Playbook: “These were the first major elections since Donald Trump returned to the White House, and there’s no other way of spinning the voters’ response: Democrats out-performed expectations in every significant race across America…”

“The margins of victory were immense. Spanberger won by more than 15 percentage points — far outpacing any recent Democratic win in Virginia, including Ralph Northam’s blowout 2017 victory at the equivalent point of Trump’s first term. In a New Jersey gubernatorial contest billed as a close-run, Sherrill’s double-digit win almost matched her former roommate’s in Virginia. Sherrill flipped at least five Trump-supporting counties back to the Democrats last night.”

“President Donald Trump railed against the results of several elections before they were officially called for the Democrats on Tuesday, previewing a slew of losses for the president’s party in the first major elections since he started his second term,” the Washington Post reports.

“In social media posts Tuesday, Trump claimed without evidence that there was widespread fraud surrounding California’s Proposition 50 ballot measure, a Democratic-led effort to change the state’s congressional map in response to Republican-led redistricting in Texas. He also insulted Jewish voters who supported Zohran Mamdani in New York City, and alleged that energy costs and crime would spike if Democratic gubernatorial candidates won in New Jersey and Virginia…”

“The four elections that Trump targeted on social media broke handily for the Democrats, the first major political blow to the president since he reclaimed the Oval Office last year.”

Washington Post: “One encouraging sign for Democrats: They appeared to fare far better with voters of color than they did in last year’s presidential election, when Trump won close to half of Latino voters and roughly doubled his support among Black voters to 15 percent.”

Ron Brownstein: “With resounding wins in Tuesday’s Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, Democrats substantially repaired the most important cracks that President Donald Trump made in their coalition in the 2024 election. That gives Democrats reason for optimism — though not yet certainty — that they are on track for a solid recovery in the 2026 midterm election…”

“Even the most optimistic Democrats don’t contend that Tuesday’s results prove the party has solved its problems with those voting blocs….

 “But the Democratic wins do signal that exuberant Republican predictions after 2024 — that Trump had engineered a durable realignment, particularly among working-class Hispanic, Black and Asian American voters — were premature.”

Cook Political Report: “It’s not 2024 anymore. In fact, Tuesday’s elections showed that the current political environment is more akin to the 2018 cycle, when huge Democratic turnout — spurred by an unpopular President Donald Trump — helped Democrats flip control of the U.S. House.”

“Shortly after Zohran Mamdani was anointed the mayor-elect of New York City, he strode onto the stage of a cavernous, ornate theater, put his hand on his heart, smiled his signature smile and nodded to a socialist forebear,” the New York Times reports.

Said Mamdani: “As Eugene Debs once said, I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.”

“In nearly every facet of Mr. Mamdani’s identity — his ethnicity, his religion, his democratic socialism, his age, Mr. Mamdani represents change. And in his first remarks since he was declared the winner of Tuesday’s election, Mr. Mamdani, 34, shied away from none of that.”

CNN: The inside story of Zohran Mamdani’s triumph and what happens next for New York.

Washington Post: “Mamdani won two-thirds of voters under 45 in preliminary exit polls, while Cuomo led him by 10 points with voters 45 and older. The polls also showed an education divide: College graduates backed Mamdani by 55 percent, while voters without college degrees narrowly favored Cuomo.”

“For Democrats, Tuesday night felt like 2017 all over again,” Politico reports.

“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.”

John Ellis: “Democrats are now more likely to vote in off-year and mid-term elections than they were, say, 25 years ago. That’s a big change and perhaps the most pertinent one with regard to last night’s results. If Republican voters are less likely to vote in off-year and mid-term elections, more of them need to be fired up.”

“The single best motivator of GOP voters is President Trump. The fact that he was publicly AWOL from all three races suggests that had he hit the campaign trail and stumped for the GOP in all three states — urging ‘the base’ to ‘get out and vote’ — it would have hurt, not helped, the GOP’s cause.”

Punchbowl News: “If Republicans aren’t scared by what happened Tuesday night, they should be.”

“One year after President Donald Trump and Republicans won the White House, Congress and every battleground state, Democrats struck back by painting Virginia and New Jersey blue Tuesday night, shifting the map leftward in county after county…”

“This was a Democratic romp in the midst of a national crisis over the now record 36-day government shutdown. It should send a stark message to Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune that the national tide has shifted decisively from last year’s Republican victories.”