Democratic wins in Tuesday’s elections gave the party a sorely needed burst of momentum ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The party came in favored in races for Virginia and New Jersey governor, New York City mayor and a California ballot measure to green-light a Democratic gerrymander of the state’s congressional map.
But the huge margins in those governor’s races and other contests left many Democrats feeling a new emotion — excitement — for the first time in some time. The results affirmed the candidates’ decisions to run economic-centered campaigns, highlighted Republicans’ trouble replicating President Donald Trump’s coalition and included other signs of repudiation and warning for Trump.
Even as they caution there are limits to how much these Democratic victories in several blue-leaning areas can translate into 2026 midterm elections on far more competitive turf, some Republicans are sounding the alarm.
“It was a bloodbath. It’s a disastrous night for Republicans in the state, and I think nationally folks should probably heed some warnings as well,” said Mike DuHaime, a longtime New Jersey GOP strategist and former Republican National Committee political director. “It shows there’s some discontent certainly with the current administration and it shows that candidates and campaigns matter as well”
Here are six big takeaways from Tuesday’s campaigns — and what they mean for Trump, the midterms, and more.
Democrats worked to make Trump an issue in their races, and it worked.
New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill and Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger blamed Trump for voters’ economic woes, while proponents of California’s Proposition 50 framed their redistricting campaign as a way to push back on the president.
Across all three states, exit polls show the president was a factor for a majority of voters, with most of those voters saying they saw their ballot as a way to oppose Trump.
Spanberger and Sherrill won virtually all of the nearly 40% of voters in their states who saw their votes as a way to oppose Trump. In California, a majority of voters said the main reason for their proposition vote was to oppose Trump, and almost all of them supported the proposition.
“This couldn’t be a louder rebuke of Trump and Republicans,” Democratic National Committee executive director Libby Schneider said in an interview. “So it’s sort of a new day for Democrats tomorrow, but we’re going to get right back to fighting.”
Meanwhile, more than 60% of voters in New Jersey and Virginia also said they were “dissatisfied or angry” about the way things are going in the country. Out of that group, 77% said they voted for Spanberger and 75% backed Sherrill.
A majority of Virginia voters (56%) said cuts to the federal government this year affected their family’s finances either a lot or a little, and two-thirds of those voters broke for Spanberger. And majorities across both Virginia and New Jersey said the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement has gone too far, with the Democratic nominees winning about 90% of those who feel that way.
Spanberger, Sherrill and Democrat Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York mayoral race, were all rewarded for making affordability and economic issues the center of the campaigns. Their victories came as voters have expressed deep dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the economy, as outlined in the new NBC News poll released Sunday.
National Democrats had largely seen the races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia as a key test of their candidates’ focus on economic issues, after struggling on the issue in 2024, when Democrats controlled the White House and were seen as “owning” an unsteady economy.
“Democrats win when we make it about what’s going on at the local mall, not on the national mall,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist and veteran of Virginia campaigns.
Tuesday’s results in Virginia and New Jersey showed that “people think Trump has made life harder and more expensive,” Ferguson continued, adding that, “Our candidates win — and can win big — when they show they’re not part of that problem but the solution.”
The economy proved to be a top concern among Democratic voters, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Nearly half of Virginia voters said it was the most important issue facing the state. Of those who said the economy was the most important issue, 59% supported Spanberger, while 39% backed GOP Lt. Gov Winsome Earle-Sears.
While Republican Jack Ciattarelli won New Jersey voters who said taxes are the most important issue facing the state, Sherrill also won voters who said the top issue is the economy.
Mamdani-style progressivism and the more centrist model of the Democratic Party embodied by Spanberger and Sherrill painted different pictures in these elections. But Democratic consultant Sam Cornale, a former top official at the Democratic National Committee, said it would be a mistake to read Tuesday’s results as a “fork in the road” that forces his party to choose between different directions.
Instead, it’s what connects the winning Democratic campaigns that illuminates a single path for the party, he said, pointing to a tone of optimism that articulates a policy vision on issues like affordability — rather than simply attacking Trump — and the tactics of taking a message into politically hostile turf.
“That’s how they’ve campaigned,” Cornale said. “That’s the model.”
