If you believe the punditry in CA in 2021, it's basically how that went. I'm not quite sure if that was really what was going on, but I think many believed at first that the race would be sleepy and that's why Newsom was cratering and then his poll #s only went up b/c the whole thing (and Elder) woke Dems up.
Basically how the polls magically went from like Newsom +7 to Newsom double digits pretty quickly. Though I imagine he was always going to win by a big margin.
But I do imagine the coverage of this race and the thought of Zeldin winning has probably woke quite a few Dems up
If that's what's actually happening, it may help Democrats on the margins in close House races.