Takeaways from US election night 2025

WASHINGTON - The 2025 off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City and California provided an early barometer of how some US voters view President Donald Trump’s second term and the Democratic Party’s efforts to revive its political fortunes.

Here are some takeaways from election night.

A way forward for Democrats?

New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill and Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger may have provided a blueprint for how Democrats can get their mojo back in 2026’s congressional elections.

They have much in common.

Each was first elected to Congress in 2018, during the midterms in Mr Trump’s first term.

In 2025, they both ran as problem-solving moderates with backgrounds in national security and laser-focused their campaigns on affordability issues while positioning themselves as bulwarks against Mr Trump.

To a party starved for good news, Ms Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, and Ms Spanberger, a former CIA officer, provided it.

While their wins were not huge surprises given that their states tend to support Democrats more than Republicans, their broad margins of victory may bolster the argument that their approach could work in 2026’s midterms, when Democrats hope to wrest back control of Congress.

With votes still being counted, Ms Sherrill appeared to have bested her opponent Jack Ciattarelli by a greater margin in New Jersey than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris beat Mr Trump there in 2024.

There were also signs that Ms Spanberger was outperforming Ms Harris in Virginia.

Ms Sherrill and Ms Spanberger, along with New York mayoral winner Zohran Mamdani, promoted affordability as a central campaign theme.

Ms Spanberger’s “Affordable Virginia” plan focused on lowering healthcare, housing and energy costs, and she vowed to make tech data centres to pay “their fair share” of electricity costs.

Ms Sherrill’s “Affordability Agenda” targeted similar concerns. She pledged to declare a statewide energy emergency and freeze electricity rates.

Mr Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, said that while it’s always tricky to determine how off-year election results might play in the 2026’s midterms, Democrats can take some lessons away from Nov 4.

“If Trump keeps taking a sledgehammer to people’s pocketbooks, that is an easy thing for Democrats to run on,” Mr Payne said.

The Mamdani question

The two groups happiest that Mr Mamdani won the New York City mayor’s race?

His supporters and national Republicans, who are eager to paint the self-described democratic socialist as the new face of the Democratic Party.

“His election is proof that the Democrat Party has abandoned common sense and tied themselves to extremism,” Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement.

“Next year, Democrats will be held accountable by voters for embracing Mamdani’s far-left agenda and the consequences it will bring.”

Mr Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said Mr Mamdani’s win overshadows victories by moderates Ms Sherrill and Ms Spanberger, and he said Mr Trump will work to tag every Democrat running in a competitive US House race in 2026 as a Mr Mamdani clone.

“It’s going to be an ace in the hole for Republicans running in purple House districts,” Mr O’Connell said.

Mr Matt Bennett, vice-president of Third Way, a Democratic centrist think tank, saw things differently, saying that the New Jersey and Virginia wins will have more staying power for the party.

“I think it’s vastly more important that moderates won in big states that often elect Republican governors than it is that a far-left candidate won in NYC,” Mr Bennett said.

But US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Mr Mamdani backer, suggested that Mr Mamdani’s victory heralds the party’s future.

Mr Mamdani “had to defeat a Republican and the old guard of the Democratic Party,” she said. “The Democratic Party cannot last much longer by denying the future, by trying to undercut our young,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN.

The limits of Maga

Ms Spanberger’s decisive victory in Virginia may also illustrate the limits of Mr Trump’s Maga movement.

Ms Spanberger’s opponent, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the state’s lieutenant governor, has been a strong supporter of Mr Trump’s agenda, including the move to slash thousands of federal jobs, Mr Trump’s support for the federal government shutdown and his imposition of heavy tariffs on imports.

In TV ads and public remarks, Ms Spanberger tried to tie Ms Earle-Sears to Mr Trump at every turn.

Ms Spanberger, meanwhile, was buoyed by running in a state that is highly dependent on federal jobs and at a time when voters nationwide cited the cost of living as their number one concern, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said.

“Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Ms Spanberger told supporters after she was declared the winner.

As if to back up her words, she sported a red suit jacket, the colour most closely associated with Republicans, rather than Democratic blue.

The Trump factor

Though he wasn’t on the ballot, Mr Trump’s influence was inescapable on Nov 4.

The elections took place as the president’s approval rating dipped to the lowest point so far during his second term, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, with voters zeroing in on affordability concerns.

In the Virginia governor’s race, of the 36 per cent of voters who said opposing Mr Trump was a factor in their vote, 98 per cent came out for Ms Spanberger, according to the SSRS Voter Poll, conducted for a consortium of US networks and the Associated Press.

It was a similar story in the contest for New Jersey governor, where 39 per cent of voters said opposing Mr Trump played a role in their vote.

They overwhelmingly voted for Democrat Mikie Sherrill.

Both Ms Spanberger and Ms Sherrill – along with Mr Zohran Mamdani – made standing up to Mr Trump a central theme of their campaigns.

In September, Ms Sherrill said of her Republican rival Jack Ciattarelli: “He’ll do whatever Trump tells him to do”, while she pledged she would “fight anybody to work for you”.

Throughout his political career, Mr Trump has shown a limited ability to transfer his popularity to other Republican candidates.

Mr Ciattarelli and Ms Earle-Sears found that out on Nov 4. REUTERS