Tuesday’s elections also effectively kicked off next year’s battle for control of Congress.
California voters green-lit a new congressional map that could help Democrats flip up to five U.S. House seats from the state, a major victory for Democrats that helps to counter Republican redistricting efforts in other states.
Democratic victories in Virginia — both at the statewide level and in expanding their majority in the state House — keep the party’s hopes of redrawing the congressional maps there alive too.
And the three victories in Pennsylvania to retain Democratic-backed state Supreme Court justices retain the party’s edge on the court, which has decided a handful of high-profile election-related cases in recent years.
More broadly, the results also provide other clues of what the state of play will be in key states and districts ahead of next year’s major elections.
Beyond the marquee races, for example, Democrats got more good news down the ballot in Georgia, where the party won two statewide elections for the state’s Public Service Commission in what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes were the first Democratic victories in statewide, non-federal elections in almost 20 years.
Meanwhile, while Mamdani’s victory in New York marked a historic night for the Democrats, some Republicans are hopeful that they’ve found a new bogeyman to energize their voters — a strategy that could spread to key House districts in the New York area and beyond next year.
Republicans continue to have trouble getting Trump’s supporters to vote when he is not on the ballot.
”Trying to be Donald Trump in a state that he lost is not enough, even if you execute the strategy,” said DuHaime, the New Jersey Republican strategist. “It’s impossible to put together Trump’s coalition. It is unique to Trump.”
Trump made big gains in the Garden State in 2024 compared to his 2020 loss, performing better in working-class communities and more diverse parts of the state, including heavily Latino counties.
But Ciattarelli struggled to replicate that coalition, even with Trump’s endorsement.
While Ciattarelli had a 7-point lead among voters without college degrees, Sherrill won voters making less than $100,000 and young men. Sherrill also appeared to easily win Latino voters, based on exit polling. She is heading for double-digit leads in heavily Latino counties including Passaic, which Trump flipped in 2024.
Trump did not campaign with Ciattarelli in person, but he did hold a pair of telerallies. And Ciattarelli did not distance himself from the president.
While Mamdani ran far to the left of Spanberger and Sherrill, all three fit their races.
Spanberger and Sherrill provided lessons about “winning in this era,” Ferguson said, especially as it pertains to swing and independent voters, while Mamdani’s win should teach the party about “communicating in this moment.” According to the exit polls, the gubernatorial contenders’ personal favorability was better than the Democratic Party’s.
Meanwhile, despite all the headwinds favoring Spanberger in Virginia, outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin still received high marks in exit polls. But Earle-Sears, his lieutenant governor, couldn’t replicate his 2021 winning coalition.
“Winsome wasn’t able to capitalize,” said Zack Roday, a Virginia-based Republican strategist. “Only strong candidates and relentless campaigns can even hope to seize the common sense mantle like Trump and Youngkin have done so effectively.”
Though Mamdani ran a strong campaign in his own right, with his finger on the pulse of an electorate that was deeply concerned about cost of living, there was another important ingredient in his victory: His top opponents were hamstrung by serious personal baggage.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his main rival, resigned the governorship in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations. Mayor Eric Adams faced a corruption indictment and then had it dropped by the Trump administration, which soured his political standing in a deep-blue city.
One of the most telling data points from Tuesday’s elections was that Democrat Jay Jones won his race for Virginia attorney general — and it wasn’t close.
Just weeks earlier, Jones’ campaign seemed doomed after reporting about violent texts from 2022 in which he suggested that Virginia’s then-Republican House speaker get “two bullets to the head.” Another text from Jones discussed violence against that lawmaker’s children.
But partisanship trumped past transgressions. About 8 in 10 voters who called those texts disqualifying voted for Miyares, and almost the same share of voters who felt the texts were not a concern voted for Jones, the NBC News Exit Poll shows.
Democratic voters told NBC News ahead of Election Day that while they strongly objected to those texts, they voted for him anyway to give Spanberger an ally to help achieve her policy goals.
Then there’s California, and the curious case of voters tut-tutting about partisan redistricting — while approving partisan redistricting.
Fully 92% of California voters said a nonpartisan commission should draw each state’s congressional district lines. Yet a majority of those people voted to approve the new maps that sidestepped the independent redistricting commission.