Will Kathy Hochul Get New York’s Election Message?

The losers include Rep.

Sean Patrick Maloney,

head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The four seats could end up providing Republicans with the margin for control of the House. Nassau County on Long Island backed Mr. Zeldin by 10 points, despite preferring

Joe Biden

by the same margin in 2020.

Yet Ms. Hochul seemed to pooh-pooh Mr. Zeldin’s surge in her victory remarks. “The lessons of tonight’s victory,” she told a crowd in Manhattan, “are that, given the choice, New Yorkers refuse to go backwards on our long march toward progress.” No, the message is that voters are worried about the state’s deteriorating economy and public safety.

Ms. Hochul nodded to the crime issue with a pledge that New Yorkers should “have the safety to walk our streets and take our subways without fear.” But she offered only a progressive bromide: a crackdown on “illegal guns” that aren’t the root of the crime problem.

There was no mention of funding police to make up for mass retirements, or reversing the bail reform that has put countless criminals back on the street. On the economy, her only nod was a “special shout-out to organized labor for all you did for me.”

Ms. Hochul might want to look across the Hudson River to New Jersey Gov.

Phil Murphy,

who got a similar message from voters in his race last year. He edged out Republican

Jack Ciattarelli

by three points after leading by as much as 11 in the last round of polls. New Jersey’s second-ranking Democrat, Senate President

Steve Sweeney,

was beaten by a truck driver who spent almost nothing on his campaign.

Mr. Murphy is no moderate. But the past year suggests he knows what voters were telling him. After imposing the nation’s fourth-highest income tax in his first term, he adopted a “do no harm” approach in his second, and offered temporary property-tax relief. This week he introduced a bill to tighten penalties for auto theft after carjackings set a record in the state. It’s no cure-all, but any move toward stricter enforcement is rare in today’s Democratic Party.

Ms. Hochul won by turning out New York City voters with an ad blitz focused on abortion and Donald Trump. To turn around the state she’ll have to take on her party’s left. If she doesn’t, the decline of the Empire State and New York City will continue.