Good evening. I’m writing to you from our New York newsroom, where I covered election results until the wee hours. Tonight, I’m covering what Republicans — some of them, anyway — are learning from the Democratic rout. And we look at the voters who backed Democrats despite disliking their party. We’ll start with the news.
The Republicans warning they have a problem
Victorious Democrats spent Wednesday eagerly pointing to all their midterm lessons from the previous night. Highlight affordability. Call out President Trump’s less popular policies. Run on a bold, populist vision — or perhaps a more calibrated, moderate one. But it might actually be Republicans who stand to learn the most from the results. Around the country, races where the G.O.P. once seemed to stand a chance — the redistricting measure in California, or the governor’s race in New Jersey — turned into blowouts as the voters who helped power Trump’s smashing 2024 victory stayed home. The president’s longstanding edge on the economy, my colleague Shane Goldmacher pointed out, seemed to fade. Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson have been quick to shrug off these results; Trump himself suggested that the problem was simply that he wasn’t on the ballot. Some in their party, though, say it’s time to acknowledge they have a problem. “Republicans need to confront that we had a bad night. And that it didn’t have to be a bad night,” Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, told me this morning. Trump was right that his absence from the contest meant that voters stayed home, Gingrich said, but that’s a challenge his party has to confront, not ignore, particularly as Trump acknowledges that he can’t run for president again. “You can’t just shrug your shoulders and say, ‘Gee, if only we could run Donald Trump every time,’ because you can’t do it,’” Gingrich said. “When you talk about ’26 and ’28, Republicans have to find a way to motivate the base Trump voter to come out and vote.” Historical winds blowing
Let me be very clear: There are limits to what an off-year election can actually tell us, and risks to over-interpreting such results. Nate Cohn explained some of them here. But Gingrich knows of what he speaks. Republicans had a good night in the 1993 elections, with a guy named Rudy Giuliani winning the New York mayor’s race and the Republican George Allen claiming the governor’s mansion in Virginia. Those successes were signs of broader discontent with President Clinton that presaged the Republican Revolution of 1994, which made Gingrich the speaker of the House. Other off-year elections have told us a lot about what’s to come. A strong showing by Republicans in 2009 showed the gathering storm of the Tea Party. In 2017, big victories by Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia were a sign that Democrats, who were boiling mad about Trump’s first term, would snatch back the House in 2018. But in 2022, Democrats saw a smaller-than-expected Republican wave and took that to mean their chances of beating Trump in 2024 were better than they were. And some Democrats are cautioning that the absence in this year’s electorate of the low-propensity voters who lifted Trump to victory in 2024 — which is a flashing warning sign for Republicans — is exactly why they can’t draw too many conclusions about their triumphs. “The voters who Democrats are struggling with the most were the least likely ones to show up in an off-year election,” Jesse Ferguson, a veteran Democratic strategist, told me. Democrats have proved they can win with super-voters in lower-turnout elections, and that matters. But he warned, “Don’t lose sight of the voters who won’t be voting again until 2028.” ‘This incredible shadow’One place that illustrates the reasons for Republican concern is Passaic County, N.J., which is the most Hispanic county in the state. Trump won the county by three percentage points in 2024; last night, the Democrat Mikie Sherrill won it by 15 points. That drop-off in support is an ominous sign for Republicans who are hoping to turn Trump’s voters into permanent members of their coalition. There are also signs that key parts of their coalition eroded in Virginia. In 2021, exit polls suggested that Republicans had a 19-point advantage there with non-college voters; last night, exit polls suggested that voters without a college degree were almost evenly split between Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor, and Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican. “Virginia and New Jersey definitely should have turned out much better,” former Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican, told me, calling those races a sign that Republicans cannot take the 2026 midterms for granted. Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist who advised the Republican Chris Christie in his successful races for governor in New Jersey, said that Trump had hurt his party in another way, too: by demanding utmost loyalty even in states with lots of Democrats. “To win in these blue and purple states, you have to show some level of independence,” DuHaime said. Last night’s election, he said, could be the first step toward a broader reckoning in his party about how — and whether — it moves past Donald Trump. “There’s going to have to be, ‘OK, who is next? What do we stand for as a party?’” DuHaime said. “How do we move out from this incredible shadow that he has?” Got a tip?
ONE NUMBER 46 percentThat striking figure, compiled by several of my colleagues, shows just how much of America’s imports are now subject to tariffs as Trump transforms the country’s trade policy. Those tariffs and their downstream economic effects were in the background of yesterday’s elections, which showed that Trump’s long-running advantage on the economy has slipped. But Trump’s tariff overhaul is now on the line. On Wednesday, key Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of his use of emergency powers to impose the tariffs. If the court rules against him, Trump could be constrained in carrying out a key part of his second-term economic agenda.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “We have a future to fight for, and we’re either going to do that together or you’re going to be left behind.”That was the warning issued by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to fellow Democrats as she spoke to MSNBC at Zohran Mamdani’s victory party in New York City. Mamdani’s ascent means that he and Ocasio-Cortez are likely to lead progressives forward as they fight with moderates over the Democratic Party’s identity: Is the party more competitive with the populist vision that won over New York City voters, or the moderate approach of Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger?
ONE LAST THING They disliked Democrats, but voted for them anywayCuriously, Democrats’ across-the-board victories last night came despite the fact that their party is broadly unpopular. Ruth Igielnik, The Times’s polling editor, digs in on one group of voters that tells this story. There’s an interesting lesson to be taken from the two major Democratic victories in New Jersey and Virginia last night: People didn’t have to like the Democrats in order to support for their candidates. According to a voter exit poll conducted by several major news organizations, 20 percent of Virginia voters said they had an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party but still supported Abigail Spanberger for governor. (Her Republican opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears, by contrast, won just 5 percent of voters who viewed the Republican Party unfavorably.) And in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill won more voters who were disillusioned with the Democratic Party (17 percent) than her Republican opponent for governor, Jack Ciattarelli, did of those who disliked his party (4 percent). Those victories provide a potential road map for Democrats at a time when views of their party have reached a historic low. Both women also won with the coveted group of voters who do not have a favorable view of either party. Known as the “double haters,” this group has been pivotal in the last several election cycles. Last night, Sherrill and Spanberger each won about 80 percent of the group. |
