A Big Night for Democrats
TLP's reflections on the 2025 elections and what comes next for the party.
Editor’s note: In the end, it wasn’t a particularly close evening. Democrats won handily in all three critical elections last night. Even New Jersey was a double-digit win for the party, after polls indicated a tight race or possible upset going into Election Day. Off-year elections typically don’t predict much, but they do give us an indication about the mood of the electorate and what’s on voters’ minds ahead of congressional midterms next year and the first post-Trump presidential election in 2028.
We’ll have more to say about the geography and demography of these elections in future posts, but here are our initial thoughts on the results and what they might mean.
Democrats are fired up.
Last night’s elections had one overarching theme: Democratic voters are fired up. This energy produced several big wins for the party, including in races for New Jersey and Virginia governor, the Virginia House of Delegates, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the Georgia Public Service Commission. There was nary a bright spot for Republicans last evening.
Democrats’ success no doubt stemmed from the fact that many Americans are displeased with President Trump’s performance so far in his second term. Consider these highlights from the initial exit polls:
In Virginia, nearly half (48 percent) of voters highlighted the economy as the biggest issue facing the state, and they broke for Democrat Abigail Spanberger over Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by an overwhelming margin (63 to 37). A smaller share pointed to the economy alone as the top issue in New Jersey, but those who did supported Democrat Mikie Sherrill over Republican Jack Ciattarelli by an even wider margin (65 to 35).
In both states, roughly 40 percent of voters said one reason for their vote was to oppose Trump, and those who agreed backed Spanberger and Sherrill almost without exception.
Nearly 60 percent of voters in Virginia said that the federal government’s cuts had affected their family’s finances.
President Trump’s approval rating was deeply underwater in both states: 42 percent in New Jersey and 39 percent in Virginia.
In both states, nearly two-thirds of voters reported feeling “dissatisfied or angry,” and they broke for Spanberger and Sherrill by more than 50 points each.
It’s not all that surprising that a president who campaigned on tackling inflation but has done little to tame it—and who has also made himself a daily presence in Americans’ lives and taken direct aim at many of those who oppose him—faced steep backlash in the first major election of his term. Many Democrats are no doubt feeling rejuvenated this morning. And indeed, these wins carry real and immediate benefits for the party; namely, they now have power in places where they previously did not.
However, Democrats must be careful not to overlearn the lessons of this election either. For starters, as Ruy notes, their victories in New Jersey and Virginia were powered by college-educated voters, while working-class voters, who are overrepresented in battleground states, remain steadfastly against them. This is a reminder that the party has deeper, structural issues that must still be tended to, even in the face of these victories.
Secondly, one does not need to look too far into the past to find examples of the out-party having a solid off-year election, only for those results to be a bad predictor of what lay ahead. For example, though Republicans made historic gains in the 2010 midterms, Barack Obama won a second term in 2012. After the “blue wave” elections of 2017 and 2018, Trump was just 45,000 away from winning re-election in 2020—and likely would have but for a once-in-a-century pandemic. Republicans’ overperformance in the 2021 races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia was followed by a midterm election in which Democrats bucked historical trends in key races. And, of course, Democrats’ success in that midterm masked real vulnerabilities that Trump exploited in 2024.
One bit of exit-poll data that should serve as a warning sign for Democrats is that while voters for whom Trump was a factor strongly supported them, a plurality of voters (45 percent) in both states said he was not—and they broke heavily for Republicans. This suggests something we have highlighted for some time now: there are diminishing returns to anti-Trump sentiment, and campaigns in less Democratic-leaning states will almost certainly need more if the party is to have success next year and in 2028.
—Michael Baharaeen
The class gap continues.
It was a good night for Democrats, which confirmed that their coalition, now tilted toward educated, engaged voters, is likely to overperform in non-presidential elections where their coalition’s turnout advantage has the most effect. Granted that the marquee 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey were in blue states and President Trump is not popular, Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s easy victories show that their coalition can be mobilized in off-year elections to deliver strong victories given competent, well-run campaigns.
