All kinds of Democrats won all kinds of races Tuesday night, as the party swept governors’ mansions, clinched the New York mayorship and is in the fight for an improbable Miami one, ran up huge margins in state legislatures, dominated critical judicial elections and cruised to victory in California’s redistricting initiative.
Races thought to be nailbiters transformed into blowouts; Mikie Sherrill, who polls showed leading Jack Ciattarelli by a paltry single-digit margin, is up 13 percent with nearly all of the vote counted.
The blue tsunami washed up on purple shores, with two Democrats winning spots on the Georgia Public Service Commission in an upset — the first Democrats to win a non-federal election statewide in 20 years.
Democrats won in understated contests — sweeping the judicial elections in Pennsylvania, including retaining three liberal judges on the state Supreme Court — and in the buzziest ones, as Zohran Mamdani became New York’s first Muslim mayor on the strength of over a million votes.
In voters’ first chance to act after nine months of President Trump’s term, they voted against his party in whatever vessel was presented to them — moderate or Democratic socialist, judge or public service commissioner, redistricting initiative or vote-by-mail question.
Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s shallacking:
Trump’s Much Ballyhooed Electoral Alignment Appears Fragile
The conventional wisdom of the 2024 election was simple: Trump cleaned Kamala Harris’ clock with young men and Latinos, and that spelled unmitigated doom for the Democratic Party’s future.
A year later, with preliminary data, those groups are looking squishy.
Men 18-29 voted for Spanberger by 14 points, Sherrill by 10 and Mamdani by 40 points, according to NBC exit polls.
In 2024, Harris won 51 percent of Latinos in New Jersey, to Trump’s 46. Last night, Sherrill got 64 percent to Ciattarelli’s 32, per CNN’s exit polls. In Hudson County, New Jersey, with its heavily Hispanic cities, Sherrill rebounded to surpass President Joe Biden’s 2020 numbers. Spanberger, too, reportedly won Latinos on a two-to-one margin.
Republican Redistricting Looks Very Risky All of a Sudden
The risk in drawing aggressive gerrymanders, as Republicans did in a few red states and plan to do in several more, is that your candidates inherently get put in more competitive districts. In wave elections, those newly vulnerable lawmakers can get swept away.
“Tonight is such a blowout so far that I wonder if it gives some Rs pause about redistricting in states that are still pondering it,” tweeted Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA. “They already needed to ‘stress-test’ the districts (and they did in TX-NC-MO, I think, even considering tonight), but still.”
If Tuesday is a sign of where the midterm winds are blowing, the Republican gerrymanders may lead to bigger Democratic gains — on top of the big Democratic (Gavin Newsom) win, as voters approved a defensive California gerrymander by almost 64 percent.
Maybe Don’t Send Virginia Sliding Towards a Recession If You’re Hoping to Win There
While Spanberger and Sherrill, surprisingly, ended up winning their races by similarly convincing margins, the former’s coattails were notably long in a commonwealth battered by DOGE cuts and the government shutdown.
She pulled Attorney General-elect Jay Jones over the line, whose leaked texts fantasizing about murdering a Republican colleague put a dent in his momentum (ironically enough, Republican Del. Carrie Coyner, who leaked the texts, lost her seat Tuesday night).
And Democrats massively ran up the score in the Virginia House of Delegates, on track to win at least 64 seats, up from 51. Spanberger will have a trifecta, easing the path to a retaliatory gerrymander that Democrats in the state legislature have been drawing up to help combat Republican line-drawing elsewhere (though the governor doesn’t have an official role, Spanberger losing likely would have doomed the effort).
Additionally — expect the results here to be a shot in the arm for congressional Democrats in the shutdown battle. They are not at all being punished by the greatest stronghold of federal workers outside D.C.
Trump Did Not Help
The phenomenon of Republican underperformance when Trump’s name is not on the ballot continues. In New Jersey, Citarelli embraced Trump and was embraced back (though he also ran a substantive, affordability-based campaign), while Winsome Earle-Sears (a lousy candidate in general) failed to win his support in the closing days. It didn’t matter — both got walloped.
Additionally, in the sober light of Wednesday morning, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought may be rethinking his tweet crowing about closing down the Hudson Tunnel Project (New Jersey) and the Second Avenue Subway (New York) as punishment for the shutdown. Sherrill and Mamdani thank him for his contribution.
‘Soft On Crime’ Attacks Didn’t Really Work
Progressive defense attorneys Alvin Bragg in Manhattan and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia cruised to reelection — noteworthy given the administration’s constant hollering about crime-ridden cities and the need to send troops in to quiet them.
Heads Republicans Win, Tails Democrats Lose
Despite the absolute trouncing Democrats just delivered, the thumb-twiddling headlines are already popping up like mushrooms after a storm: “Victories in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere were decisive, but new political tests loom for a party still rebuilding its brand,” the New York Times fretted. “Democrats finally get to celebrate, yet questions remain about the party’s path forward,” The Wall Street Journal counseled.
The exercise is tired, but this is not how Republicans are covered when they win big, no matter the underlying uneasiness of the coalition.
Now My Own Negative Caveat
Most of these races happened in blue country (albeit sometimes in red pockets of blue country). Democrats are going to have to win on Trump terrain to take back the Senate — though Tuesday’s enthusiasm suggests that such a feat may be possible, which almost no one thought before this.
Being JD’s Half-Brother Is Not Enough
And for a bonus: JD Vance’s half-brother Republican Cory Bowman got trounced in his race for Cincinnati mayor. Vance had endorsed him before the primary. Incumbent mayor Aftab Pureval got 78 percent of the vote.
This is what I have been suggesting. Gerrymandering is an art form. A party can get too greedy. In a wave election gerrymander pigs get to eat. Gerrymander hogs get slaughtered.
I didn’t know Vance had any siblings. I wonder what their reaction to his book was.
Turd Blossom (aka Karl Rove) and Russ Vought both believed/believe that they could/can establish a permanent minority-majority by simply suppressing people hard enough. It didn’t work for Rove and I sincerely hope this is strong evidence that it won’t work for Vought either.
Democrats in disarray!
I have been thinking about Vought. Somebody is truly working hard to make sure Trump doesn’t do what should be done right now to end the shutdown. My guess is that is Vought. He is a real turd.