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Article snippet: After all the postcard-writing parties, the back-porch fund-raisers and the sidewalk and door-to-door volunteer work, there was always the nagging doubt: What if this wasn’t enough? What if all this suburban anger toward President Trump still couldn’t unseat Republicans in the New York suburbs? On Wednesday, after a nearly clean sweep of races from Long Island to northern New Jersey, doubt among local Democrats had been replaced wholesale by optimism. Now nearly nothing is off the table in the 2018 midterm elections. Republican congressional seats once thought to be almost unassailable are now being examined for signs of vulnerability, with their ties to Trump-backed policies a telling guide. In New York, Democrats have focused on unseating six Republican members of the congressional delegation, with an emphasis on Representatives Chris Collins of western New York and Tom Reed, who represents a large portion of the Southern Tier, for their support of the Republican tax plan that would do away with the deduction for state and local taxes. In New Jersey, the northern suburbs have traditionally been Republican, and are key bases of support for Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen and Leonard Lance. With Philip D. Murphy’s victory in the race for governor on Tuesday, however, that support began to fracture: Mr. Murphy outperformed expectations in the region, Republican incumbents were ousted and candidates in otherwise fairly safe districts had some of the closest el... Link to the full article to read more