Democratic wins nationwide, a major rebuke of Trump, offer the left hope for 2026

NEW YORK – Leading his victory speech at a Brooklyn theater Tuesday night, Zohran Mamdani — the 34-year-old democratic socialist who was just elected New York’s next mayor — spoke of power in the bruised and calloused hands of American workers, far from the wealthy elite.

“Tonight, against all odds, we got it,” he said. “The future is in our hands.”

The image was about the evening more generally — when a beaten-down Democratic Party, still nursing its wounds from the erasure by President Trump a year ago, forcefully regained what some feared would be lost for good: momentum.

On Tuesday night, from coast to coast, American voters sharply rebuked Trump and his MAGA movement, electing Democrats in important state and local elections in New York, New Jersey and Virginia and passing a major ballot measure in California aimed at putting more Democrats in Congress in 2026.

The results — a reversal of the party’s fortunes in last year’s presidential election, when Trump swept key states across the country — came against a backdrop of deep political divisions and entrenched Republican power in Washington. Many voters cited Trump’s agenda and resulting economic woes to motivate their choices at the polls.

These victories hardly reflect a nationally unified Democratic Party, or even a shared left-wing vision for a future beyond Trump. If anything, Mamdani’s victory was as much a challenge to the Democratic Party establishment as it was a rejection of Trump.

Her vision for the future is decidedly different from that of other, more moderate Democrats who have won elsewhere in the country, like Abigail Spanberger, the 46-year-old former CIA officer whom Virginians elected as their first female governor, or Mikie Sherrill, the 53-year-old former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor who won New Jersey’s gubernatorial race.

Yet the cascade of victories has given many Democrats and progressives a political hope they haven’t felt in a long time: a sense of optimism that Trump and his MAGA movement are not unstoppable after all, and that their own party’s resilience is not only alive and well, but picking up steam.

“Let me emphasize that this has been a good night — for everyone, not just for the Democratic Party. But what a night for the Democratic Party,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during his own remarks about the national victories. “A party on the rise, a party on its guard and no longer on its heels.”

“I hope this is the first of many dominoes that are going to happen across this country,” Noah Gotlib, 29, of Bushwick said Tuesday night at a Mamdani victory party. “I hope there will be a hundred more Zohrans at the local, state and federal level.”

On a night of big victories, Mamdani nevertheless emerged as a thunderbolt of the progressive left — a sweeping rejection not only of Trump but also of Mamdani’s primary Democratic opponent in the race: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Mamdani – a Muslim lawmaker of Indian descent of Ugandan descent – ​​beat Cuomo first in the ranked Democratic primary in June. Cuomo, backed by many New York wealthy interests frightened by Mamdani’s ideas of taxing the rich and spending on the poor, is re-entering the race as an independent.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Mamdani as a threat. He said Monday he would cut federal funding to New York if Mamdani wins. He even made the dramatic decision to support Cuomo over Curtis Sliwa, the Republican running, in a last-ditch effort to block Mamdani’s astonishing political rise.

Instead, the city’s voters went to the polls and handed Mamdani a resounding victory.

“Seeing him rise above all those odds and deliver a vision of something that could be better, that’s what really drew me to the [Democratic Socialists of America] in the first place,” said Aminata Hughes, 31, of Harlem, who was dancing at an election night party when Mamdani was announced the winner.

“A better world is possible,” said the native New Yorker, “and we are not used to hearing that from our politicians.”

In true Trump fashion, the president dismissed his rival party’s victories, suggesting they were the result of two factors: the ongoing federal government shutdown, which he blamed on Democrats, and the fact that he was not personally on the people’s ballot.

Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, posted a paragraph on social media highlighting the high number of mixed-status immigrant families in New York affected by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and mass deportation campaign, which Miller helped lead.

Democrats somehow agreed. They pointed to the shutdown and other disruptions to Americans’ financial security as driving the vote. They pointed out that Trump’s immigration tactics were an affront to hard-working families. And they pointed the finger at Trump himself — not on the ballot but certainly a factor for voters, especially after he threatened to cut off funds to New York if the city voted for Mamdani again.

“President Trump threatened New York City if we dare stand up to him. The people of New York came together and we said, ‘You are not threatening New York,'” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “We will stand up to the bullies and thugs in the White House.”

“Today we said ‘no’ to Donald Trump and ‘yes’ to democracy,” New Jersey Democratic Chairman LeRoy J. Jones Jr. told a happy crowd at Sherrill’s party.

“Congratulations to all the Democratic candidates who won tonight. It reminds us that when we come together around strong, forward-looking leaders who care about the issues that matter, we can win,” former President Obama wrote on social media. “We still have a lot of work to do, but the future looks a little brighter.”

In addition to winning elections for mayor of New York and governors of New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats outperformed Republicans in races across the country. They held several seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and won the race for Virginia attorney general. In California, voters passed Proposition 50, a ballot measure giving the state’s Democrats the power to redraw congressional districts in their favor ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Newsom and other Democrats had framed Proposition 50 around Trump from the start, presenting it as a direct response to Trump’s attempt to steal power by convincing red states like Texas to redraw their own congressional lines in favor of Republicans.

Trump clearly tried to shore up Republicans’ slim majority in the House, to help them retain power and prevent Democrats from thwarting his agenda. And yet he suggested that California’s redistricting efforts were illegal and a “giant scam” subject to “very serious legal and criminal scrutiny.”

Trump also directly attacked several of the Democrats who won on Tuesday. In addition to Mamdani, Trump also attempted to portray Spanberger and Sherrill as liberals out of touch with reality, attacking them on some of his favorite issues such as transgender rights, crime and energy costs. Similar messages were deployed by the candidates’ Republican opponents.

In some ways, Trump has embarked on a political path, trying to influence elections in blue states where his hold on the electorate is weaker and where his influence is often a major motivator for people to come out and vote against him and his allies.

His influence on the election only added to the sense that Democrats’ victories signaled something bigger: a broader rejection of Trump and a good sign for Democrats heading into next year’s midterm elections.

Marcus LaCroix, 42, who voted for Proposition 50 at a polling place in Lomita Tuesday night, described it as “a counter-blow” to what he sees as the excesses and excesses of the Trump administration, and Trump’s pressure on red states to redraw their lines.

“A lot of people are very concerned about redistricting in Texas,” he said. “But we can actually fight back.”

Ed Razine, 27, a student who lives in the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn, was in class when he learned that Mamdani had won. Soon he was partying with friends at Nowadays, a Bushwick nightclub hosting an election watch party.

Razine said Mamdani’s victory represents a “new dawn” in American politics that he hopes will spread to other cities and states across the country.

“To me, he represents the future of the Democratic Party — the fact that billionaires can’t just buy our elections, that if anyone really cares about truly representing the everyday person, people will stand up and that money won’t talk,” Razine said. “At the end of the day, people talk.”

Associated Press and Times writer Connor Sheets contributed to this report.