On the menu: Classical on the rocks; Newsom unveils Texas revenge package; Brown in; Where do you put 653 House members?; A dumpling for a bear

There are many kinds of bias in the news business, but few as durable and reliable as New Yorkism: the outsized place that news happening in America’s media capital gets in the national discussion.

While home to an impressively large 6 percent of the nation’s population, the New York metropolitan area definitely gets more than its fair share of coverage thanks to being the home to the two largest newspapers in the country and the headquarters of every broadcast news division.

So it has been with the coverage of New York’s mayoral election, which, aside from being easy and interesting to cover for big-time journos, has featured a great deal of drama: A surprising primary win by telegenic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who disrupted former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s comeback bid. It’s got ideological polarization, allegations of antisemitism, personal attacks, the always-wild incumbent Eric Adams and a guy with signature headwear.

But what New York doesn’t seem to have right now is a very competitive race.

With less than 12 weeks to go, Mamdani seems to have not only weathered the initial backlash after his surprise victory but established himself as the nearly prohibitive front-runner.

A new Siena University poll shows Mamdani up 19 points over Cuomo, 32 points over Republican Curtis Sliwa and 37 points ahead of Adams. There is still a considerable chunk of undecided voters or supporters of candidates even more marginal than Adams, but even with ranked choice voting, it doesn’t look like much of a race. If Cuomo was the second choice of every Adams and Sliwa voter — which he won’t be — and none of the undecided came in for Mamdani — which some of them will — it would only be a tie in an automatic runoff.

Woof.

The good news for Cuomo here is that Adams is far below the viability threshold and that 7 percent could become just a point or two as voters conclude he isn’t a serious contender. The former governor has time to change the race, but that’s a tall order when you’re such a well-defined quantity in voter’s minds. He can’t sneak up on anybody the way Mamdani could in the primary.

So what about the races not in New York, particularly across the river in New Jersey and down in Virginia.

While New York City’s electorate and issues bear little resemblance to the broader nation, here are a couple of medium-sized states with populations that end up looking a great deal like the broad, national electorate the parties will confront in next year’s midterms.

Let’s start next door in New Jersey, where Republicans are hoping that suburbanites’ backlash against Mamdani’s perceived radicalism will work in their favor.

New Jersey Republicans also have a tried and tested candidate in Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assembly member who came within 3 points of unseating incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago. But Democrats have a good horse in the race too, having picked moderate, four-term Rep. Mikie Sherrill to succeed the term-limited Murphy.

Republicans are getting excited because in two polls since the general election was set in June, Ciattarelli has been within 8 points and 6 points of the Democratic front-runner. Given that Ciattarelli closed a much wider gap to make the race competitive with Murphy in 2021, this sounds like a possible winner for Republicans.

But we should note the significant differences between then and now: Murphy was bogged down by the unpopularity of his aggressive COVID restrictions and voters were growing increasingly frustrated with the ineffectual and left-leaning Biden administration. Local man Donald Trump wasn’t really in the picture. Now much of that has been reversed.

Those same polls show that Trump is even more unpopular than Murphy in New Jersey and voters looking to send a message of change will be voting for the blue team and not the red. Neither candidate has huge statewide name identification but neither seems obviously defective, so this will probably function more like a generic ballot test than a clash of personalities. And that’s what has New Jersey Democrats feeling, as the saying goes, “nauseously optimistic.”

In Virginia, the nausea is all on the GOP side, where Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is trying to become the first Republican to hold the governor’s mansion for her party in consecutive terms since 1998 as she seeks to succeed Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

For an idea of how that’s working out, the state’s police union took the unusual step of endorsing Earle-Sears’s Democratic opponent, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, before endorsing every other Republican candidate for statewide office. There are snubs, and then there are snubs …

There’s cross river context in Virginia, too. In Washington, D.C., across the Potomac, President Trump is taking over the police and bulldozing homeless encampments as he denounces crime and disorder. Spanberger, though, made a strenuous point about maintaining a tough-on-crime stance and shunning “defund the police” rhetoric in her time in Congress.

But other than on law-and-order issues, everything else Trump is doing to the race is negative for his party in Virginia. Mass federal firings, culture war shenanigans and increasingly broad immigration enforcement measures are all liabilities in a state that relies on federal paychecks, has among the most college-educated electorates in the country and a........

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