The Meaning of Tuesday's Voting

Yesterday I reviewed the results of Tuesday's voting, which overwhelmingly, almost entirely in fact, favored Democrats. Today I will discuss what those results might mean and the messages that voters were sending. The most obvious message is that voters are unhappy with the governance of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. For all of Trump's narcissistic bragging that he is the greatest president of all time, voters clearly see him as a failure. Moreover, voters are not willing to sit by passively while Trump destroys the country. Voters are motivated nearly to the point of militancy, and Democrats, for the first time in my memory, have no interest in playing by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. If a throat punch is required to win, Democrats are willing to politically throat punch.

Let me repeat some of what I wrote yesterday:

What Democrats are now demonstrating is that they are no longer willing to bring an olive branch to a gunfight. They will bring a gun, and they will use it (that’s a metaphor, Speaker Johnson). Michelle Obama once said that when Republicans go low, Democrats go high. No more. Democrats might not like street fights, but they will no longer run from them.

The first example of this new attitude among Democrats that I will provide involves Virginia's legislature. Last month, almost out of nowhere and surprising just about everyone, Democratic lawmakers proposed an amendment to Virginia's constitution to grant the legislature the power to draw congressional districts. This power has been held by a bipartisan redistricting commission. Virginia's amendment process requires two votes on the proposed amendment with an intervening election. Democrats raced to convene a special session of the legislature and pass the proposed amendment before Tuesday's election. This move was a direct response to mid-cycle redistricting in Texas in which Texas Governor Greg Abbott gerrymandered districts in an attempt to eliminate 5 Democratic members of Congress. Abbott probably expected Democrats to sit by passively, not a bad bet for anyone familiar with the recent behavior of the Democratic Party. However, today's Democrats are not willing to take it anymore. Before Virginia moved to amend its constitution, California launched a referendum to redraw its congressional districts as well. That measure passed overwhelmingly on Tuesday.

The Democrats' steps to gerrymander Virginia's congressional districts may have impacted Tuesday's election results. The legislative action, occurring while early voting was already underway, may have focused voters’ attention on the importance of state legislators. Democrats flipped 13 Republican-held seats in the House of Delegates. Even the Republican who had led the opposition to the legislation in the House of Delegates lost his seat. This will ensure easy passage of the amendment in a second vote.

More intriguing was Virginia's Attorney General election. For weeks, Republican Jason Miyares had been pummeling Democrat Jay Jones over leaked text messages that Miyares claimed showed that Jones supported violence against his political enemies. Polls showed that Miyares had gained a lead over Jones and would likely win on Tuesday. However, the redistricting battle refocused many voters’ attention. While nobody was thrilled by Jones' texts, Miyares busied himself drafting a memo saying that the process being followed by Democrats was improper. Jones, on the other hand, strongly favored the amendment. Faced with moral qualms about Jones' texts on the one hand and cold, hard political calculus on the other, Virginians appear to have chosen the second. Jones ended up winning by more than 5 points.

When Abbott moved to gerrymander Texas, he probably didn't expect Democrats to fight back. But Democrats are fighting back. In both Virginia and California, extremely motivated Democrats are showing that they are not going to play by one set of rules while Republicans play by another. If Republicans want to play dirty, Democrats will get dirty as well. Abbott would have had no idea that his efforts in Texas would eventually play a role in getting Jay Jones elected as Virginia's Attorney General. Yet, here we are.

Trump and his MAGA cult members would have us believe that Trump is all-powerful and single-handedly capable of swinging elections. But on Tuesday, Trump was nothing but an albatross around Republican necks. In New Jersey, Trump gave strong support to gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli. But Democrat Mikie Sherrill used that support against Ciattarelli. As USA Today writes:

“Mikie Sherrill ran on two things: that she was a Navy helicopter pilot and she hated Trump," said Matt Hale, an associate professor of politics at Seton Hall University. “New Jersey said forcefully, loudly, and clearly that Trump is not where we want to go.”

Sherrill won by 13 points.

In New York City's mayoral race, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani was even more forceful in challenging Trump. Appearing on Fox News in mid-October, Mamdani addressed Trump, who is known to obsessively watch Fox News, directly. Mamdani said, "He may be watching, and I just want to speak directly to the president." Mamdani went on to tie Trump to two of his opponents in the election, saying:

I will not be a mayor like Mayor Adams who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won't be a disgraced governor who will call you to ask how to win this election. I can do those things on my own.

After winning the election, Mamdani devoted an entire section of his victory speech to Trump, saying:

After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.

This is not only how we stop Trump; it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.

