Tuesday was a rough night for Donald Trump.
Despite the “mandate” he claimed upon his own election a year ago, voters turned out in large numbers to reject his preferred candidates, delivering Democrats their first taste of hope since Trump steamrolled back into Washington. The message seemed clear: “Americans are appalled by what they are seeing coming out of this administration,” as New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it on CNN Tuesday evening. Even Trump, typically allergic to acknowledgments of defeat, couldn’t ignore the results: “I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” he told GOP senators afterward. “But we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot.”
What should Democrats learn from it all, as they seek a way out of the political wilderness? What are they to make of victories that spanned from Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who will succeed Eric Adams as New York City mayor, to Abigail Spanberger, the centrist who defeated Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia’s gubernatorial race? Does Mamdani’s unabashedly progressive vision represent the future of the party? Or should more candidates embrace the moderation that lifted Spanberger in a purple state that has been led for the past four years by a guy who was once memorably described as “Donald Trump in khakis”?
The biggest lesson, perhaps, is not about ideology, but basic politics. As Spanberger herself put it in 2018, months before she first won the congressional seat she’d hold for six years: “Beating the drum about how terrible the president is [is] just beating the drum. It’s not actually doing something productive.”
Though she and Mamdani occupy different ends of the Democrats’ ideological spectrum, both ran campaigns focused on lowering costs and other kitchen table issues—not merely on countering Trump. “They were focused on affordability,” Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, told CNN Wednesday, describing cost-of-living issues as the “through line” of Mamdani, Spanberger, and New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill’s campaigns.
It turned out to be a resonant message. “Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Spanberger told supporters in a victory speech Tuesday. “You all chose leadership that will focus relentlessly on what matters most: lowering costs, keeping our communities safe, and strengthening the economy for every Virginian. Leadership that will focus on problem solving, not stoking division.”
Eric Lutz
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