This week’s elections were the first real test of President Donald Trump’s second term — and the results weren’t exactly what Republicans were hoping for.
Democrats notched key wins in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, buoyed by sky-high turnout and a laser focus on economic issues. In deep-blue cities and swing suburbs alike, voters sent a message that frustration with Trump and anxiety over affordability are reshaping the political map once again.
For a Democratic Party that’s spent much of the past year searching for energy and direction, Tuesday’s results delivered both. “We hear about voter fatigue, but there wasn’t much of it,” says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “Turnout was powerful.”
While Democrats’ strong showing surprised some observers, the results weren’t entirely out of left field. “When you just look at the three major areas — New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia — Democrats already had a pretty strong registration advantage,” says Travis Brodbeck, associate director of data management and a lecturer at Siena University. “So when you look at the actual election results, Democrats did very well relative to Republicans.”
So what does this all mean — and what will it mean as we get closer to next year’s midterm elections? We spoke to pollsters to gather a few takeaways to keep in mind as we look ahead to 2026.
Trump loomed large in elections
Trump may not have been on the ballot (as he reminded his social media followers), but his presence was impossible to ignore.
“He takes all the oxygen out of the room,” Miringoff tells us. “In many ways, this election was a referendum on the first year of his second term, and he didn’t score well.”
Trump’s slipping approval rating weighed heavily on his party. According to a late-October CNN/SSRS poll, his approval rating has fallen to 37 percent — down several points from early-term averages in the mid-40s, according to Gallup. That decline proved costly for Republicans. Without him on the ballot to energize his base, and with many voters expressing fatigue over his leadership, several GOP contenders “took it on the chin,” Miringoff said.
Democrats, meanwhile, seized on Trump’s unpopularity, framing the races as a chance to push back against the president. According to NBC News, Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill won nearly all of the roughly 40 percent of voters in their states’ gubernatorial races who said they were casting ballots to oppose Trump.
California Democrats took a similar approach in their redistricting vote — and they won big. Proposition 50, pitched as a check on partisan overreach, sailed through with about 63 percent of the vote after a campaign aimed at countering a Texas gerrymandering effort was tied to the president.
The economy was a driving issue
Democrats won big by keeping the focus squarely on affordability and economic strain.
“Donald Trump did very well running on the economy, but that advantage has deserted him,” Miringoff says. “The idea that the economy isn’t doing well has now provided Democrats an opening — and this time, they capitalized on it.”
Across the country, voters said cost of living was top of mind. In Virginia, nearly half of voters in the NBC News exit poll called the economy the most important issue — and among them, 59 percent backed Spanberger over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. In New York City’s mayoral race, that focus took a distinctly progressive turn. “Zohran Mamdani has probably been the most effective Democrat talking about affordability and the housing crisis, especially in New York City,” says Brodbeck. “The idea of freezing rents was motivating to voters.”
Both pollsters expect this economic focus to carry into 2026. “For both parties, it all comes back to the economy,” Brodbeck adds. “Democrats have an opening here because of uncertainty — voters keep hearing about rising prices, and that psychology sticks.”
The tide turned among voters of color
Trump’s big gains among Black and Hispanic voters appear to be slipping in some areas.
In New Jersey, Sherrill dominated across both groups. In Passaic County, where nearly half the population is Latino, Trump won by three points last cycle, but this week Sherrill carried it by 15, according to Politico. She also built a commanding lead in Essex County, home to Newark and the state’s largest concentration of Black voters.
“When Trump won last time, there was a realignment among young people and Latino voters,” says Miringoff. “But those inroads tend to dissipate quickly. And this cycle, we saw a rebound stronger than the initial Trump gains.”
The pattern held in Virginia, where Spanberger led Black voters by about 80 points, Latino voters by about 30 points, and Asian voters by more than 20 points, according to The Washington Post. Together, those results suggest Democrats are rebuilding parts of the multiracial coalition that powered their wins during the Obama and early Biden years, particularly in diverse suburban and urban counties where turnout surged.
Democratic differences were on full display
Even with the economy as a unifying theme, Democrats ran very different campaigns depending on where they were.
In deep-blue New York, proud democratic socialist Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who ran as an independent, with a platform to raise $9 billion by taxing millionaires and corporations to fund free childcare and public transit.
But in New Jersey and Virginia, the playbook looked much different. There, Democrats backed pragmatic moderates who focused on pocketbook issues and centrist policies aimed at winning over swing voters in states where Republicans have traditionally been strong.
The results underscored just how wide the Democratic tent really is, from progressives like Mamdani to establishment figures such as Sherrill and Spanberger. They also raised a bigger question for the party: Which vision will define its future?