Mamdani then went on to make Trump a stand-in for what Mamdani and his supporters consider issues plaguing New York City:

We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.

New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.

So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.

Democratic leaders such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who never endorsed Mamdani, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who only endorsed Mamdani half-heartedly at the last minute, cower in terror of Trump. Mamdani, on the other hand, directly challenged Trump and showed no fear of him. Whereas other Democrats frequently display a lack of backbone, Mamdani was bold. He addressed factors that had been used against him by saying, "I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this."

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, endorsed by Trump, stepped into the gutter to engage in Islamophobic attacks against Mamdani, suggesting at one point that Mamdani would celebrate another 9/11-style attack on New York. Trump supporters routinely referred to Mamdani as a "jihadist" who would turn New York into an Islamic caliphate. Far from being intimidated, Mamdani reacted with an "in your face" response by producing a commercial in which he spoke in fluent Arabic and visited Arab restaurants and grocery stores. This fighting spirit led Mamdani to receive the highest number of votes of any New York mayoral candidate since 1969.

Tuesday's results show that we can dispense with some elements of what had become conventional wisdom. For instance, it has practically become dogma that young males have been lost to the Republicans. But on Tuesday, Spanberger won men between the ages of 18 and 29 by 14 points. Sherrill won them by 10. Mamdani won them by a whopping 40 points. The boys are all right.

A similar phenomenon occurred with Hispanic voters. Many Hispanics shifted to Trump in 2024, and Republicans have been counting on this being a permanent realignment. Bad news for them. Today's New York Times reports that "The exit polls in New Jersey found that Ms. Sherrill won a whopping 18 percent of Mr. Trump’s Hispanic support in the state". The Times says that Sherrill won Hispanics by 37 points altogether. Forbes reports that "In Manassas Park, Virginia, where Latinos make up 46% of the population, Spanberger outperformed Harris’ 2024 showing by 22 points, Associated Press election results showed." Trump's deportation policies that are making anyone who looks Hispanic a target are not doing him any favors among this demographic.

Lastly, I want to touch on the transgender rights as a political issue. If you have been reading the DCUM Political Discussion forum, you might be convinced that Democratic support for transgender rights has been the most damaging issue for Democrats in history. Trump's "Kamala is for they/them" commercial is often cited for its brilliance and considered the defining act of the 2024 election. In Virginia, Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears practically staked her entire campaign on being against transgender kids. She ran commercial after commercial on the topic and routinely showed up at Northern Virginia school board meetings to protest those school districts' failure to adhere to Trump's anti-transgender policies. Spanberger, for her part, refused to follow the example of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been willing to throw transgender kids under the bus for the sake of political expediency. I wouldn't say that Spanberger was a full-throated supporter of transgender rights, but she didn't abandon the transgender community either. In the end, the issue simply doesn't seem to have mattered.

Admittedly, voters don't seem to have come around to unquestionably supporting trans girls using the locker rooms or bathrooms of the gender with which they identify, and there is still considerable discomfort with trans girls playing on female sports teams. What has changed, however, is that these issues are now way down on most voters’ priority lists. Erin Reed has in-depth coverage of this topic on her "Erin in The Morning" news site. She described Tuesday's results as "a stunning rebuke of anti-trans politics." She writes:

In local races, pro-trans candidates also scored key victories. In Loudoun County—targeted by the Trump administration with the revoking of federal funds after it defied Trump threats and upheld restroom access for trans students—voters rejected anti-trans candidate Santos O. Muñoz Melendez. Instead, they elected April Moore Chandler and Ross C. Svenson, both supporters of transgender rights. Svenson, who previously represented trans students in legal battles against Governor Glenn Youngkin’s policies, will now help shape education policy from within the school board itself, ensuring continued protection for transgender students. Similar results played out in nearby Arlington County, where Monique A. “Moe” Bryant, another pro-trans candidate, won in a landslide.

Just to emphasize what is going on here: Five Northern Virginia school districts have rejected Trump's demands that they implement anti-trans policies. In turn, Trump has threatened those districts' funding. School board members who support standing up to Trump were not only not punished for their stances, they, and others who agree with them, were rewarded. This is another strong display of defiance of Trump and his bullying.

The message voters sent on Tuesday is that they are prepared to fight back against Trump and that they expect the same from their political leaders. They will set aside their "good government" aspirations and engage in political gamesmanship rather than play by separate rules than Republicans. This creates an especially difficult situation for Schumer and Jeffries, who have developed political cowardice into an art form. But for those two, there is a simple message: Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Democratic voters have no patience for leaders who are choosing to kneel before Trump.