follow from the fact that residents of New York are as unlikely to elect Republicans to statewide office as Texans are to pick Democrats that the average Empire State Democrat is some kind of avocado-snorting loonie leftist hellbent on a two-day workweek and turning Netflix into a nationalized industry. Sure, a few might be. But the average Democrat in New York, or any other state, would be a member of the far right in virtually any European country. Most white Democrats support Wall Street, business, and real estate interests, and doing the minimum to shore up the welfare state whenever there is enough of a fuss made about it — as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them or otherwise meaningfully subtract from their own surfeit of privileges. Cuomo understands this, which is why his campaign has spent weeks on television ads that are the advertising equivalent of lighting half a million dollars a day on fire. When you got it, flaunt it!

This is also why I pity poor Cynthia Nixon. For months she has been droning on about free stuff — free housing, free health care, free daycare, free education, free abortion, free Wi-Fi, eventually free weed — and putting fish and goodness knows what else on a cinnamon-raisin bagel — doing whatever she can to establish her bona fides with her party’s progressive left flank. I think they believe you. It just doesn’t matter.