Not that they are anything but good news*, but previous experience has taught me to be skeptical of taking any single event, or even series of events, as some kind of national bellwether.
But, of course, I do want to be convinced. I know no one is psychic, but how seriously are these results being taken as some kind of reflection of a larger political mood by those who know what they’re talking about? How much of it is media hype and how much could actually be a foundation to build any kind of resistance on? Sometimes it feels like all we have is vibes when it comes to predicting future political movement, so I’m wondering how much fact we can actually derive from the feels.
* Unless there’s some result that got lost in the news coverage… Could any result on Tuesday reasonably be described as a significant victory for Trump, Republicans, or conservatives? I almost can’t believe it’s ALL good news.
I think it’s a sign that Democratic voters are tired of being the reasonable adults in the room all the time, and of Republicans taking advantage of the fact. MAGA voters are part of a cult - their responses are literally being dictated to them from on high with zero regard for facts, so their enthusiasm is nearly fixed. Democrats have sufficient population to pull off wins, but have been struggling (for the reasons above, as well as voters spiting them for edge issues) to get the voters to be less apathetic.
There’s a point to be made (and has been made here and countless other places) that above and beyond the “adults” argument, that older/conservative Democrats POV has been closer to the Republican POV than that of the younger/progressive voters for years anyway (see our NY Election thread) - so this may be a trend where we’ll see more elected representatives needing to listen to their own side and not just depend on the (D) after their names.
Of course, this means MAGA may actually end up telling some truth when they scream “Socialists” at their enemies, but heck, they’d say the same no matter how crusty and conservative a Democrat was running.
So, may be a good trend, MAY increase the vote for Democrats, and it’s not like MAGA attitudes could get any worse for such.
The significance as I see it ties into something Trump was saying about a week or so ago, that he probably wouldn’t be allowed to run for a (obviously very well-deserved ) third term, but it was too bad because his numbers have never been higher!
The reality is that his popularity numbers have never been lower – last I saw they’re the lowest they’ve been since the inauguration. People are getting sick of Trump and his antics – even former supporters. These elections were a Democratic sweep, and are at least partially a reflection of that fact. Whether Congressional Republicans will take notice and grow a spine, even if only in self-interest as they see which way the wind is blowing, well, that’s a different question.
NYC is not Iowa or Ohio. But Democrats’ headway in Pennsylvania and Georgia is a strong omen. The midterm elections will be disastrous for Republicans.
Things didn’t get WORSE by a longshot, backlash against Trump is confirmed.
Off-year blue turnout bodes good things for the next election.
Flips in unexpected places like GA suggest scorched-earth anti-R sentiment.
Exactly what to take from low R turnout in an off-year election, I’m not sure.
The last point is the kicker for me. The gains here were mostly local. When races are national, or nationalized, R’s turn out. So I’m not reading too much into this, except it’s not the slap-in-the-face of “damn there sure are way more Trumpers than I thought”. But it’s great to see, no doubt.
Maybe the most significant thing was the Hispanic population move back to the Democrats:
Even you don’t accept Krugman’s very optimistic view, the fact is that, in NJ, the largest demographic swing back to the Dems in NJ was Hispanics. That could be good news in Arizona and maybe even shuffle things up a bit in Texas.
This. For one, we’re still 3 years out from the next presidential election. But even if this was the midterms, that seems to not be very predictive of how the next presidential election will go. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both had red tsunamis in their first midterms, but obviously won reelection. Biden’s midterm wasn’t nearly as bad as 1994 or 2010, but we all know what happened 2 years later. Same with Republicans. 2018 was a very bad year for them, but they only lost 2020 in a squeaker.
IMHO this is due to the American public having a short attention span. Unless the issues 2 (or 3) years later are still the same ones, like with Bush Jr. and the War on Terror in 2002 and 2004, the results of a midterm, let alone the off year election 3 years prior, won’t have any predictive value.
I’d say this is the biggest factor. Off-year elections always have a lower turn-out, so when lots of people come out, like they did in NYC, this suggests that the voters recognize how critical an election is. And that this higher turn-out led to a Democratic wave means they want things to change from what they are.
I can’t see Trump and MAGA changing their plans between now and 2026, so change will only come if this wave shows up again in 2026. The turn-out this week suggests that will happen, which is a good thing.
Everyone seems to be focused on how significant Tuesday’s results were as a sign of the shifting times, but how significant were they in their own right?
Prop 50 passed, which is huge - it should give Democrats five house seats, cancelling out Texas’ gerrymandering (and, with a little luck, getting rid of a couple specific and quite odious Republicans - or at least, cause them to infight and scramble as they try to unseat each other in the solidly Republican districts that will be left.
And having Democratic governors in states that may have otherwise had Republican governors is always helpful. I think it would be a much bigger concern if they were battleground states (depending on how the false slate of electors plot in 2020 played out, the governor of the states involved may have eventually become relevant) so since neither Virginia nor New Jersey is a swing state that’s less important on the national level, but it’s great for Virginians and New Jerseyans.
Mamdani in New York was never really about beating Republicans, and I doubt that he will be all that different from Cuomo or any other Democrat in practice.
