The 2025 election season wrapped up this week, and it was tied with a solidly blue bow. The Democrats scored crucial wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, although the award for the most covered victory goes to Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor-elect of New York City. Mamdani won against former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who he beat out for the Democratic nomination, and captured the energy of a disaffected young population looking for change. It remains to be seen how large of a figure Mamdani will be in the scope of national politics, but one thing is clear: The Democrats had resounding success, and it was a variety of different focuses that propelled them to victory.
We will return to Mamdani soon, but attention must be paid to the governors’ races in which the Democrats won. New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill won her race comfortably against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli, while Abigail Spanberger defeated Winsome Earle-Sears for Virginia governor. Both candidates took a more centrist tack than Mamdani and mostly campaigned on tying their Republican opponents to Trump, making the case that they were the only options to fight back against the president.
It’s not hard to see why this pragmatic anti-Trump focus worked: For nine months now, Trump has been busy making himself the most controversial president in history. The evidence for that is well-documented, and I’ve written about his transgressions more times than I care to count. It’s safe to say, however, that a president who throws a “Great Gatsby” themed party at his Mar-a-Lago mansion while millions of Americans were set to lose their SNAP food benefits is not a good political brand to be supported by. While Trump was not on the ballot, his name loomed large behind every “R” on the paper, and the Democratic candidates exploited his toxicity.
Spanberger, who managed to flip the governor’s office in a state that’s right next to Washington, D.C., especially highlighted the Trump administration’s firings of federal workers. While current Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin narrowly won four years ago, Spanberger dominated with 57.2% of the vote, a great result in a swing state. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Sherrill attacked her opponent Ciattarelli for being a staunch supporter of Trump; in one of the gubernatorial debates, Ciattarelli gave Trump an “A” grade for his presidential performance. Even though New Jersey is already a blue state, Sherrill greatly expanded the margin by which the Democrats won four years ago.
The anti-Trump strategy, which has been a well Democrats have drawn from for nearly 10 years now, was highly successful this cycle. But the Democrats also received a look at the future with Mamdani, who presented a new vision for New York City to go with the standard “standing up to Trump” focus. A self-proclaimed democratic socialist, Mamdani plans to revitalize the city for the working class and increase affordability, a message that resonated with young voters who have been facing an ever-burgeoning cost-of-living crisis. Not only did Mamdani represent a vote against Trump, he embodied the opposite of the president – young, hopeful and aligned with the working class. This is why when Cuomo attempted to paint himself as the candidate who could stand up to Trump, he failed – in actuality, Mamdani was the antithesis of Trump far more than Cuomo was, a point ironically proven when the president endorsed Cuomo in the race (quite possibly the worst endorsement the former governor could have received).
What do these wins mean for the midterms, and even the 2028 presidential election? It’s important to note that mayoral elections and statewide races are not the same as national politics. But in the wake of this off-year cycle, the Democrats should take the lesson that there are many ways to win — they just have to execute. Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s victories showed the anti-Trump playbook may be more potent than ever, given the disastrous start to his second term, while Mamdani proved that voters also want to go beyond that. They want solutions, and they’re quite willing to run afield of the party’s establishment to do so.
To do well in future elections, the Democrats should play both sides of the coin. Mamdani’s electoral strategy will certainly not work everywhere; to tough out the battleground states like Georgia and Michigan, Democrats will likely need to emphasize Trump’s woes and hammer the point home on the economy. Ultimately, however, they will need a national vision – and that aspect has been lacking for the Democrats beyond the obvious anti-Trump bent. To craft an effective vision of the future, Democrats should combine pragmatic opposition to the reckless Trump with the joy, hope and forward-thinking policies that defined Mamdani’s campaign. To fully defeat Trump, they must conquer the politics of hate, anger and bitterness.
The midterms are now a year away. The presidential election, for those wondering when Trump’s national nightmare will end, is further off, unfortunately. But the Democrats have made a significant step forward from 2024, and that movement has been helped by both centrism and progressivism.