Democrats sweep first major elections of second Trump term
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Ms Abigail Spanberger, 46, a former congresswoman and CIA officer, will be the first woman to serve as Virginia’s governor.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
WASHINGTON - Democrats swept a trio of races on Nov 4 in the first major elections since Mr Donald Trump regained the presidency, elevating a new generation of leaders and giving the beleaguered party a shot of momentum ahead of the 2026 congressional midterm elections.
In New York City, Mr Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, won the mayoral race
And in Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won their respective elections for governor with commanding leads.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power,” Mr Mamdani told a raucous crowd of supporters.
“So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.”
The Nov 4 contests offered a barometer of how Americans are responding to Mr Trump’s tumultuous nine months in office.
The races also served as a test of differing Democratic campaign playbooks ahead of 2026, with the party locked out of power in Washington and still trying to forge a path out of the political wilderness.
That said, the midterm elections are a year away, an eternity in the Trump era, and opinion polls show the Democratic brand remains broadly unpopular, even as Mr Trump’s own approval rating has declined.
The contests on Nov 4 also all unfolded in Democratic-leaning regions that did not support Mr Trump in 2024’s presidential election.
Perhaps the biggest practical boost to Democrats on Nov 4 came out of California, where voters gave Democratic lawmakers the power to redraw the state’s congressional map, expanding a national battle over redistricting that will shape the race for the US House of Representatives.
The winning candidates on Nov 4 could re-energise and inspire more engagement from Democratic voters, many of whom have clamoured for fresh faces at the vanguard of the party.
Turnout in the New York City mayoral race was the highest since at least 1969.
All three Democratic candidates emphasised economic issues, particularly affordability, an issue that remains top of mind for most voters.
But Ms Spanberger and Ms Sherrill hail from the party’s moderate wing, while Mr Mamdani used a viral video-fuelled insurgent campaign to present himself as an unabashed progressive in the mould of Senator Bernie Sanders and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“The Democratic Party is back,” Mr Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House of Representatives, asserted on social media platform X.
Mr Mamdani, who will become the first Muslim mayor of the biggest US city, outlasted former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, 67, who ran as an independent
Mr Cuomo, who resigned as governor four years ago after sexual harassment allegations that he has denied, portrayed Mr Mamdani as a radical leftist whose proposals were unworkable and dangerous.
Mr Mamdani has called for taxing corporations and the wealthy to pay for ambitious left-wing policies such as frozen rents, free childcare and free city buses.
Wall Street executives have expressed concern about putting a democratic socialist at the helm of the financial capital of the world.
Republicans have already signalled they intend to present Mr Mamdani as the face of the Democratic Party.
Mr Trump has incorrectly labelled Mr Mamdani a “communist” and vowed to cut funding for the city in response to Mr Mamdani’s ascension.
In a social media post on the night of Nov 4, Mr Trump blamed the losses on the fact that his name was not on the ballot and on an ongoing federal government shutdown.
Trump looms over races
Ms Spanberger, who beat Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, will take over from Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia.
New Jersey’s Ms Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli and will succeed Democratic Governor Phil Murphy.
Both Ms Sherrill and Ms Spanberger had sought to tie their opponents to Mr Trump in an effort to harness frustration among Democratic and independent voters over his chaotic tenure.
“We sent a message to the world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Ms Spanberger said in her victory speech. “We chose our Commonwealth over chaos.”
Mr Trump gave both candidates some late-stage grist during the ongoing government shutdown.
His administration threatened to fire federal workers – a move with an outsized impact on Virginia, a state adjacent to Washington and home to many government employees.
He also froze billions in funding for a new Hudson River train tunnel, a critical project for New Jersey’s large commuter population.
In interviews at Virginia polling stations on Nov 4, some voters said Mr Trump’s most contentious policies were on their minds, including his efforts to deport immigrants who entered the US illegally and to impose costly tariffs on imports of foreign goods, the legality of which is being weighed by the US Supreme Court this week.
Mr Juan Benitez, a self-described independent, was voting for the first time.
The 25-year-old restaurant manager backed all of Virginia’s Democratic candidates because of his opposition to Mr Trump’s immigration policies and the federal government shutdown, for which he blamed Mr Trump.
For Republicans, the Nov 5 elections test whether the voters who powered Mr Trump’s victory in 2024 will still show up when he is not on the ballot.
But Mr Ciattarelli and Ms Earle-Sears, each running in Democratic-leaning states, faced a conundrum: Criticising Mr Trump risked losing his supporters, but embracing him too closely could have alienated moderate and independent voters who disapprove of his policies.
Mr Trump remains unpopular: 57 per cent of Americans disapprove of his job performance, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
But Democrats are not gaining support as a result, with respondents evenly split on whether they would favour Democrats or Republicans in 2026. REUTERS
