Democrats could credit very little wins on their behalf for a couple years prior to the 2025 off-year elections. 2020 itself was a lackluster year for the Democrats, despite President Trump’s unpopularity, 2021 and 2022 were also both mediocre, with strong Republican candidates such as Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia winning re-election. 2022 and 2023 would once again prove nothing, until 2024 became an ultimate washout for the party of the blue. But that course may be changing, this time due to sheer disapproval over President Donald Trump’s policies. After all, The Economist and other renowned sources put the president at a nationwide approval rating between -15 and -18%, which one cannot deny is poor. But the Democrats themselves were fighting an internal conflict on whether to bolster progressivism or centrism on a larger scale, as well countless other disagreements on future leadership and views. Whatever the Democrats did, however, has proven to be highly effective. The Democrats did not just win- they roared, which is uncommon for any political analyst to highlight nowadays. Taking preceding elections into account, Democrats carried any generic ballot with the widest margin since at least 2018 – not even 2017 matched the records, when the donkeys blinded the GOP. This decisive victory on election night should be utilized as a catalyst moving forward if the Democrats wish to rebound House and Senate majorities in the House and Senate, which could put a so-called check on the President’s 4-year agenda. If anything must be taken away from November the __rd, it is that the Democratic party is able to win, and win big, if it prioritizes affordability and bread-and-butter issues, instead of culture war and social agenda plots.
So where were we?
Virtually every single race in the United States on Tuesday was seen with some form of scrutiny Republicans could hold, they could win. Polling deepened fears in the liberal camp that after an entire year of a presumably “reckless” Trump administration, everyday Americans would continue to bolster the Trump agenda. For instance, Jack Ciatarelli, a centrist Trump-backed Republican, was barely trailing in the New Jersey Gubernatorial Race. Democratic candidates for state-wide races back in Georgia led polls by miniscule amounts, and this same spectacle was on display throughout the entire nation. Analysts were concerned for a good reason – Republicans won by larger margins in 2024 than expected, and polling historically is recognized to underestimate Republican support significantly, especially with the advent of Trumpism. So while the Democratic base was energized, the party itself was unsure whether this trend would continue. Prior to the larger elections earlier this month, countless smaller special elections were hosted throughout the country. Democrats overperformed significantly in every single on of them. The Downballot as well as some other sources determined that the average overperformance for special elections this year was over 15%, a momentous improvement since November 24’. Take these as an example: Virginia’s 11th Congressional District went to the Democrats by a 50 point margin while increasing the margin by 16% relative to last year. Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional District special elections, both deep-red seats, swung heavily towards the Democrats by margins of 23 and 16 points, respectively. An Iowa State Senate carried by President Trump with double-digits was flipped by a Democratic candidate, ending the GOP supermajority, while an ongoing election for a State Senate seat in northern Texas has lead to Republicans fearing their future outcomes after the district swung nearly 25 points to the left in the span of a year. Democratic leaders have and continue to point to these results as evidence that the Trump administration and the Republican agenda is unpopular by the American public, which to their credit can be strongly backed. Even the most tenacious political analysts cannot deny the fact that Democratic engagement was not reserved solely to local elections, but consistent throughout statewide races. The argument that Republicans stay home and Democrats vote for special elections does not hold here, especially when comparing the results of the 2025 statewide races. More Republicans were expected to turn out in these, but in the end Democrats only won more. Those arguing that special elections attract only energized Democrats is false in its premise, because such a hypothesis has already been proven wrong. The trend is consistent throughout races from the national to local scale, in smaller special elections to statewide races for the governor’s seat. Truth be told, given the Democrats outperforming Republicans by 8% in 2017 prior to historic wins in 2018, if the 16% lead continues for the Democrats it would, hypothetically, would to at least two times better results for the party. Whether that happens, we shall see.
Victories come from resilience and messaging…
They sure do. Merely blaming the other side for not addressing the most important issues often does not work out well. Perhaps it was a lesson learned from the 2024 Presidential Election season, where culture war issues dominated most of the headlines. Democratic candidates such as Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger (VA) and Governor-elect Mikie Sherill (NJ) focused on affordability as the tenant of their campaigns, tying poor economic conditions to the leadership of the White House. As Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger put it, “Much of what I talked about across the campaign trail was what I was hearing from voters — affordability, particularly in the places where you can feel it the most: healthcare, housing, your energy bill, for some families their day care.” It seems as though the party has came to recognize what actually matters to voters. When her Republican counterpart, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle Sears, centered her campaign around issues such as Title IX, immigration and border security, the voters simply were not interested. Why? – because culture issues affect virtually no one, while higher grocery prices affect every single individual. Similar consistencies in branding were visible in the Peach State a couple hundred miles down, where two Democrats flipped GOP held seats by landslide margins. Both candidates running for Georgia’s public Public Service Commission secured over 63% of the vote, whittling down the commission’s 5-0 Republican majority to a close 3-2. Conservatives have long held hold over the state of Georgia in both state and federal elections, and although the state went to President Donald Trump by a little over 2% in 2024, this is a dramatic decrease from the state’s former support for Republican party. Peter Hubbard who won his respective election of the 3rd district, promised lower bills on energy by incentivizing the production of clean energy. Looking at the results, that messaging may be working just fine.
2026 momentum
If there is anything that needs to be taken away from this article, it is that Democrats are energized. Voters, party leaders, lobbyists and the lot. After all, it has been very, very long since Democrats outperformed Republicans by double-digit margins (the last time, roughly, was way back in 2006). With some special elections taking place nationwide, all eyes are on districts where Trump prevailed but Democrats seek to undo that. A special election for a congressional district in Tennessee will be hosted later this year after the former Representative Mark Green resigned following his “yes” vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA). Aftyn Behn, the Democratic nominee for the 7th Congressional District, has centered her campaign on battling the affordability crisis, as well as corruption in the federal government. The district is your average double digit GOP leaning district, which voted for Donald Trump by 24 points, although it is only R+ 10 according to PVI. All polls have shown Aftyn Behn trailing the Republican hopeful, Matt Van Epps, by a meager 7-9%, which is impressive considering its history as a traditionally conservative district. The importance for Democrats winning this district, or at least coming close, is to prove that the party can connect to rural and working-class voters outside from the well-educated west and east coasts, which have continued to stay overwhelmingly liberal. If the Democrats can win a ruby-Red congressional districts, then with lots of money and good candidates they may be able to significantly retake many GOP-held seats across the nation, perhaps even flipping the senate blue, through states like North Carolina and Texas (more to come on this). According to Aftyn Behn’s substack newsletter, there is an 80% drop in Republican turnout throughout the district, while Democrats are overperforming by double digits. With all due honesty, it is arduous and somewhat inaccurate to nonchalantly proclaim that seat will flip, that dream of many may be coming more likely. So is “Blexas”, as some say, after recent polling found that Rep. James Talarico is neck-in-neck with his leading Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Once again, this drives home the point that recent trends have suggested that rural voters, once and still relatively heavy Trump supporters, may be turning their backs on the President. And if they are feeling the pinch in their wallets or at the gas pump, they might just tick off the name right next to the “D”.
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