“’TRUMP WAS NOT ON THE BALLOT AND THE LOCKOUT WERE THE TWO REASONS WHY REPUBLICANS LOST THE ELECTION TONIGHT,’ according to pollsters,” he wrote. He did not identify the pollsters in question.
Also, really? Democrats had their own reasoning – Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said the results reflected Republicans’ failure to manage the cost of living – but surely the main reason they did well is that the states involved in the most important elections were New York, New Jersey, Virginia and California. None of them voted for Trump in 2024. And both Virginia and New Jersey have a history of electing governors from the party not in the White House.
To be fair, if you’re a Democrat, you’re looking at the decisive margins and seeing this as a springboard for a massive push to retake the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections, making Trump an outgoing duck.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger arrives at an election night party in Virginia.Credit: Bloomberg
Yet these victories offer mixed lessons, which only amplify the identity crisis consuming Democrats in the Trump era. Is he inspired by moderates (Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey) or by the left-wing populism of Mamdani, who is more like the social democrat Bernie Sanders than Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro?
Speaking of which, Democratic strategist and former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod saw a big winner of the night: Newsom. “He took a chance on his state’s voters and rejected Trump’s transgressions in a real, meaningful and tangible way. Democrats eager for strong leaders right now will remember that,” Axelrod said on X.
Democrat Mikie Sherrill celebrates her victory in New Jersey.Credit: Bloomberg
Charging
For Democrats, the main focus of the night will be energy rather than strategy. As Newsom said, they will look “on the rise,” not on the defensive, for the first time in a long time. And they will think that Americans are not as enamored of Trump’s bread and circuses as he would have people believe.
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