The biggest set of elections since the beginning of the Trump administration was held last night, and by all measures, they have been very good for the Democratic Party.
L-R: New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, and Virginia governor-elect Abigail Spanberger. Source: MSNBC
Here is a look at some of the results from last night:
New Jersey
According to the Associated Press, with 95% of votes counted, Democratic congresswoman Mikie Sherrill has defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by a margin of 56.2% to 43.2%. She becomes the 57th and second female governor of New Jersey as a result. Polls had suggested the race was tightening in New Jersey, where the current Democratic governor was unpopular and Kamala Harris had underperformed last year. However, it seems Democrats’ fears have been alleviated. It seems that Ciattarelli’s strategy of tying himself to the president backfired spectacularly.
By all accounts, what happened in New Jersey was a return to the Biden coalition that won the state in 2020. Sherrill won back Passaic County in northern New Jersey, which has a Latino plurality and had voted for Trump in 2024. She also flipped Morris County, a traditional Republican stronghold in north central New Jersey that backed Biden in 2020 but went for Trump in 2024. In southern New Jersey, Sherrill flipped back Gloucester, Atlantic, and Cumberland Counties, which all went for Trump in 2024. Additionally, she ran up the margins in traditionally Democratic counties such as Hudson, Essex, and Union – all counties that Kamala Harris severely underperformed in last year. She also held up strong in the traditionally Republican strongholds of Hunterdon and Monmouth Counties. It seems that whatever gains Trump made with Hispanic and Asian voters in the state have now been erased, as voters express concerns about deportations going too far and the moribund state of the economy.
The results of the 2024 presidential election in New Jersey. Red indicates Donald Trump, and blue indicates Kamala Harris. Source: Wikipedia
The results of the 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial election. Red indicates Jack Ciattarelli, and blue indicates Mikie Sherrill. Source: Wikipedia
Democrats also performed well in the state’s General Assembly. They managed to defend all of their seats in their 52-28 majority, including a few districts that went to Trump in 2024. They have also managed to flip at least three seats, winning a two-thirds supermajority in the chamber for the first time since 2019, and may end up winning two more once the counting of late ballots wraps up. Meanwhile, in Jersey City, the state’s second-largest city, councilman James Solomon achieved first place in the first round of the election, advancing him and former governor Jim McGreevey, who came in second, to a runoff to decide who the next mayor of the city will be.
Virginia
According to the Associated Press, with 97% of votes counted, Democratic former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger has defeated Republican lieutenant governor Winsome Earle-Sears by a margin of 57.5% to 42.3%. She becomes the 75th and first female governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia as a result. Spanberger had been expected to win by a huge margin in polls conducted prior to the election. This is a flip from the Republicans, with GOP incumbent Governor Glenn Youngkin being unable to run for a second term. Sears, in addition to not being endorsed by the president, was dragged down by Trump’s unpopularity, the ongoing government shutdown, and her own controversial public image.
The results of the 2024 presidential election in Virginia. Red indicates Donald Trump, and blue indicates Kamala Harris. Source: Wikipedia
The results of the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial election. Red indicates Winsome Earle-Sears, and blue indicates Abigail Spanberger. Source: Wikipedia
Spanberger heavily outperformed Kamala Harris in this election. Every single county and city in Virginia swung to the left in this race, with Spanberger making particular inroads in northern Virginia, which is part of the D.C. metropolitan area. She also performed strongly in urban and historically Republican-leaning suburban areas of the state, while Sears underperformed in rural areas. Other than the governorship, Democrats Ghazala Hashmi and Jay Jones were elected lieutenant governor and attorney general of Virginia, respectively, flipping those offices from the GOP. Hashmi becomes the first female Muslim governor of the state. Jones, who had been rocked by a scandal after text messages from 2022 surfaced in which he advocated violence against a Republican politician, will nonetheless prevail and knock off Republican incumbent Jason Miyares.
