Zohran Mamdani cleared 50% in winning the New York City mayoral election. Photo / Getty Images
Republicans have been “taught a lesson” after the Democrats achieved a clean sweep in the first major elections since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Zohran Mamdani, a pro-Palestinian socialist, was elected the first Muslim mayor of New York City yesterday. And Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger won landslide victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races.
Pro-Trump insiders have warned that the results should worry the Republican Party ahead of next year’s Midterm elections, which will determine the balance of power in Congress and how much the United States President is able to achieve during his final two years in office.
Trump himself, in a post on his Truth Social platform, said the Republican Party performed poorly because he “wasn’t on the ballot”.
Republicans began briefing shortly after the election results that the losses were not indicative of discontent towards the President, but the consequence of running “bad candidates” who were not closely enough aligned with his Make America Great Again (Maga) agenda.
Alex Bruesewitz, an adviser to the President, wrote on X: “Candidate quality matters. Tonight was a great lesson for the Republican Party: running squishy Rs (sic) who are lukewarm on Trump and Maga, even in “purple” states, doesn’t work.
“Your candidate needs to be able to turn out ALL FACTIONS of our party, and they do that by being MAGA all the way.”
Chris LaCivita, a key figure in Trump’s 2024 election campaign, echoed his remarks, saying: “A Bad candidate and Bad campaign have consequences – the Virginia Governor’s race is example number one”.
And Steve Bannon, the strategist, said on his podcast: “The Midterms start tonight, and the warning signs are flashing. Democrats just flipped two Georgia commissioners, their first statewide wins in 30 years.”
Spanberger, Virginia’s new Governor-elect and a former CIA case officer, is a moderate Democrat who has been outspoken about her party’s focus on identity politics.
After defeating Republican opponent Winsome Earle-Sears, whom Trump failed to endorse by name in a tele-rally day before the election, she said: “Tonight we sent a message”.
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat House minority leader celebrated, writing on X: “Enough with the premature obituaries. The Democratic Party is back.”
Mamdani cleared 50% of the vote in New York City, beating the city’s former Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent. His success was largely driven by younger people, taking two thirds of voters aged under 45 in preliminary exit polls.
University graduates backed Mamdani by 55%, while Cuomo was favoured by those without higher education. Some two million votes were cast in the election, the highest turnout by the city in mayoral elections since 1969.
Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, the newly elected New Jersey mayor, are both from national security backgrounds.
They secured victories in their respective elections by 13 percentage points or more. Like Mamdani, both women centred their campaigns around the cost of living and linked their opponent to Trump’s Maga movement.
Sherrill won by a landslide despite New Jersey having shifted more to the right than any state besides New York in last year’s election.
Trump endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, her Republican opponent, the night before the election.
Democrats appear to have performed better with voters of colour than they did in 2024, when Trump won half of Latino voters and doubled his support among black voters to 15%.
Sherill won more than 90% of black voters in New Jersey and led by more than 30 points among Latino voters, CNN polling showed. Spanberger received similar numbers in Virginia.
Passaic County, New Jersey, a historically Democrat area with a large Latino population flipped red in the elections last year. Last night, it switched back to Democrat.
“There is no sugar-coating these results. They’re really bad for the party,” Michael DuHaime, a former political director of the Republican National Committee, told the Wall Street Journal. “Republicans would be smart to heed the warning signs of this election.”
Voters in California approved a measure to redraw political lines – known as Proposition 50 – to favour the Democrats, a victory for Gavin Newsom’s campaign against similar efforts by conservative-led states.
The California Governor said he was “proud” that the bill had been passed.
“Donald Trump poked the bear. And the bear roared back,” he posted on X.
One Democrat said the victory gives Newsom the room to expand his presence on the national stage as he seeks to position himself as the frontrunner during the 2028 presidential election.
“It shows he can get stuff done,” Christale Spain, chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told the New York Times.
“Democrats want somebody to fight back. He’s pushing back and fighting back. That is what is helping him break through.”
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.