Beyond that, one should not read too much into the Democrats’ performance given the historically poor power of these elections to predict future ones. The 2026 and 2028 elections will be fought on a much, much wider playing field with different electorates and a political terrain that is difficult to predict. Still, Democrats can take heart that their coalition has passed an initial test that, had they not done well, would have further demoralized an already demoralized party. Of course, now they’ll have the reverse problem: clearing this low bar will make many Democrats too confident that their problems have been solved when such optimism is not merited.
One such problem is the class gap in support. Democrats now do far better among college-educated voters than among the working-class (noncollege) voters. This election was no exception. Indeed, comparing the 2024 and 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey using the preliminary AP/NORC VoteCast results indicates you can account for almost all of Democrats’ overperformance in 2025 relative to 2024 (both Spanberger and Sherrill ran ahead of Harris) by (1) a larger class gap (college vs. working class) in both states primarily because both candidates did way better among college-educated voters than Harris did in 2024, and (2) a greater share of college voters in both states (especially VA) relative to 2024.
The strong performance among the college-educated continues to be the Democrats’ hole card, especially their strength among white college women. Compare Democrats’ performance among this group to their performance among other white gender/education groups in Virginia and New Jersey. White college-educated women are clearly dwelling in a different political universe than the other groups.
One thing we can say for certain about these election results is that they will not settle the ongoing debate between (to vastly simplify) moderates and progressives in the Democratic Party. Moderates will point to the triumphs of Spanberger and Sherrill as giving the party a mandate for moderation; progressives will point to democratic socialist Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral election, where he exceeded pre-election polling and broke 50 percent of the vote, as a clear signal the party needs to be more robustly progressive and exciting.
I think the moderates have a better case and more persuasive evidence on their side. But the debate will continue. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. In truth, neither side has really cracked the case of how Democrats can rebuild their working-class support in a populist age, and these election results just do not provide a clear answer. Democrats would be well-advised to approach them with humility as they attempt to chart a course forward.
—Ruy Teixeira
Democratic factions need to unite on a common working-class economic agenda and address the “middle-class squeeze.”
Worries about the economy, high living costs, and taxes dominated voters’ concerns across all three big elections last night. Combined with serious displeasure of the second Trump administration, the message was clear: “We’re doing our best out here, and you’re not helping!”
In Virginia, Spanberger cleaned up with voters who said that federal government cuts affected their finances this year (see below). Mamdani’s entire campaign, of course, was focused on the “cost of living” and “affordability,” and he won these voters easily. New Jersey was slightly different, with Sherrill winning among those who thought the state’s economy was good, while Ciattarelli won with those who thought it was not so good or poor and with voters who were particularly focused on taxes. (New Jersey has a sitting Democratic governor as well, which may explain the differences with Virginia.)
Given these results, with victories for both moderates and progressives, it would be interesting to see an honest gathering of various Democratic factions to collectively confront their inability to present a united working-class economic and government reform agenda to voters nationally.
Although nothing much is being done about it, the various factions seem to accept in principle that the party needs to moderate or move to the right or stop being weirdos on social and cultural issues (immigration, crime, gender, race, etc.).
In contrast, there is no real movement to come up with a cohesive and compelling economic argument for voters. There isn’t even a theory of the case, as with cultural issues. It’s either vague denunciations of “oligarchy” and “billionaires” or vague denunciations of Trump’s tariffs and his administration’s corrupt corporatism.
Mamdani offered up the old left chestnuts of free child care and other free stuff paid for by higher taxes on the rich, while the centrists talked about abundance and building more. There are solid arguments in favor of elements from both of these approaches. So, perhaps the Democrats could combine them into a program focused on national development and growth, support for small businesses, a renewed social safety net with pro-family policies, and higher taxes on the wealthy to help finance opportunities for all people.
Oddly, given her strange cultural turn over the years, Elizabeth Warren’s original “middle-class squeeze” concept may be a fruitful hook for resolving the various factional economic disputes along these lines.
With Americans seriously distrusting government and believing the American Dream is dying, it would be nice if the “party of the people” found its historic voice and pushed for a comprehensive agenda to encourage growth and job creation and to ensure that middle-class wages support a middle-class existence in terms of housing, energy costs, education, healthcare, retirement, and the ability to enjoy family life—without massive debt.
TLP calls this the pro-worker, pro-family, pro-America agenda—our framework for Democrats to move forward in a united fashion.
—John Halpin
So Democrats voted for Democrats?