Democrats sweep Tuesday’s off-year elections

Democrats swept Tuesday’s off year elections largely on an anti-President Donald Trump message, but any Democrat looking for a clear path to winning the 2026 midterms left the night frustrated at the diverse and sometimes conflicting political messages coming from the various candidates.

New York City elected its first Democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani. While Virginia elected its first female governor, moderate Abigail Spanberger, who once told her party in 2020 to “never” use the words “socialism or socialist” ever again.

New Jersey elected Democrat Mikie Sherrill, who ran on an anti-Trump platform. And in a harbinger of the 2026 elections Proposition 50 passed in California, giving Gov. Gavin Newsom the ability to gerrymander districts in that blue state in response to Trump’s push to redistrict red states to scrounge more Republican seats in what is looking to be yet another wave election next year.

While the night handed Democrats a series of victories, the party remains split between lurching left and the populism represented by Mamdani, or to the center and build on the successes seen by Spanberger and Sherrill.

Virginia

Soon after polls closed, Democrat Spanberger, a former congresswoman and CIA officer, was declared the winner in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.

Spanberger succeeds conservative Republican Glenn Youngkin, who cannot by law serve two consecutive terms. Spanberger beat Youngkin’s lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, who never won Trump’s endorsement, whom she’d criticized for seeking a second term.

Earle-Sears tried to focus the race on transgender issues and access to bathrooms, while Spanberger concentrated on her bipartisan record and, in the final weeks of the campaign, the effects of the government shutdown felt keenly in northern Virginia, home of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

In her victory speech, Spanberger again highlighted the importance of bipartisanship in an era of hyper-partisan divide. She also noted the historic nature of her campaign and the example she is setting not only for her three young daughters, but girls everywhere.

New Jersey

In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill beat out Republican Jack Ciattarelli in the Garden State’s gubernatorial race, becoming the first person to win a third consecutive term for one party in that state in 64 years.

Sherrill succeeds Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who leaves office with an approval rating on par with President Trump’s in a state where Democrats hold a 650,000 edge in voter registration. Still, Trump shocked the political world by making headway in the New York City suburbs in 2024 and Republicans hoped to improve on that momentum tonight. Trump endorsed Ciattarelli, who ran a largely MAGA campaign, though Trump only did tele-townhalls for him, rather than in-person campaign events.

Sherrill was elected to Congress in 2018 as part of the anti-Trump wave of female candidates that swept that year. She’s a former Naval officer and federal prosecutor who ran on a largely anti-Trump message. Trump’s recent remarks threatening to pull funding for the multibillion Gateway rail project between New Jersey and Manhattan — much-needed for New Jersey’s gridlocked commuters — to punish Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, over the government shut down, also did not help Ciattarelli.

New York City

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, the home of capitalism.

The city saw historic turnout in the race between Mamdani and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the primary to Mamdani. Cuomo received a last-minute endorsement from Trump, a surprise given how the two butted heads during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fact the Cuomo is, essentially, a Democrat.

Mamdani ran a populist campaign focused on affordability in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has been Trump’s bete noir on social media, foreshadowing Newsom’s anticipated 2028 presidential bid. After Trump pushed Texas and other GOP states to redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — a bid to overcome anticipated losses in the House, which traditionally swings against presidents in the first election after they’ve gained office — Newsom pushed Prop 50 to gerrymander California’s political map. The move, which would only last the next couple of years, could potentially give Democrats five more seats in Congress.

Trump said this week that the move is under “legal and criminal review” and accused Newsom of “rigging” the system against Republicans in a “giant scam.” Republicans control the House by just six votes.

Prop 50 passed handily, and Newsom has said he hopes other Democratic governors will follow his example and push similar measures through their states.