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 really wish Kerry had made a strong statement warning the republicans against election fraud. Perhaps he will do so before the election. Let’s hopeand pray for America’s sake that the election is clean.
The other possibility, of course, is that maybe Dowd knows that the wheels are in motion for electronic theft of the election results, a possibility that scares the bejeezus out of me and one that I’m not convinced is being sufficiently managed by the DNC and the Kerry Camp.
makes sense given the administration’s adversion tofacts and insistence on “faith-based” approaches to the creation of their own realities (see kevin Drum).
The polls are encouraging one day, discouraging the next. Thanks, Tex, for at least trying to make some sense of it all.
It may come down to the ground game, after all. Especially to those of you in swing states…….call your local Dem HQ and volunteer some time. Most still need more people to work in a GOTV (Get out the vote) effort on Nov. 2.
Given the wide discrepancies in LV and RV results we’ve seen, and how much the LV polls differed from the actual result in 2000, is anyone prepared yet to state as a general principle either that: (a) Bush’s supporters consistently overstate their enthusiasm for their candidate to pollsters; or (b) that Democrats tend to understate their enthusiasm?
We can overthink this, or we can take it at face value. Either way
1. It’s a dodge
2. It’s true, because he’s complimenting Gallup on its work.
3. It’s true, because he believes it.
If it’s #3 then I’m thrilled, because the BC’04 campaign will feel great about an oversampled GOP poll, not a real reflection of actual voter thought (remembering of course the last Gallup poll before Election Day 2000….)
Must be “faith-based” polling . . .
This is not the first time that Republicans have cited Gallup as the authority. Dailykos has a broadcast e-mail from the Republicans that also relies on Gallup. Remember that Gallup is still building its models based upon the assumption of low turnout: 50-55%. This means that they take for granted a wildly successful suppression of the vote.
Let them go by Gallup! They did in 2000 and that’s why Bush and Rove were walking around like two peacocks as if they had already won. They slowed down campaigning at the end as well. I am afraid they are smarter this time but I truly wish they would believe the Gallup numbers for then there is absolutely no need for an October surprise since they have already won — right?
Wouldn’t surprise me: it fits the Administration’s delusional and sanguine view of the world and this election that runs contrary to reality. If you will New Jersey in play, it can be so!
Zogby has Bush with an approval rating of 44-46 %. Historically, this is bad news for the incumbent at this time. My hopeful hunch is that this election will mimic that of 1980. Carter and Reagan were in a close race, Carter had low approval ratings, and the undecideds did not turn until the last weekend. Watching the daily Zogby tracking polls – they don’t move much – I see the same thing happening. The polls will move Kerry’s way, but not until the last weekend. Karl Rove believes that Bush must be up by 4 points going into the last weekend in order to win. Historical trends are probably the best predictors at this point.
Amazing…
Well, I suppose that’s good news for us.
Would anyone take that comment seriously? I have a hunch he is just saying that because Bush is up in the Gallup.