Democrats make gains in U.S. state and local elections in sharp rebuke to Trump’s Republicans

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Voters handed Donald Trump’s Republicans a sharp rebuke in a string of state and local elections, giving the opposition Democrats a shot of adrenaline after months of struggling to effectively fight the U.S. President’s sweeping agenda.

As the dust settled Wednesday, the scale of Democratic victories the day before became clear: The party made gains across a broad swath of geographic locations and demographics just a year after losing the presidency.

The Democratic party’s success was built in part on its strength among youth, traditionally one of its most reliable constituencies, as well as a reversal of Mr. Trump’s gains among Latino voters last year. Democrats even made inroads among the President’s core constituency of non-college-educated voters.

The view from this Pennsylvania county a year after its voters helped bring Trump to power

Ironically, the party leveraged voter anxieties over affordability – the same issue Mr. Trump hammered Democrats on last year – combined with attacks on the President to sweep every key race on the ballot on Tuesday.

Some questions, however, remained open. While the Democrats’ largest victories were delivered by moderate candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey – Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, respectively – its highest-profile win came from democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in New York City. This dynamic is certain to continue the split in the party over which path to follow in opposing Mr. Trump.

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Voter turnout, as is typical in off-year elections, was also far lower than it was in the presidential race, suggesting there is a reserve of Trump voters that simply didn’t turn out.

Still, Democratic leaders cheered the wins – which also included retaining three seats on Pennsylvania’s state supreme court and a referendum on redistricting in California – as a sign of renewed momentum that could allow them to retake control of Congress next year.

“The Democratic Party is back,” Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s leader in the House of Representatives wrote on X. California Governor Gavin Newsom posted a video that depicted himself and other Democratic leaders as WWE wrestlers beating up Mr. Trump and his advisers.

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At a White House breakfast meeting with Republican senators on Wednesday, Mr. Trump blamed the results on the 36-day-old government shutdown – which on Wednesday became the longest in history – and the fact that he was not personally on the ballot.

“I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I’m not sure it was good for anybody, but we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot,” he said of the previous day’s voting.

Vice-President JD Vance wrote on X that much of his party’s voting coalition is “lower propensity” than the Democrats’, meaning they are less likely to go to the polls, particularly in elections that don’t directly involve Mr. Trump.

Such a dynamic, if it continues, could spell trouble for the Republicans in next year’s midterms. “We have to do better at turning out voters than we have in the past,” Mr. Vance wrote.

While the Democratic victories on Tuesday were all in blue or purple states, the size and scope of them came as a surprise and helps explain Mr. Vance’s worry.

In Virginia, Ms. Spanberger won a higher vote-share in every county than the Democratic gubernatorial candidate four years ago and then-presidential nominee Kamala Harris last year. In populous Fairfax County in the Washington, DC, suburbs, for instance, she was up by 17 percentage points over the previous governors’ race.

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Ms. Sherrill, meanwhile, won 64 per cent of Latino voters, according to a CNN exit poll, restoring her party to its usual lead among the growing demographic after Mr. Trump made inroads last year.

Mr. Mamdani’s victory was built on young voters, with those in the 18 to 29 age bracket giving him 62 per cent of the vote, compared to about 50 per cent of all voters, according to polling by AtlasIntel.

Ms. Spanberger and Ms. Sherrill even narrowly won over voters with no university degree, one of the most reliable groups of Mr. Trump’s voters.

“If the House of Representatives were up for election next week, it would flip back to the Democrats,” said J. Miles Coleman, an analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “It was the biggest night the Democrats have had since 2018 or 2020.”

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All of the candidates emphasized local issues – such as electricity prices in New Jersey and the cost of child care in New York – but tied their campaigns to Mr. Trump. Mr. Mamdani, Ms. Spanberger and Ms. Sherrill took aim at high consumer costs, which have largely not come down a year after Mr. Trump promised to lower them. Mr. Mamdani framed Mr. Trump, contrary to his populist image, as a tax-dodging billionaire slumlord.

Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Newsom also tapped voter anger over the President’s efforts to round up and deport undocumented immigrants in mass raids.

Mr. Newsom’s campaign further pressed accusations of authoritarianism against Mr. Trump. California’s redistricting plan, which could tip up to five seats to the Democrats in the midterms, is meant to counterbalance the President’s demand that Texas and other Republican states gerrymander in the GOP’s favour.

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Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic political consultant, said the voting demonstrated that Mr. Trump “is still very much relevant” in motivating Democratic voters, but his “coattails have never been very long” for helping fellow Republicans. In New Jersey, for instance, Ms. Sherrill made hay repeatedly attacking Mr. Trump but the President’s interventions for her opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, fell flat.

It’s encouragement that the Democrats could sorely use. Since Mr. Trump returned to office in January, they have been able to do little as he has rapidly advanced on several fronts: cracking down on undocumented immigrants, cutting spending on anti-poverty programs, firing government workers, taking revenge on perceived enemies and imposing tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

“This shows where people are at right now on the President,” Mr. Mollineau said. “The ones who truly disapprove, you might not see it in the streets, there’s no million people marching on Washington, but there is deep discontent with the President’s agenda.”