Two days before Election Day, three of New York's most powerful Democrats walked into a Queens sports bar and discovered football. Specifically, a team that plays about 360 miles away.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent Sunday afternoon at Murphy's Sports Bar in Astoria, watching the Buffalo Bills beat the Baltimore Ravens 36-10. It was the last day of early voting. Pure coincidence. Nothing says "I'm a regular person" like a campaign stop with a press pool waiting on the sidewalk.

Let's give Hochul her due. She's a Buffalo native and an actual Bills fan. She showed up in a white Bills jacket and a blue Bills cap, according to WGRZ. That's not pandering. That's a woman who has suffered through January football like everyone else upstate.

The other two are where it gets good.

Ocasio-Cortez wore a black Bills sweatshirt and told reporters she's "newer to football." Then she produced her credentials: "If you rewind the clock, when I played Tim Walz in Madden, the Bills were my team! I am newer to football, but the Bills were my team. Just check the receipts."

Check the receipts. Her proof of lifelong fandom is a video game match against Tim Walz. That's not a receipt. That's a gamer tag. Somewhere in Orchard Park, a man who has owned season tickets since 1979 just set a folding table on fire out of instinct.

And Mamdani? He wore his usual suit, told reporters he would not claim to be a "real" NFL fan and said he was there as a supporter of the governor. Honestly, that's the most refreshing thing a politician has said all year. He didn't fake it. He just stood in a sports bar like a substitute teacher at a pep rally.

Hochul did offer the best defense of the whole outing. Before going in, she quipped that Buffalo is the only NFL team that actually plays in New York State. She's technically right. The Jets and Giants play in New Jersey. Which means the New York politicians at the New York bar picked the New York team, and it still looked like a hostage video.

Now here's the part that's pure campaign theater. The trio stayed for the first half, per QNS, while most members of the press weren't allowed inside. So the people of Astoria got to watch their elected officials watch football, through a window, like a zoo exhibit called "Relatable." And the two progressives, the New York Post reported, left 20 minutes before the governor did. The governor brought the converts, and the converts beat her to the exit.

Asked about all this, Hochul said the pair "want to be with me." Everybody wants to be with you on the last day of early voting, Governor. On the first day after, you'll be watching the fourth quarter alone.

Bills fans have survived four straight Super Bowl losses, the "Music City Miracle" and 13 seconds against Kansas City. They can survive this too. But they'll remember. The real fans were there for the game. The new fans were there for the cameras.

And the cameras, unlike the politicians, stayed for the whole thing.

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The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is parody and commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations and fictional elements are not factual claims. Quotes attributed to real people are drawn from published reporting.

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