“Once the votes were tallied, Republican candidates weren’t the only ones who fell short in Tuesday’s elections. The pollsters had a bad night, too,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“As a group, firms that publicly release their polls failed to detect the wave that gave a landslide win to Democrats in New Jersey, where their candidate for governor won by 13 points.”
“A day after California voters shrunk the number of safe Republican House seats through a Democratic gerrymander, two endangered incumbents said they would square off against each other in a high-stakes bid for political survival next year,” the New York Times reports.
“Representative Ken Calvert, a Riverside County Republican whose 41st Congressional District was carved up and appended to several neighboring districts, said on Wednesday that he would run for the new incarnation of the 40th District, one of the few friendly territories left for Republicans in California.”
“He made no mention of the fact that the district was already occupied.”
“A newly empowered Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday vowed to use his convincing victory in the New York City mayor’s race as a mandate to push an ambitious progressive agenda past potential obstacles, from billionaire antagonists to Albany bureaucracy,” the New York Times reports.
“In a shift from the mollifying tone he had used for months, Mr. Mamdani made clear that while he would govern for all New Yorkers, he was determined to deliver for those who had been agitating for structural change.”
“The shift in tone was most striking when it came to his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy.”
Jessica Yellin asked Rahm Emanuel about his presidential ambitions and he claimed he’s still deciding — but leaned far in, telling her he’s “going to make my claim” on “education” and “access to the American dream.”
And though he wouldn’t handicap California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, he took a subtle shot at both without naming them: 2028 needs to be “about having a positive vision for the future, not fighting Trump.”
It’s a good interview.
“The day after Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani won a victory in New York that reflected Democrats’ hunger for generational and ideological change, Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader who had refused to endorse him, rejected fresh accusations from the left that he had lost touch with his own party,” the New York Times reports.
Said Schumer: “I think there are many different ways to connect with the American people on lowering costs.”
“The Democrats’ thumping victories Tuesday are piling new pressure on blue states to redraw their congressional maps to strengthen the party’s position ahead of the 2026 elections,” Politico reports.
“Already, several states are forging ahead.”
Lauren Egan: “For the past year, Democratic party leaders have been privately resigned to the idea that the 2026 Senate map was too difficult to overcome. It was a take rooted more in math than cynicism. The party had lost touch with voters in many of the states it needed to win and had no clear or compelling argument for how to rebuild a winning coalition.”
“But Tuesday’s election results have changed that thinking. The party’s strong showing in races across the country—from the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, to state legislative elections in Mississippi and even utility board seats in Georgia—has Democratic leaders believing that winning back the Senate is a distinct possibility in 2026.”
“And it’s not just spin from party loyalists. In my conversations with Democratic leaders and operatives over the past twenty-four hours, it’s clear that the party’s sense of defeatism about the Senate is beginning to fade away, that they’ve begun actively planning potential investments in states, and that they are convinced that a relentless focus on affordability can open up various pathways to fifty-one seats.”
“U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed on Wednesday that he would order a 10% reduction in scheduled air traffic at 40 major airports starting Friday unless a deal to end the federal government shutdown is reached,” Reuters reports.
“Senate Democrats ended their workday Tuesday agonizing over what to do about the record-setting government shutdown. Many of those same lawmakers woke up Wednesday morning ready to fight on,” Politico reports.
“The sweeping Democratic gains in this week’s elections bolstered the faction in the party insisting that senators dig in and force Republicans to accede to their demand for an extension of key health insurance subsidies used by more than 20 million Americans.”
David Graham: “Off-year elections are never quite the crystal ball for midterms that political junkies want, but one thing that last night’s results seem to convey clearly is that many voters are unhappy with President Donald Trump.”
“Elections for New York City mayor, governors of New Jersey and Virginia, and gerrymandering in California had their own local dynamics, but voters in these heavily nationalized contests were united in their rejection of Trump and his priorities. The results give some reason to doubt Trump’s claim that his 2024 victory was ‘a historic realignment’ of American politics.”
“New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch is willing to remain in her post under Zohran Mamdani as long as the progressive mayor-elect allows her to keep pursuing her agenda,” Bloomberg reports.
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) writes in the Bangor Daily News that he won’t seek re-election next year.
Writes Golden: “I’m confident that were I to run again, I would win. But recent events have made me reconsider whether the good I can do in Congress still outweighs the cost to my family.“
Charlie Cook: “Tuesday’s results back up my oft-stated argument that the November 2024 election was a highly focused repudiation of President Biden, the Biden-Harris Administration, and, by extension, Vice President Kamala Harris, not the top-to-bottom repudiation of the Democratic Party that many have made it out to be.”
Factoring in all of the recent early redistricting moves, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball now projects 209 safe/likely/leans Democratic seats, 209 safe/likely/leans Republican seats and 17 toss-ups.
Of course, the redistricting battle hasn’t fully played out yet and there’s still a year to go.
“Johnny DuPree, a Democrat who served as the mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, for 16 years, has won a Republican-held Mississippi Senate seat, helping break the Republican Party’s supermajority for the first time in 13 years,” the Mississippi Free Press reports.
“Inside the White House, there are two main takeaways from last night’s miserable performance for the Republican Party,” Politico reports.
“The first one – that fielding quality candidates matters – is the one GOP officials are eagerly messaging.”
“But the second, perhaps more existential issue, is that President Donald Trump isn’t focused enough on the issues that matter most to the voters the party needs.”
“Fresh off Democrats’ clean sweep of the 2025 off-year elections, President Donald Trump plans to refocus his political messaging on affordability,” Politico reports.
Said Trump political director James Blair: “The president is very keyed into what’s going on, and he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround, but all the fundamentals are there, and I think you’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
