There is plenty of well-deserved soul-searching going on inside of the national Republican Party after the wimpy red wavelet barely dampened the political beach on November 8th. National GOP leaders are pondering changes in leadership at the top and state officials are taking stock of precisely how many clearly winnable races slipped away from them by the narrowest of margins. But that’s not to say that all of the Democrats are engaging in victory dances this week. There were significant red waves taking place in states like Florida, even if they were few in number. The other place where Republicans have plenty to crow about is New York. Lee Zeldin came within a handful of points of unseating the state’s Democratic governor. And far more significantly, Republicans will occupy 11 of the state’s congressional seats next year when not very long ago they only held 3, vastly boosting the Republicans’ chances to take back the majority in the House. This has New York’s top Democrats playing the blame game at full volume, with party leaders calling on Governor Kathy Hochul to fire Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic party boss. But Hochul and Jacobs are telling their colleagues that they need to look in the mirror. Ross Barkan at NY Magazine sadly concludes this week that “New York doesn’t have a Democratic party” anymore.

The long-running open secret among New York politicos is that there is no serious, functioning statewide Democratic organization. This was as much true under Andrew Cuomo as it is under the newly elected governor, Kathy Hochul. In fact, there have been few times in modern history when the state party mattered at all as an organizing vehicle, a place to recruit candidates, or a tool to turn out the vote.

Suddenly, all of this is relevant because the Democratic failure in New York is probably going to cost the party its majority in the House. And so after operating below the radar for years — his name was known only to political obsessives — Jay Jacobs, the state party chairman, is now the target of ire from both progressive and moderate Democrats. Several prominent politicians, including City Comptroller Brad Lander and Liz Krueger, one of the highest-ranking state senators, have called for his ouster. All ideological factions crave competence, and Jacobs has not delivered on even this most basic front.

The Democrats in New York are, in all likelihood, simply victims of their own success. The state was somewhat more competitive back in the 80s and 90s, but in the 21st century, with few exceptions, the Democrats have enjoyed a massive registration advantage among the voters. New York City is so uniformly situated out on the far-left branch of the political tree, that it completely outweighs the more conservative regions in the upstate districts.

The point here is that the Democrats were so obviously favored to win statewide races and a large majority of the congressional districts that they didn’t really even have to try. So in most cases, they didn’t. They put in the bare minimum effort required, and in New York, that didn’t amount to much. They pushed forward increasingly insane leftist policies without any fear of retribution from the voters, and it worked for them for quite a while. But that retribution showed up with a vengeance on November 8th. And now they’re left with a significantly heavy lift in front of them.

At the New York Post, Michael Goodwin lays it on the line and tells New York Democrats that the problem isn’t state party boss Jay Jacobs. The problem is you and your policies.

With New York Republicans flipping congressional and legislative seats and coming close to winning the governor’s office, Democrats should be engaged in soul searching about how their far-left policies alienated many voters. Instead, the far-left is blaming moderates for the party’s performance.

The Getting It Backwards mob already found its sacrificial culprit, demanding that Gov. Hochul fire state party boss Jay Jacobs. They complain Jacobs “failed to commit the time, energy and resources necessary to maintain our deep-blue status.”

Appointed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Jacobs has tangled with the left before and is fighting back, saying he won’t quit. Surprisingly, he has an ally in the current governor.

Lee Zeldin may not have pulled off his longshot effort to unseat Hochul, but he was the Republicans’ number one workhorse in this cycle. He held town halls in every county in the state, including the deepest blue enclaves of New York City. He spoke calmly and openly about the issues that were burdening the minds of the voters. Rising crime rates, unaffordable fuel, food, and housing were his mantras. He eased Democrats’ fears about abortion being outlawed in the Empire State and reminded them that their quality of living is no longer what it once was, and the current policies put in place by Democratic politicians were to blame.

People listened and those things were clearly on their minds when they went to the polls. There weren’t quite enough of them to put Zeldin in the Governor’s Mansion, but it was very, very close. And all of the marginal congressional districts tipped to the red side. This week, Democrats may finally be waking up to reality and beginning to understand that if they want the rewards, they will have to put in the work and listen to their voters.