Last November, Donald Trump recaptured the presidency and helped his party gain control of both chambers of Congress. He and his MAGA backers heralded it as the beginning of a realignment that would give the GOP a long-standing majority and give the president a popular mandate to do many unprecedented and unspeakable things. Democrats largely believed this spin and fell into mutual recriminations and despair.
Just a year later, everything’s looking different.
Democrats swept the 2025 elections in almost every competitive venue. They flipped the governorship of Virginia and held onto the governorship of New Jersey, in each instance crushing their Republican opponents. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani won easily on a wave of high turnout and voter excitement. At the same time, Democrats stopped efforts to purge their judges in Pennsylvania and rig voting rules in Maine. One of their most vulnerable candidates, Virginia attorney-general nominee Jay Jones, beset by a text-message scandal involving violent fantasies about Republicans, won anyway. Everywhere you look, the allegedly unbeatable Trump legacy is, well, taking a beating. The tide even flowed down to Georgia, where Democrats won two statewide special elections, flipping two seats on the utility-rate-setting Public Service Commission.
Exit polls show that those elements of the electorate where Trump made startling gains in 2024 are now running away from him and from the GOP. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger is winning 67 percent of under-30 voters, 64 percent of Latino voters, 61 percent of Asian American voters, and 90 percent of Black voters. Up in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill is winning under-30 voters by better than 2-1, Latinos by exactly 2-1, Black voters by better than 10-1, and Asian American voters by better than 4-1. She’s also winning 90 percent of Black men and 57 percent of Latino men. These are also demographic groups that have begun turning their back on Trump in job-approval polls. And Trump got another very direct spanking as Californians overwhelmingly approved Prop 50, a measure to gerrymander the state to give Democrats more seats, meant to retaliate against Trump’s earlier power grabs. There, too, the issue became entirely a referendum on the turbulent president.
Some MAGA folk will argue Trump can’t be blamed because he wasn’t on any ballot. But Republicans everywhere embraced him fiercely and counted on his assistance to win the day. And no major party has ever so completely turned itself into a cult of personality for its leader, or been so eager to give him total power. Trump’s domination of political discourse throughout 2025 — right up until this week, when he’s rejected any compromises with Democrats in a gridlocked Washington, D.C. — means the election is inescapably a setback that bids ill for his efforts to maintain total control of the federal government in the midterms next year. Democrats may finally turn to the future rather than the past, the struggles for the party’s soul forgotten for a while.
We’ll soon see if Mamdani can redeem the hope he has instilled in so many discouraged and marginalized voters, and if the women chosen to lead New Jersey and Virginia can cope with rising living costs and terrible treatment from Trump’s administration. The GOP gerrymandering offensive isn’t done, and the Trump-enabling chambers of the Supreme Court could provide new setbacks for those resisting Trump’s creeping authoritarianism. And yes, in 2026 Democrats must more clearly articulate their own agenda while providing running room for different candidates in different parts of the country.
But for now, Trump and his party look far less invincible than before and far more likely to harvest anger and disappointment for his second-term agenda than to build anything like a permanent majority. The opposition can now emerge from the shadow of an especially cursed year and fight back.
I agree that talking about gas prices and linking Bush to the Saudis is a very good idea. This affects people’s day-to-day lives, whereas they just try to ignore Iraq as much as possible. It also makes Bush look out of touch.
Another thing–if they’re correct, the figures are good, even if Kerry does only as well as Gore, because of the huge growth in the Hispanic population (and hopefully citizenship and voting rates).
Question–how accurate are these “partisan” polls? As a yellow-dog Democrat, I’m usually cheered by polls done by our party or groups that lean our way, but I brush off GOP polls as “biased.” Is that what we’re doing here? (I mean those who are celebrating this news, including Mr. Teixeira)
I agree with precinct1233. The undecideds will go overwhelmingly for Kerry, so he’s in even better shape than these numbers indicate. Bush’s share of the vote among Hispanics will probably not get much higher than it is now, while Kerry’s will increase by a decent amount.
Talking about gas prices a good idea, given that their ridiculously high right now. I’m not so sure people care that much about petroleum reserves, but I remember the Bush bounced back from Gore grabbing his lead by talking about Gore’s stance on our oil reserves, or something like that.
Can anyone tell me why Kerry is demagoguing on gas prices and strategic petroleum reserves right now? stupid and proof that mcaulliffe should have been fired long ago.
Richardson should be the VP choice. He could possibly bring three red states and over 40 electoral votes into the Dem column, plus make New Mexico and California secure.
I know he said he’s not interested, but we need him on the ticket. Kerry and the Party leaders should make that clear to him.
And, the real significance of these numbers is that they all carry an “undecided” number of about 11%. Given a 75/25 split DtoR (a reasonably typical range when an incumbent runs), that’s another couple of points in margin to Kerry, which should boost his numbers to more than Gore’s.
Add in the substantial voter growth (both in absolute numbers and relative to Anglo growth in these states), and Kerry’s in great shape.
Hispanics have been the main demographic group targeted by Bush and Rove. It’s significant that they do not appear tp have made substantial progress. Because of the increase in the Hispanic total vote, Bush would need to get 38% nationally in 2004 in order to lose Hispanics by the same total vote margin as in 2000. In the Southwest, where Hispanic growth is even faster, he would need a higher percentage than that. Increased Hispanic support would not be sufficient to bring Arizona or Nevada into the Kerry column, but it could certainly provide the margin of victory if Bush’s support among white non-Hispanics remains at its current low level, or sinks further.
If the percentages of the Hispanic vote stay the same as 2000, if we registered and turned out a larger Hispanic vote wouldn’t that be a Democratic advantage?
Due to the amnesty and the Bush family’s popularity with Hispanics and due to things like gays and abortion, I don’t know if Kerry will ever do well enough in this group. All Bush needs is 40% of their vote in order to win, and he seems well on his way to that.
While I’ll be the first to agree that these aren’t in any way BAD figures, I wouldn’t leap to classify them as “good” — because Gore did, after all, lose Nevada and Arizona. Surely “good” for Kerry would be larger leads, boosting his chances of winning; matching Gore’s numbers is just holding in place.
The comparisons made are between Kerry’s standing with Hispanics now and Gore’s at the time of the election. Is there any available info on how Kerry’s figures compare to some of Gore’s from earlier in that campaign?
I guess this is good, because Bush may have gotten a boost w/ Hispanics after his green card stunt, but it doesn’t look like Kerry is doing any better than Gore with Hispanics, and I’m not surprised that things are shaping up like the way they did in 2000 with these four states:
Florida-virtual tie
Arizona-Bush advantage
New Mexico-virtual tie
Nevada-Bush advantage