Democratic wins ignite questions about Trump's midterm coattails

WASHINGTON — A Democratic romp in Tuesday’s off-year elections is raising new questions about President Donald Trump’s coattails heading into a key midterm election year.

“On Nov. 5, 2024, the American people reclaimed our government. We restored our sovereignty. We lost a little bit of sovereignty last night in New York. But we’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it,” Trump quipped Wednesday at a business conference in Miami, referring to the Big Apple’s mayoral race.

He then began boasting about the 2024 election, which delivered much more good news for Trump than Tuesday’s races did in many places, before touting his first nine months back in office. But he acknowledged that “we could have done a little better in terms of candidates.”

“These results do not have to be predictive of next year, but we are halfway on the road to the midterm, and the check-engine light is on for Republicans,” Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics said in a Wednesday email.

“Just as he was in 2017-2018, Trump seems like a drag on the Republicans in these off-year elections. This is not unusual for an unpopular president in a midterm environment,” he added. “I do actually wonder if Trump will be even more of a drag in 2026 —the reason is that perceptions of the economy were better eight years ago than they are now.”

Most political professionals were largely focused on four big races: the New York City mayoral race, gubernatorial battles in Virginia and New Jersey and a redistricting measure in California pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has confirmed mulling a 2028 presidential bid. Democrats swept them — easily.

Former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent said Wednesday that “the president says he wasn’t on the ballot, but he was in the sense people were voting against him,” adding: “If you’re a Republican running in a district that’s remotely competitive, be ready to run into a very heavy headwind.”

The former Pennsylvania lawmaker’s advice for GOP incumbents and candidates heading into the midterm year: “Find some distance between themselves and the president. If you’re going to just double down on the tariffs and the (White House) ballroom and all this stuff, what would be the point in even running? … If you’re an incumbent, I would start introducing bills limiting his authority on tariffs and addressing the economy.”

One Republican strategist, granted anonymity to be candid, called Tuesday’s results a “reversion to the main,” saying “the headwinds for Republicans are what the headwinds are.”

“For Trump and the Republicans, the big question for ‘26 is: How do you get out those low-propensity Trump voters who went and voted in big numbers in those purple districts and states last time? That will be huge next year,” the strategist said in a telephone interview. “One way to do that is to tie Democratic candidates in those 18 (competitive) House districts and probably three Senate races to the assassination- and communism-crazed people who won last night.

“And no one is better at doing that than the marketer in chief, Donald Trump,” the strategist added. “I think they are, again, not understanding how important immigration and crime will be in those purple districts this time next year. Those are issues Trump can really help with.”

Republicans had hoped strides the 2024 Trump campaign took to win over more Latino voters would carry into future elections. But two Garden State counties with sizable Latino populations, Cumberland and Passaic, went for Democrat Mikie Sherrill in Tuesday’s gubernatorial race.

Even before the California result was official, Trump appeared eager to distance himself from the election outcomes, writing on Truth Social: “‘TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,’ according to Pollsters.”

Some prominent Democrats, however, argued the president could not run from the results.

“There is clearly a stink to being associated with Donald Trump, something that Republicans in office need to think about when they’re deciding whether to rubber stamp his destructive actions in the months ahead,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, said in a video posted on the social platform X.

Longtime Trump critic and fellow-New Yorker Charles E. Schumer on Tuesday night was quick to blame Trump for his party’s off-year stumbles.

“These victories show continued momentum for Democrats and represent a growing midterm backlash against Republicans who have fallen in line behind Trump’s chaos and dysfunction, and in 2026, voters will hold GOP Senate candidates accountable,” the Senate minority leader said in a statement.

The GOP strategist said Republican circles on Wednesday were abuzz with chatter about over-confident Democrats: “I’m hearing a lot of Dems pushing out their chests and saying, ‘We’re back.’ But I don’t know. The midterms are in a year — that’s a long time, guys.”

For his part, during remarks Wednesday morning to GOP senators over breakfast at the White House, Trump downplayed Tuesday’s results, contending “last night was not expected to be a victory,” adding: “I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I’m not sure it was good for anybody.”

‘Knew what was coming’

Trump put the most presidential oomph into the New York City mayor’s race, going hard after Democrat Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, and endorsing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, as the race neared the finish line.

As ballots were being cast in the city’s five boroughs, the president posted this on Truth Social: “Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!”

In public comments in recent months, Trump used Mamdani’s self-described socialist label to argue he actually was a “communist” — and that he represented a hard pivot to the left by the entire Democratic Party. Trump at times appeared to use Mamdani’s candidacy as an opening argument for the coming 2026 midterm election.

But the president was notably less vocal about the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia. The former was surprising considering Trump only lost the Garden State by 6 percentage points last November after losing it by nearly 16 percentage points in 2020 and almost 13 points in 2016.

In Virginia, with polls showing Democrat Abigail Spanberger had a clear advantage, Trump withheld his endorsement and never got behind Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

He weighed in on both governors races on Tuesday.

“Why would anyone vote for New Jersey and Virginia Gubernatorial Candidates, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, when they want transgender for everybody, men playing in women’s sports, High Crime, and the most expensive Energy prices almost anywhere in the World?” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump and White House officials largely have stayed out of the fight in the Golden State. When the fight-focused president sits out a political battle and says little about it, that’s typically a sign he is resigned to a defeat.

“He knew what was coming,” the GOP strategist said of Tuesday’s results. But what is less clear is whether Trump and Republicans fully understand what many voters are experiencing at the cash register.

“Affordability was huge, especially in the New Jersey governor race,” Dent said. “It speaks to a detachment at the White House and from Republicans about what people are facing financially. … Republicans do need to speak to matters of the economy. That certainly worked for them in the 2024 campaign.”

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