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by MARK POWELL
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Lots of Democratic smiles and much GOP gloom on the day after the first elections of the second Trump presidency.
From the Big Apple to the Old Dominion, from the Jersey Shore to the Golden Gate Bridge, Democrats ran the table, scoring win after win – even if most of the victories were retaining power in blue states.
New Jersey will continue to have a Democratic governor after congresswoman Mikie Sherrill breezed by Republican Jack Ciattarelli and independent Vic Kaplan.
Farther south, though, former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger flipped Virginia’s governor’s mansion, easily dispatching GOP rival Winsome Earle-Sears. Spanberger will become her state’s first woman governor.
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Political observers especially note Democrat Jay Jones’ defeat of incumbent state attorney general Jason Miyares. Many voters were shocked when text messages from 2022 were released in which Jones fantasized about the shooting of Virginia’s former GOP House speaker. His words were all the more unsettling in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.
The big news of the night came from the Big Apple, where Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani also made history by being elected the city’s first Muslim mayor. The anti-Mamdani vote was fractured by challengers Andrew Cuomo, sex scandal-tinged former New York governor and scion of the now-faded Cuomo political dynasty, and Republican Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels.
The election of an openly socialist acolyte in the capitalist center of the world is one of many paradoxes surrounding the mayor-elect. Despite having made comments that are disturbingly close to antisemitic (including defending the incendiary phrase “globalize the intifada”), he will lead a city with just under two million Jewish residents. His calls for government-run grocery stores, rent control and increased corporate taxes portend a serious break from the status quo.
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— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) November 5, 2025
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In California, voters easily approved Prop 50, which would authorize a new round of congressional redistricting that would give Democrats five extra seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That’s viewed as a political boost for Governor Gavin Newsom, who is widely expected to be a 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.
Additionally, Pennsylvania voters retained all three Democratic state Supreme Court justices. Their election in 2015 flipped control of the commonwealth’s high court from GOP to Democrat; and their reelection Tuesday means Democrats will remain in control on the bench.
“What did you expect?” a Republican political strategist in Washington glumly told us early Wednesday morning. “Blue candidates won in blue states. That’s like Mickey Mouse being elected in Disney World. No real surprise.”
GOP operatives had entered the 2025 campaign with high hopes, though. In November 2024, President Donald Trump made New Jersey surprisingly competitive – and came closer than anyone expected to carrying Virginia.
But that was then. Trump’s name wasn’t on the ballot this time, meaning many voters who had voted for him in 2024 went with Democrats in 2025. Throw in a divisive federal government shutdown, stubbornly high retail prices, and sky-high energy costs — especially for electricity — into the mix, and it was a perfect storm Republicans were unable to overcome.
With the 2025 elections now behind us, the 2026 midterms (and even on a much quieter level, the 2028 presidential contest as well) are now underway. And Democrats head into them with the wind at their back. As former President Barack Obama wrote on X, the blue wave was “a reminder that when we come together around strong, forward-looking leaders who care about issues that matter, we can win.”
“We’ve still got plenty of work to do, but the future looks a little bit brighter,” Obama observed.
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“Tonight’s biggest winners weren’t on the ballot anywhere,” a national political editor told us. “The real winners are the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.”
The editor rattled off far left luminaries like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, each of whom embraced Mamdani’s Democratic Socialism with open arms.
“They see his victory as confirmation that their moment has arrived,” the editor noted. “They’ll feel their oats now and are about to make life very unpleasant for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries by demanding the party move further to the left.”
Preliminary exit polling shows that both Sherrell and Spanberger did especially well with college-educated suburban women. Look for Democrats to sharpen their messaging to this key demographic as a central part of their push to reclaim the U.S. House next year.
South Carolina and other Sun Belt states, especially next-door neighbor Florida, could see an upside from Tuesday’s voting. New York and New Jersey have already seen a mass exodus of citizens to more financially friendly Southern climes in recent years. New Jersey, whose leadership Sherrill will soon assume, has the highest corporate tax rate in the nation. Across the Hudson River in New York City, Mamdani has said he wants to raise its corporate tax rate “to match” the Garden State’s. That means current projections for the upcoming exodus from the Northeast could soon turn into a stampede.
As a popular meme floating around the internet Tuesday night put it, “Congratulations to Zohran Mamdani—Florida’s Real Estate Agent of the Year!”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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11 comments
The weirdo republicans and Israel freaked everyone out. They acted just like the Democrats with power in their own style.
The people have the voice, the power and the system has checks and balances.
Unfortunately in order for change in New York City they had to go with a communist.
We need to do what texas did. We have everyone we need right now.
I don’t know what you are talking about. Mandami is not a Communist. He professes to be a Socialist, but he is not that either. He is not calling for the Government to own the instruments of production. He is basically a liberal who believes the wealthy should pay a significantly larger share of the cost of the social safety net so that middle-income people can afford to live in NYC. I know this horrifies the Trump Republicans. But they are not afraid that he will fail and damage NYC. They are afraid he will succeed in making NYC a better place. That would be their real nightmare.
I did not know that,
Good call, Im more passionate about the “we dont need a mass influx part” I’ll look more into it later and learn about him.
The real danger sign for republicans is to look at the Georgia PSC elections which dumped two republicans in favor of democrats. There were patches of blue in parts of the state that never see it. The jackanapes who belched “blue wins in blue states” might want to suck on that.
Maybe, just maybe, it might not have been a good idea for after 9 months of layoffs, tariffs, price increases, rising inflation, billions of $ to Argentina, shutting down the government, and cutting SNAP–it may not have been the best time to tear down the East Wing for a gay ballroom, an HGTV remodel of a bathroom, and a Great Gatsby style billionaire party.
And the Vets.
GI bill and Chap 35 recipients aren’t being paid, the VA is hurting and thats thier top selling point.
It looks like Republicans redrawing districts to obliterate democracy’s effectiveness isn’t going to be enough, they will have to outright suspend if not delete democracy altogether to hold onto power at this rate. Why not? He’s trampled all over the Constitution as it is. He desperately wants to go full fash.
Wait until the bottom falls out for the economy. Trump’s tariffs are still highly likely to cause a recession. Farmers are taking a beating. We won’t be hearing about unemployment or inflation or anything else, or if we do, it will be Orwellian.
Will, I hope you remember you voted for all of this. Every last ounce. And I hope one day you answer for yourself on this blog of yours.
The rest of you conservatives, have the day you voted for.
“Trump’s name wasn’t on the ballot this time, meaning many voters who had voted for him in 2024 went with Democrats in 2025.” What a joke. Trump’s name was on every ballot last night because his cult was on every ballot last night. The people voting were voting against Trump and anyone who supports him.
The Mandami is a left-winger in the democratic party not a communist! The political distortions in the US have reached neurotic levels. It comes from the same people who believe Trump, a billionaire real estate developer is a friend of working peopl. 2+2=5?
Better start drafting your article full of excuses for Republicans in Nov 2026 gramps!
Why is any of this surprising? The Republicans are basically the No Billionaire Left Behind party. People are watching nepo babies like the President and his own nepo babies make billions of dollars without lifting a finger. Regular people who cannot pay their bills are eventually going to rebel against that…