Many of the local Democrats I interviewed over recent weeks worried, in retrospect, that they had screwed up: Teachout was inevitably caricatured as an elite interloper. Many others said that it probably didn’t matter in the end. Trump notched a roughly seven-point victory in the Hudson Valley, which bears striking similarities to the beleaguered Rust Belt counties where he did so well, and Teachout’s opponent, John Faso, undoubtedly benefited from the billionaire’s coattails (though he never officially endorsed Trump). Republican super PACS also gave Faso a big assist.

“I don’t know that I would have won,” Yandik told me. “I would have come closer than Zephyr Teachout.” Looking ahead, he said that “in a swing district where every single percentage point matters, the inability to demonstrate a cultural connection to the district is a liability.”

He’s taking a pass on 2018 but is watching to see whether Democratic primary voters “are going to be strategic and pick a centrist and someone with deep roots — someone who can beat John Faso — or whether they are going to adhere to their progressive principles and put a firebrand like Zephyr Teachout up again.”

The Hudson Valley is shaping up to be a laboratory for how Democrats do — or don’t — stage a comeback. Several political analysts pointed out to me that before new congressional boundaries took effect for the race of 2012, much of it fell in the 20th District, which Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, won in 2006 and 2008. (She later graduated to the Senate.) Of course she was less liberal back then, when she bragged about the guns under her bed and opposed driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

For now, party leaders are optimistic. Just five months into his first term, Faso is being hammered for his support of the Republican health care bill and his broken promise to protect people with pre-existing conditions. He’s being hounded by Democratic activists whenever he makes public appearances in the district, so he makes almost none. It’s hard to imagine how he will run a re-election campaign as the invisible man, and his perceived vulnerability has already attracted eight challengers.