For Democrats, Tuesday night felt like 2017 all over again.
All across the country, Democrats won big, from the marquee races to the down-ballot contests. Counties that had shifted right a year ago veered back to the left, and the suburbs that powered Democrats’ massive wins in the first Trump administration came roaring back. Exit polls even showed Democrats improved their margins with non-college educated voters.
The strength of the wins hints at Democrats’ appetite to take on Trump as he ends his first year in office and voters’ concerns about cost of living.
Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.
It was an injection of life into a depleted, depressed Democratic Party that had been cast into the political wilderness by Donald Trump’s decisive victory a year ago. Democrats, locked out of power in Washington, have spent the last year soul-searching and data-digging, as their brand sagged to historic lows.
But they also started to overperform in special elections, hinting that the tide was turning. And on Tuesday, their first big electoral test of the second Trump era, they didn’t just match the wins from eight years ago that had been a harbinger of a blue wave in the 2018 midterms — in several key races, they exceeded them.
“Virginians and voters spoke loud and clear that they’re pissed off at the Trump administration,” Christina Freundlich, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race. “Democrats came out in record numbers, and this is a foreshadow of what we’re going to see next year.”
Democrats rode the traditional, party-out-of-power tailwinds, reenergizing its own base by pushing back on Trump’s second-term policies that have alarmed liberals. Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s messaging on the stagnant economy and affordability crisis helped their party bounce back in its first political test of the second Trump era — and by margins that even surprised some Democrats.
“After brutal losses, like 2024 and 2016, it is hard to trust polling … and your gut of what should happen historically. You can’t trust it,” said Stephanie Schriock, a Democratic strategist who formerly led EMILY’s List, a progressive group that elects women. “But everything, the internal polling, the organizations on the ground, the No Kings and Indivisible movement, the energy, it was all there.”
During Trump’s last midterm cycle in 2018, Democrats picked up 40 House seats — and Spanberger and Sherrill were part of that wave.
In Virginia, whose odd-year state elections are often seen as a bellwether ahead of midterms and presidential elections, Democrats flipped at least 13 seats in the House of Delegates. In the attorney general race, Democrat Jay Jones won by at least six points, overperforming expectations even as controversy mired his campaign’s final stretch, following revelations of violent text messages. Across the state, virtually every county shifted blue from former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 performance.
Spanberger’s double-digit victory was powered by a familiar set of voters: While she did better than Democrats from the past decade just about everywhere, her strongest gains were in suburban and exurban Virginia, including Loudoun County. Those are some of the same areas that powered Democrats’ resistance to Trump during his first term, but had drifted toward the GOP during President Joe Biden’s tenure.
In Prince William County, a wealthy enclave outside Washington, Democrat Ralph Northam won by 23 points in 2017; last year, Harris’ margin fell to under 18 points there. Spanberger won it by a whopping nearly 34 points.
And while slightly less dramatic, Spanberger’s strong showing in southeast Virginia could provide hope for Democrats aiming to flip districts held by GOP Reps. Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman next year, even before potential changes from a redistricting push to help make that effort easier.
“The mood music is the same soundtrack,” Ian Russell, a Democratic strategist who focuses on House races, said of the comparison to 2018. “A deeply unpopular president, the same one, and a lot of Americans are very concerned about key issues like health care costs spiking.”
In the top races — the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the New York mayoral — all Democrats cleared 50 percent support. The trio of candidates represent both ends of the Democratic spectrum: democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and traditional moderates Spanberger and Sherill. Republicans are already salivating over the change to turn Mamdani into a boogeyman and tie him to more moderate Democrats across the country.
But Democrats argued “the throughline on all of these races was: talk about affordability,” said David Hogg, a Democratic activist who co-founded Leaders We Deserve, a group focused on electing young people.
“Tomorrow, there are going to be a lot of mischaracterizations and bad faith arguments about how every single policy Zohran ran on here should and will be applied across the country,” Hogg said. “Even if the policies aren’t transferrable [among states], what is transferrable are the tactics, listening to voters and not giving bullshit talking points..”
Democrats’ are still battling a damaged brand, according to NBC News’ exit poll that showed that more voters in Virginia, New Jersey and California hold unfavorable views of the Democratic Party than favorable ones. But the Tuesday elections could inject new energy and focus into a party that has been without for much of the year.
Republicans, already feeling the traditional midterm headwinds, warned Tuesday’s results could portend serious challenges next year. That’s particularly acute without Trump on the ballot, as one national Republican consultant said, because “you get all the damage with none of the benefits.”
Another GOP strategist, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the biggest challenge will be figuring out how to turn out low-propensity Trump voters next year. The most troubling sign for Republicans out of Tuesday’s results were Georgia Democrats’ flips of the two statewide seats in a sleepy Public Service Commission race, the strategist added.
The state’s Senate race next year is almost certain to be among the biggest of the cycle, with Republicans looking to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
“The one thing that would worry me, besides making sure you hold the House, is looking at how Democrats were able to fire up their base in some of these local elections in Georgia,” the strategist said.
