Come Wednesday morning, Democrats are going to be tempted to look for a single takeaway from Tuesday’s results, desperate for a clear path out of the wilderness. My gut says that’s unlikely. Every key race this cycle has its own quirks, and the story is going to be complicated.
Virginia: Three Races, No Simple Lesson
Start with Virginia, where chaos has reigned from top to bottom.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger began her race for governor with a commanding fundraising lead, outraising Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by a wide margin. And Spanberger wisely ran a campaign focused on bread-and-butter issues, while her opponent celebrated the firing of thousands of federal employees/constituents. But Earle-Sears, who has never received Trump’s endorsement and has made national Republicans nervous with her hard-right rhetoric, is running as an outsider to both parties — a risky and difficult move for a sitting lieutenant governor, but potentially a resonant play in Virginia politics. That said, this race doesn’t seem close and shouldn’t be close.
The attorney general’s race might be even uglier. Democrat Jay Jones has been damaged by reports that he sent vulgar and violent text messages about a former Republican Speaker of the House (The Washington Post broke that story earlier this fall). Meanwhile, incumbent Republican Jason Miyares, the first Latino elected statewide in Virginia, has quietly become the national GOP’s favorite Virginia candidate. Miyares has been very hard-edge on the culture wars over the last four years, but Republicans dumped late money into his race, hoping to salvage at least one statewide win.
Then there’s the lieutenant governor contest, usually the quietest on the ballot. Democrat Ghazala Hashmi, a Richmond-area state senator, would be the first Muslim woman elected statewide. Her opponent, John Reid, a former talk radio host, is loathed by much of his own party after reports surfaced that he’d reposted explicit, racist, and fetishized material online — including Nazi-themed porn. It’s a reminder that just because Donald Trump seems to be made of teflon, political baggage does matter to voters.
So yes, Virginia is wild. But if you want to read the tea leaves on Democratic energy, watch the House of Delegates races instead. A strong Democratic turnout and solid majority there would say a lot more about enthusiasm — or discontent — than any of the statewide contests.
New Jersey: A Different Shade of Blue?
New Jersey could be a different kind of warning light. It was already set to be tougher turf than Virginia. While it has been a “Blue state” in presidential elections, former Gov. Chris Christie’s two terms weren’t that long ago. And running to succeed another Democrat can be tough if voters are looking for change. No party has won three consecutive gubernatorial elections in New Jersey since 1961. New Jersey was also a prime example of the struggles Democrats had in 2024. While President Joe Biden won New Jersey with 57% of the vote, Vice President Kamala Harris only took 52% four years later.
Democrat Mikie Sherrill won a difficult primary and has leaned heavily into her biography, especially her military service. Her campaign has had more turbulence than the Virginia race — a series of damaging stories, some aided by potential illegal document releases from Donald Trump’s Defense Department, had her campaign on its heels for a period of time. Meanwhile, Republican Jack Ciattarelli has tried to walk a fine line of keeping Trump’s base engaged without alienating moderates. And, in stark contrast to Winsome Earle-Sears, he is a tested campaigner and running a stronger campaign.
One place to watch is the heavily Latino counties throughout the state. Given the rightward shift of many Latino voters in 2024, both campaigns have made turnout in these communities a key focus of their strategies. So far, reports indicate that neither campaign has broken through at all. We may not get a clear direction on where Latinos stand in 2025 — we could just get the signal that no one has won them over for 2026 yet.
Another complexifier for Sherrill is that she shares a media market with New York City and the bright lights of the mayor’s race. Given the proximity, Republicans have worked hard to tie her to mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
If Ciattarelli pulls off an upset — or even makes it close — Republicans might see the Mamdani connection as a strategy to replicate across the country, while Democrats should pay attention as it might signal that the so-called Biden-to-Trump voters are still active in the suburbs, even in states that are supposed to be safely blue.
But, if I were making books on this race, I would still have Sherill as the favorite, but the point spread might be a little tighter.
New York: A Tale of Two Democrats
And then there’s New York, where it seems like every pundit and prognosticator is making the mayor’s race a proxy war for the Democratic Party’s soul.
On one side, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani is trying to capture the city’s activist energy, and the coalition he creates is hard to predict. Early voting patterns have shown the share of voters under 50 growing each day, but still not a majority of ballots cast.
On the other hand, Andrew Cuomo, the old-school operator, is attempting a comeback bid as an Independent. Voices from the Right have been pushing for the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, who has consistently polled in third place, to drop out in hopes that his voters will move to Cuomo and undermine Mamdani’s momentum.
If Mamdani wins, expect headlines about a left-wing revival followed by a chorus of “New York is different.” If Cuomo pulls off the upset, pundits will declare the return of the pragmatic center. The reality will probably land somewhere in between, with turnout and margins telling the real story about where Democratic voters stand.
But, in my view, that is a simplistic narrative that doesn’t capture the true texture of the race. I believe (and I would guess most voters in NYC would agree) that this is less an ideological struggle and more about voters wanting to turn the page from the past and have a new generation of leaders.
And regardless of what you think of his policies, every Democrat running for office should look at how Mamdani used TikTok to drive an authentic message that resonated with voters. I am not saying every candidate will become a social media star, but they must realize they are competing in an attention economy and should meet voters where they are.
The Bottom Line
These races are consequential, and there are even more (Supreme Court retention races in Pennsylvania, the redistricting ballot initiative in California, among others), but tonight may not deliver a clean narrative like “Democrats Back on Track” or “Republicans Sweep the Suburbs.” It’s going to be messy, fragmented, and hyper-local — a snapshot of a country where national brands are weak, and individual candidates still matter.
For Democrats, that means the real work starts after Election Day. The path out of the wilderness won’t come from one big win — it’ll come from sifting through the data and rebuilding trust, race by race and voter by voter.