Max Raskin is a fellow and adjunct professor of law at New York University.

New Yorkers are likely going to elect a socialist mayor next month — while across the Hudson in New Jersey, a race is tightening that could see Jack Ciattarelli, a conservative endorsed by President Donald Trump, flip the governor’s mansion red. The people of New York City and New Jersey are not so ideologically different that one population would vote in a millennial Mao while the other elects a Turnpike Trump. These two elections have become a natural experiment testing the proposition that all politics are local. If Zohran Mamdani wins in New York, it will not be because he is a socialist; and if Ciattarelli wins in New Jersey, it will not be because he’s a Republican.

The race is tightening in New Jersey, whe

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