Democrats see path back to power after Tuesday's sweeping victories

WASHINGTON — The Democratic brand, badly bruised in 2024 when voters handed Republicans a governing trifecta in Washington, snapped to life Tuesday as the party collected victories up and down the ballot across the country.

Democrats won governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey while bolstering their legislative majorities in both states. California Democrats decisively backed a redistricting ballot measure framed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as an unequivocal response to President Donald Trump’s “recklessness.”

“Republicans woke up this morning and realized that they are no longer in a 2024 electoral environment,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said at a Wednesday news conference. “That’s over.”

Democrats predict that the off-cycle election victories will provide a jolt of momentum as the party gears up for next year’s midterm contests and will test whether Trump will continue to enjoy unbridled support for his policy agenda or face more aggressive oversight efforts from Capitol Hill.

Republicans largely dismissed the Democratic successes.

Trump blamed the losses on the government shutdown and the fact that he wasn’t on the ballot this year. Vice President JD Vance said it was “idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states.” And Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans remain “bullish” on their chances in next year’s elections.

“I don’t think the loss last night was any reflection about Republicans at all. I think people are frustrated and angry as we are,” Johnson, R-La., told reporters at the Capitol. “We’re looking forward to a great election running on our record, and we’re going to get all of our incumbents reelected and we’re going to add to the number here.”

But Republicans may need to find ways to turn out Trump voters next year — when, once again, his name won’t headline the GOP ticket.

“It just remains to be seen (whether) working-class, low-propensity voters turn out to vote when Donald Trump’s not on the ballot,” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said.

A winning message

Democrats see a focus on affordability as their path back to power on Capitol Hill next year after two of their own, New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill and former Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, won their gubernatorial races Tuesday.

“Our candidates, now governors-elect or mayors-elect, are on their way to serving their communities that they sought to represent because they leaned in aggressively on driving down the high cost of living and addressing the affordability crisis that we have throughout America,” Jeffries said during Wednesday’s news conference at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s headquarters.

“Democrats are going to continue to lean in on lowering the high cost of living,” Jeffries added, “and continue to make clear that Republicans haven’t done a damn thing to make their life more affordable.”

But Republicans are not ready to concede the issue, which polls suggest was a key reason for the party’s success in 2024.

“We’ve got to be talking about affordability. We’ve got to be talking about the cost of goods and services and reminding folks what we’ve been able to do so far with regard to energy prices and so forth,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds.

A memo from House Majority PAC, a super PAC with ties to House Democratic leaders, said Spanberger and Sherrill had each focused more than 60% of their ads on economic issues.

“These victories are replicable in 2026 if Democrats continue to put forward a proactive and relentless campaign focused on how we can lower costs and make Americans’ lives more affordable,” the memo stated.

Wins across the board

Around the country, Democrats saw wins that galvanized party leaders as they look ahead to 2026.

In New York City, Zohran Mamdani won the mayor’s office, beating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran on a third-party line.

In California, voters endorsed a gambit to counter partisan gerrymandering by Republicans in Texas with a new congressional map designed to make it easier for Democrats to flip five GOP-held seats and boost their odds of holding several swing districts. On Wednesday, Republicans filed a lawsuit, alleging the redrawn lines are unconstitutional.

It’s the latest development in the redistricting battle taking place all over the country. Kansas Republicans’ efforts appear to have stalled for now after state House Speaker Dan Hawkins said legislators would not convene in a special session to attempt to draw a new map that would make it more difficult for Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids to win another term.

But Democrats’ winning streak extended to lower-profile contests as well. A pair of Democrats won two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates energy and telecom companies. Democrats expanded their majority in the Virginia House by flipping 13 seats. The party also notched big wins on the local level in central New York, Connecticut and Luzerne County, Penn.

Connecticut Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, who has pushed his fellow Democrats to take a more aggressive stance against the president, said the results should give the party “confidence that the American people have our back as we engage in the fight to protect people’s health care and save our democracy.”

Tuesday’s results also suggest that the GOP’s recent gains with Latino voters may have a short shelf life. Republicans had been counting on the shifts in the urban enclaves of northern New Jersey, the border districts of South Texas and other places with significant numbers of Latino voters to boost their midterm hopes.

But Sherrill carried New Jersey’s Passaic County, which is home to a significant Latino population, by 15 points after Trump carried the county in 2024.

Latino voters took a chance that Trump “was actually going to focus on their cost of living, and that had not occurred,” Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego said Monday in an interview with CNN.

“They’re also worried about what’s happening with immigration enforcement right now,” added Gallego, who campaigned with Sherrill in Hudson County last weekend. “And they decided that the first opportunity for them to protest the fact that their cost of living is still high, that they’re being racially profiled and made to feel like the other by this administration … they’re going to push back, and that’s what you saw happen.”

The Mamdani effect

Republicans have been signaling that they would try to tie Democratic candidates to Mamdani ever since he won the Democratic primary in June and had already begun ramping up their messaging on the 34-year-old self-described democratic socialist before Tuesday.

The National Republican Congressional Committee launched an ad campaign Wednesday across 49 battleground districts linking Democrats to Mamdani, saying that he “built his movement on defunding the police and abolishing ICE” and that the “socialists are celebrating.”

In a Wednesday letter to donors, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called Mamdani Democrats’ standard-bearer and urged early investment in Senate races.

“We cannot afford to wait until next fall to start fighting back,” Scott wrote. “The left is already organizing, recruiting, and raising millions to elect their mini-Mamdanis.”

Speaking on MSNBC on election night, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has herself long been a favorite target of Republicans, said the “face” of the Democratic Party could be different in different parts of the country.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think that our party needs to have one face,” she said. “It’s about all of us as a team together, and we all understand the assignment. Our assignment everywhere is to send the strongest fighters for the working class wherever possible.”

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Jacob Fulton, Chris Johnson and Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.

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