The Spanberger landslide victory also translated into coattails in Virginia’s House of Delegates, where Democrats expanded their 51-48 majority to a 64-36 majority by holding all their seats and picking up thirteen Republican-held seats. A Democratic candidate even defeated the longest-serving Republican member of the chamber. This is important for when Virginia decides to redistrict next year, as Democrats are eyeing a gerrymander of the state’s congressional map to counter Republican redistricting efforts across the country.
New York City
In America’s largest city, Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani has been elected the 111th mayor. According to the Associated Press, with 91% of votes counted, he was elected with 50.4% of the vote, while his opponents, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, won 41.6% and Republican Curtis Sliwa won 7.1%. This caps off a meteoric rise from state assemblyman to defeating a scion of New York’s most prominent political dynasty in the Democratic primary in a huge upset. Mamdani’s message of fighting for affordability seems to have attracted much support in the city. He carried the boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, and only lost conservative Staten Island.
The results of the 2025 NYC mayoral election. Blue indicates Mamdani and yellow indicates Cuomo. Source: Wikipedia
Although this victory is decisive, it seems that President Trump’s 11th-hour endorsement of Cuomo worked to drive votes away from the actual Republican nominee, resulting in a better performance than expected for the former governor. Opponents of Mamdani were concerned Sliwa was spoiling the election and helping Mamdani win. In the end, Cuomo and Sliwa’s combined portion of the vote (48.7%) would not have overcome Mamdani’s numbers. Now, it is worth seeing whether Mamdani’s agenda, much of it derided as “socialist” and “communist”, comes to fruition.
Other Elections
In California, according to the Associated Press, with 71% of votes counted, Proposition 50 passed 63.8-38.2% in the state. This is a constitutional amendment that seeks to allow the state to use a legislature-drawn congressional district map instead of the current one drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission for the next three election cycles. This would counter the Republican gains made when Texas redrew its map in August. Republicans had all but given up their opposition to the amendment, and as such Governor Gavin Newsom is celebrating its landslide win. This marks the first successful serious effort by Democrats to counter recent gains that Republicans have been making in redistricting.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats successfully defended 3 seats held by justices on the state supreme court, keeping a liberal majority for at least the next four years. The state’s supreme court has been increasingly prominent on the national stage, as it played a role in striking down a Republican gerrymandered congressional district map in 2018, and upholding voting laws about mail-in voting in 2020 and 2022.
In Georgia, Democrats won two statewide offices by huge margins. This will mark the first time since 2010 that Democrats will hold statewide offices in the state. Democrats have also triumphed in the mayoral elections of Cincinnati, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo. Minneapolis has yet to elect a mayor, with its incumbent trying to fend off a challenge from a democratic socialist candidate. In Texas’s 18th congressional district, two Democratic candidates advanced to a runoff to replace the late Congressman Sylvester Turner (D), who died earlier this year. This, by default, will keep the district in Democratic hands and expand their numbers in the House of Representatives.
Conclusion
Overall, these elections were a referendum on the Trump administration. In New Jersey and Virginia, both Democratic candidates ran against the conduct of the Trump administration. They overperformed Kamala Harris by large margins and erased whatever gains Trump had made in those states last year. After having made inroads last year, the Republican Party in Virginia and New Jersey have both been severely weakened. If I were the Republicans, I would be extremely worried about the 2026 midterm elections. The moribund state of the economy and the unpopularity of the Trump administration will be a drag on the GOP for the next four years.
Emil Ordonez, a political science major at Fordham University, is the founder and editor-in-chief of Polinsights. He has been deeply passionate about politics and history since learning every U.S. President at the age of five. He was compelled to start this blog after meeting many people who were misinformed or had become apathetic about how society worked. He hopes to provide factual knowledge and insights that will encourage people, especially the young, to get more engaged in their respective communities. In his free time, he edits for Wikipedia and makes maps for elections. He aspires to work in Congress or even the White House in the future.
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