Takeaways from US election night 2025

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By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The 2025 off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City and California provided an early barometer of how some U.S. voters view President Donald Trump’s second term and the Democratic Party’s efforts to revive its political fortunes.

Here are some takeaways from election night: 

A WAY FORWARD FOR DEMOCRATS?

New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill and Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger may have provided a blueprint for how Democrats can get their mojo back in next year’s congressional elections.

They have much in common. Each was first elected to Congress in 2018, during the midterms in Trump’s first term. This year, they both ran as problem-solving moderates with backgrounds in national security and laser-focused their campaigns on affordability issues while positioning themselves as bulwarks against Trump.

To a party starved for good news, Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, and Spanberger, an ex-CIA officer, provided it. While their wins were not huge surprises given that their states tend to support Democrats more than Republicans, their broad margins of victory may bolster the argument that their approach could work in next year’s midterms, when Democrats hope to wrest back control of Congress. 

With votes still being counted, Sherrill appeared to have bested her opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, by a greater margin in New Jersey than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris beat Trump there last year. There were also signs that Spanberger was outperforming Harris in Virginia.

Sherrill and Spanberger, along with New York mayoral winner Zohran Mamdani, promoted affordability as a central campaign theme.

Spanberger’s “Affordable Virginia” plan focused on lowering healthcare, housing and energy costs, and she vowed to make tech data centers pay “their fair share” of electricity costs. Sherrill’s “Affordability Agenda” targeted similar concerns. She pledged to declare a statewide energy emergency and freeze electricity rates.

Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, said that while it’s always tricky to determine how off-year election results might play in the next year’s midterms, Democrats can take some lessons away from Tuesday.

“If Trump keeps taking a sledgehammer to people’s pocketbooks, that is an easy thing for Democrats to run on,” Payne said.

THE MAMDANI QUESTION

The two groups happiest that Mamdani won the New York City mayor’s race? His supporters and national Republicans, who are eager to paint the self-described democratic socialist as the new face of the Democratic Party.

“His election is proof that the Democrat Party has abandoned common sense and tied themselves to extremism,” Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement. “Next year, Democrats will be held accountable by voters for embracing Mamdani’s far-left agenda and the consequences it will bring.”

Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said Mamdani’s win overshadows victories by moderates Sherrill and Spanberger, and he said Trump will work to tag every Democrat running in a competitive U.S. House race next year as a Mamdani clone.

“It’s going to be an ace in the hole for Republicans running in purple House districts,” O’Connell said.

Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, a Democratic centrist think tank, saw things differently, saying that the New Jersey and Virginia wins will have more staying power for the party.

“I think it’s vastly more important that moderates won in big states that often elect Republican governors than it is that a far-left candidate won in NYC,” Bennett said.

But U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Mamdani backer, suggested that Mamdani’s victory heralds the party’s future.

Mamdani “had to defeat a Republican and the old guard of the Democratic Party,” she said. “The Democratic Party cannot last much longer by denying the future, by trying to undercut our young,” AOC said on CNN.

THE LIMITS OF MAGA

Spanberger’s decisive victory in Virginia may also illustrate the limits of Trump’s MAGA movement.

Spanberger’s opponent, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the state’s lieutenant governor, has been a strong supporter of Trump’s agenda, including the move to slash thousands of federal jobs, Trump’s support for the federal government shutdown and his imposition of heavy tariffs on imports. In TV ads and public remarks, Spanberger tried to tie Earle-Sears to Trump at every turn.

Spanberger, meanwhile, was buoyed by running in a state that is highly dependent on federal jobs and at a time when voters nationwide cited the cost of living as their number one concern, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said.

“Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Spanberger told supporters after she was declared the winner. As if to back up her words, she sported a red suit jacket, the color most closely associated with Republicans, rather than Democratic blue. 

THE TRUMP FACTOR

Though he wasn’t on the ballot, Trump’s influence was inescapable on Tuesday.

The elections took place as the president’s approval rating dipped to the lowest point so far during his second term, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, with voters zeroing in on affordability concerns.

In the Virginia governor’s race, of the 36% of voters who said opposing Trump was a factor in their vote, 98% came out for Spanberger, according to the SSRS Voter Poll, conducted for a consortium of U.S. networks and the Associated Press. It was a similar story in the contest for New Jersey governor, where 39% of voters said opposing Trump played a role in their vote. They overwhelmingly voted for Sherrill, the Democrat.

“Here in New Jersey, we know that this nation has not ever been, nor will it ever, be ruled by kings. We take oaths to a Constitution, not a king,” Sherrill told supporters.

Throughout his political career, Trump has shown a limited ability to transfer his popularity to other Republican candidates. Ciattarelli and Earle-Sears found that out on Tuesday.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; additional reporting by Jason Lange and Bo Erickson; editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)