The biggest thing is just a reminder that the way election works hasn’t changed. An unpopular incumbents party does poorly in elections. It was true for Biden/Harris and it is true for Trump. There is lot doomerism sentiment that since Trump won that Democrats can’t win any election ever again, and that isn’t how things work. Democrats do have an advantage in low turn out elections which will be less true next year, but they should be in good shape to take back the House and compete for the senate.
It also shows the type of candidates the Democrats should run, which is basically anyone who can articulate a vision for understanding and helping people. They can be white or black, male or female, gay, trans, or a Muslim Democratic Socialist it doesn’t matter anywhere near as much many Democrats think it does. Also clear that the DNC desperately needs new leadership that understands that.
The other part is the Democrats won a lot of elections. Not just the big ones but school boards and city legislatures across the country. A lot of decisions get made at level. It is hard know exactly the outcome from the wins, but is always good to get better people into positions with power.
Democrats always come out to vote. This isn’t new, Democrats have dominated special elections for the last decade. It is the rural, low education Trump voter, which has mostly just showed up when he is on the ballot.
Certainly true in my small town in Kansas. The city commission and school board races are, by definition, non-partisan, but for the first time in memory, the local Democratic organization endorsed 2 candidates for the commission and 3 for the school board.
The results? The city commission had 3 open seats, and all 3 incumbents ran for re-election, with one other challenger. That challenger was one of the 2 Democratic-endorsed candidates. Those two were the leading vote-getters, with the challenger garnering the most votes. (Which means he will be our mayor for the next two years.) In the school board race, there were also 3 open seats, with 2 of those incumbents running, along with 5 other challengers. The top 3 vote-getters were the three challengers endorsed by the Democrats.
The surprising results led our GOP state senator to cry foul, in that these elections were supposedly non-partisan. And, by gosh, he’s going to bring up that topic in the next legislative session which begins in January. (Not sure what he thinks he’s going to do about it, as the state supposedly doesn’t control local elections.)
Apparently they did not in the 2024 election. That was the point the poiticos were making; that the Dems learned from that and said, “Oh $#!^, we’d better vote so Republicans don’t win.”
PA Supreme Court retains three D justices, potentially important for election court challenges given PA’s pivotal role in national elections.
Voters are pretty clearly not blaming Dems for the shutdown. Probably not relevant in the longer term, but good news nonetheless.
Every single county in Virginia swung blue relative to the 2024 presidential vote, so Republican loss of support is pretty broad-based.
As mentioned above, gains Trump made with Hispanic voters completely evaporated. I suspect this is not just a temporary state of affairs, for reasons that should be obvious.
Conclusion: Republicans will lose the House by a significant margin in 2026 barring significant shenanigans. As an outsider looking in, I’m feeling more optimistic about things than I have for quite some time.
Agreed. His poll numbers are down to 37%, as of the latest poll. The worst his poll numbers ever got in his first term was 36%, and we’re only barely a year into his second term. The hardcore MAGA cultists are at about 30% of voters. The only way trump / trumpers win elections is to put together a coalition of that 30% plus convincing enough independents and ‘traditional’ non-MAGA Repubs to shrug their shoulders and say “eh, they’re better than the alternative”.
Clinton and Obama both learned from the midterm results and made course corrections. trump is incapable of learning from mistakes. trumpism is going to continue to hurt the people who voted for trump and the disillusionment will only continue to grow: put huge tariffs on China and cause enormous hardship to farmers and the general economy. Reach a deal with Chine that basically just returns things to how they were pre-tariff. Declare huge victory. Repeat. You can only fall for the ‘cup and ball’ game or have the football pulled away so many times before the curtain finally falls away and the pathetic man behind it is finally revealed. (ouch, how’s that for painfully mixed metaphors?). trumpism by its very nature is a game of smoke and mirrors: it can work for awhile as a false promise, but never delivers.
Very true, but trump only got reelected after 4 years without him in power. I predict the midterms will go well for the Dems, and in 2028 people will be so sick and hurt by the constant inflicted pain and rhetorical bullshit of this administration, they’ll be desperate for any alternative to trumpism (or, God forbid, somehow a third term of trump himself). It is just sad that they didn’t remember that they learned this lesson from his first term.
Partially? I’d argue that the sweep and strong showing of Democratic candidates is nearly 100% a reaction of irritation, frustration, and anger with Trump, his policies, and his cronies.
I’d be VERY cautious if I were the Democrats, and not interpret this as any kind of mandate FOR their policies, but rather take it for what it is, which is a manifestation of people’s dissatisfaction and frustration with Trump and the GOP.
In other words, just because people voted Democrat, it doesn’t mean they necessarily like and approve of their policies, but rather that they dislike them less than they dislike Trump’s policies.
Look at it this way- if you lived in NYC, your options were Cuomo, Sliwa, and Mamdani. You may not like Mamdani’s socialist stuff, but he’s a damn sight better than either of those other two assholes, even with his policies factored in. But that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily giving a full-throated endorsement of his policies, just that he was the least bad option.
) third term, but it was too bad because his numbers have never been higher!