Democrats sweep first major elections of second Trump term

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BRENDAN McDERMID / REUTERS

Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, arrives for a campaign event at a senior center in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City on Friday. Mamdani is the projected winner of today’s race.

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MIKE SEGAR / REUTERS

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Democratic nominee for New Jersey stands with her husband Jason Hedberg after casting her ballot on Election Day in Montclair, N.J. today. Sherrill is the projected winner of today’s race.

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JAY PAUL / REUTERS

Democrat Abigail Spanberger gives her victory speech after defeating Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia’s race for governor in Richmond, Va., tonight.

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ANGELINA KATSANIS / REUTERS

Voters wait in line to fill out their ballots at a polling site on Election Day in the New York mayoral election in the Brooklyn borough of New York City today.

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WASHINGTON >> Democrats swept a trio of races today in the first major elections since Donald Trump regained the presidency, elevating a new generation of leaders and giving the beleaguered party a shot of momentum ahead of next year’s congressional elections.

In New York City, Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, won the mayoral race, capping a meteoric and unlikely rise from an anonymous state lawmaker to one of the country’s most visible Democratic figures.

And in Virginia and New Jersey, moderate Democrats Abigail Spanberger, 46, and Mikie Sherrill, 53, won the elections for governor with commanding leads, respectively.

Today’s contests offered a barometer of how Americans are responding to Trump’s tumultuous nine months in office. The races also served as a test of differing Democratic campaign playbooks ahead of 2026, with the party locked out of power in Washington and still trying to forge a path out of the political wilderness.

That said, the midterm election is a year away, an eternity in the Trump era, and opinion polls show the Democratic brand remains broadly unpopular, even as Trump’s own approval rating has declined. The contests today also all unfolded in Democratic-leaning regions that did not support Trump in last year’s presidential election.

Perhaps the biggest practical boost to Democrats today came out of California, where voters gave Democratic lawmakers the power to redraw the state’s congressional map, expanding a national battle over redistricting that will shape the race for the U.S. House of Representatives.

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The winning candidates today could reenergize and inspire more engagement from Democratic voters, many of whom have clamored for fresh faces at the vanguard of the party. Turnout in the New York City mayoral race was the highest since at least 1969.

All three Democratic candidates emphasized economic issues, particularly affordability, an issue that remains top of mind for most voters.

But Spanberger and Sherrill hail from the party’s moderate wing, while Mamdani used a viral video-fueled insurgent campaign to present himself as an unabashed progressive in the mold of Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and fellow New Yorker, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“The Democratic Party is back,” Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, wrote on X.

Mamdani, who will become the first Muslim mayor of the biggest U.S. city, outlasted former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 67, who ran as an independent after losing the nomination to Mamdani earlier this year. Cuomo, who resigned as governor four years ago after sexual harassment allegations that he has denied, portrayed Mamdani as a radical leftist whose proposals were unworkable and dangerous.

Mamdani has called for raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for ambitious left-wing policies such as frozen rents, free childcare and free city buses. Wall Street executives have expressed concern about putting a democratic socialist at the helm of the financial capital of the world.

Republicans have already signaled they intend to present Mamdani as the face of the Democratic Party. Trump has incorrectly labeled Mamdani a “communist” and vowed to cut funding for the city in response to Mamdani’s ascension.

In a social media post tonight, Trump blamed the losses on the fact his name was not on the ballot and on an ongoing federal government shutdown.

Spanberger, who beat Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, will take over from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. New Jersey’s Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli and will succeed Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

Both Sherrill and Spanberger had sought to tie their opponents to Trump in an effort to harness frustration among Democratic and independent voters over his chaotic tenure.

“We sent a message to the world that in 2025 Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Spanberger said in her victory speech. “We chose our Commonwealth over chaos.”

Trump gave both candidates some late-stage grist during the ongoing government shutdown.

His administration threatened to fire federal workers — a move with an outsized impact on Virginia, a state adjacent to Washington, D.C., and home to many government employees. He froze billions in funding for a new Hudson River train tunnel, a critical project for New Jersey’s large commuter population.

In interviews at Virginia polling stations today, some voters said Trump’s most contentious policies were on their minds, including his efforts to deport immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and to impose costly tariffs on imports of foreign goods, the legality of which is being weighed by the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

Juan Benitez, a self-described independent, was voting for the first time. The 25-year-old restaurant manager backed all of Virginia’s Democratic candidates because of his opposition to Trump’s immigration policies and the federal government shutdown, for which he blamed Trump.

For Republicans, today’s elections served as a test of whether the voters who powered Trump’s victory in 2024 will still show up when he is not on the ballot.

But Ciattarelli and Earle-Sears, both running in Democratic-leaning states, faced a conundrum: criticizing Trump risked losing his supporters, but embracing him too closely could have alienated moderate and independent voters who disapprove of his policies.

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