Democrats Go Seven for Seven
What (if anything) does it tell us?
I’m about to leave for the Supreme Court, where I’ll be covering the historic oral arguments on President Trump’s sweeping tariffs. I’ll have a full report for you tomorrow.
But first… we have election results to discuss!
In yesterday’s newsletter, I told you about seven key races to watch last night. Democrats won all seven of them.
Let’s take a look at the results — including the blue sweep of the marquee races — and then we’ll chat about what (and how much) to take away from them.
Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) was elected Governor of Virginia, defeating Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) by around 15 percentage points. Spanberger will be the state’s first female governor.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) was elected Governor of New Jersey, defeating former state legislator Jack Ciattarelli (R) by around 13 percentage points. Sherrill ran well ahead of expectations: the Decision Desk HQ polling average showed her winning by around 5 percentage points.
State assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D) was elected Mayor of New York City, defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (I) by around nine percentage points. Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, will be the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest since 1889.
Democrats expanded their control of the Virginia House of Delegates, flipping 13 Republican-held seats and notching their largest majority in the chamber since 1989.
Former state legislator Jay Jones (D) was elected Attorney General of Virginia, defeating incumbent Jason Miyares (R) by around 6.5 percentage points. Jones had been down in the polls, trailing in the polling average by around 2 percentage points after texts were leaked showing him engaging in violent rhetoric towards Republicans.
California voted “Yes” on Proposition 50, the ballot measure that allows Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional lines in order to flip up to five U.S. House seats. With 71% of precincts reporting, “Yes” is winning by around 27.5 percentage points.
The three Democratic justices facing retention votes on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court all kept their seats, each winning by at least 30 percentage points to maintain the party’s 5-2 majority on the court.
Some other results worth flagging:
Democrats flipped two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, the low-profile state body that regulates utilities, with each of the party’s candidates defeating Republican incumbents by more than 20 percentage points. It was Democrats’ first non-federal statewide wins in Georgia since 2003.
Maine voters approved a ballot measure creating a “red flag” law, allowing families to petition a judge to temporarily take away the firearms of a troubled relative, and defeated a ballot measure that would have required voter ID and limited mail-in voting.
Colorado voters approved a pair of ballot measures aimed at funding free school meal for all public school students in the state.
Texas voters approved a pair of ballot measures affirming parental rights and a citizenship requirement for voting.
Democrat Ghazala Hashmi was elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, becoming the first Muslim woman to win statewide office anywhere in the U.S.
JD Vance’s half-brother, Republican Cory Bowman, lost his bid to become Mayor of Cincinatti, falling short against Democratic incumbent Aftab Pureval.
A few quick takeaways:
1. It was a great night for Democrats. If you’re looking for a positive outcome for Republicans from yesterday’s elections, you might be searching quite a while. Unless you count a Trump-backed county executive being re-elected on Long Island, I guess? In addition to running the table in the races above (some by large margins), Democrats also won a pair of statewide elections for lower court seats, notched their largest majority in the New Jersey State Assembly since 1973, and picked up control of the county legislature in Onondaga County, New York, for the first time in almost 50 years, among other victories.
According to the exit polls, Democrats also performed well among demographic groups they struggled with in 2024, including flipping several counties in New Jersey with large Latino populations that Trump won last year. That said…
2. Nothing from the night was too surprising, outside of several Democrats winning by healthier margins than had been expected. The only victorious Democrat who hadn’t been leading in the polls was Virginia Attorney General-elect Jay Jones, of violent text fame. Most of the races came with little suspense: the Associated Press called the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races within two hours of the polls closing; the approval of the California ballot measure was called 13 minutes after voting ended.
As I noted yesterday, these were largely races in blue states, where Democrats already boasted an advantage, and there’s strong reason to believe — based on Democratic overperformance in special and off-year elections over the last decade — that the electorates in races like these are simply not representative of the electorate at large, now that Democrats do so well among the highly engaged voters that are more likely to show up in these low-turnout races. Even so…
3. Why aren’t any Republicans looking into that? One of the strange features of our era is that both parties have obvious vulnerabilities that hold them back from important victories — for Democrats, its their depleted among rural voters; for Republicans, their losses among suburban, highly educated voters — but that neither one seems all that interested in reversing.
I don’t believe last night’s races in Democratic-friendly terrain should shift your priors that much about the broader national environment, but — just on its own terms — it should still be fairly alarming to Republicans how normal it’s become for them to lose these low-turnout elections. A handful of Republicans, including Vivek Ramaswamy, have started talking along these lines since last night; I’ll be curious if more crop up. President Trump, for one, is not among them: he wrote on Truth Social that a major reason for last night’s losses was “TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT,” without seeming to express much interest in investigating (or changing) the recurring dynamic of Republicans underperforming without his coattails.
Never much of a party man, Trump cares more about defending his image than helping the GOP get out of this rut in the future, but it’s not a great place for the party to be in — if for no other reason than it means biennially surrendering a lot of power across the board, from utility commissions (Georgia) to state Supreme Court seats (Pennsylvania) to the U.S. House (California). Speaking of…
4. On the national level, the most important contest was probably in California. The succesfful balot meuasre likely flipping five House seats will likely go a long way towards Democrats coutnering mid-decade redistriirtng efforts by Republicans. Add that to the fact that the party’s wins in Virginia make redistricting possible there and the announcement by Kansas Republicans that they won’t be redrawing their map, and you had a very good night for Democratic ambitions of retaking the House next year. But the race that will probably get the most attention is…
5. The Mamdani moment. It’s worth taking a moment to consider just how improbable Zohran Mamdani’s mayoralty would have been only 10 years ago: a democratic socialist winning in the center of capitalism; an ardent critical of Israel winning in the U.S. city with the largest Jewish population. This wouldn’t have been possible without the enormous changes brought about by two men: Bernie Sanders, who shifted the Overton Window to make it possible for a democratic socialist to win high office; and Benjamin Netanyahu, whose tenure as Israeli prime minister has coincided with an enormous swing public opinion swing away from Israel among Democrats in the United States.
And then, of course, there are factors specific to this race as well: Mamdani’s unique charisma, ability to break through in an era of vitality and algorithm video feeds, and relentless focus on the cost of living, as well as his luck in facing an opponent in Andrew Cuomo dragged down by unique baggage and scandal.
Either way, Mamdani has established himself at the leading edge of left politics in the U.S., and his mayoralty will be closely watched as a test of progressive governance on the local level. Republicans may not have scored many wins at the ballot box last night, but many of them believe they notched a longer-term victory in New York City, with a new bogeyman to hang around the Democrats’ necks in 2026.
It’s not the fact that Democrats won these races that is so important. I think that was expected. It’s the margins that are the news. I’m also a bit surprised that the CA redistricting won by such a huge margin. It’s a big win for Gavin, who will be looking for a new job soon.
Gabe, I think you missed a fairly wide discussion that you might have wanted to include about how Mamdami’s victory, clearly bait for the Republicans to call him the face of the Democratic Party, applies much more specifically to New York City and not the country as a whole. Would he have won in other cities-it’s pretty clear he wouldn’t because his whole message and focus was directed at the people of New York and their unique problems. You can’t really compare any other city to New York. So although the Republicans will try to call him the face of the party, it doesn’t really apply! I know you don’t want to be accused of falling for any particular party line.