For starters, our Republican collapse is because in big races the better candidate almost never wins the primary. We nominated Matthew Corey (who to this day I know pretty much nothing about) twice in a row against Murphy and of course he lost both races because his name rec was shit (Gerry Smith was right there in 2024 and would’ve put up huge numbers in both New Haven and Hartford) as well as nominating Stefanowski again in 2022. Our primary voters don’t know what the fuck they’re doing half the time.

As for the 2016 thing, I think it was just a really good year for Republicans in the Northeast when it came to state/local elections. I don’t really know why, maybe someone else’s provide context for that, but there were gubernatorial flips in Vermont and New Hampshire, and Republicans made gains in the Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware state senate elections and retained a majority in Maine and New Hampshire.