“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.”
“Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey defeated democratic socialist Omar Fateh and 13 other challengers Wednesday during the final round of counting in the city’s ranked-choice voting election,” the AP reports.
“Frey, who secured a third term, led Fateh by about 10 percentage points after Tuesday night’s first round of counting but didn’t cross the 50%-plus-one-vote threshold he needed to win outright.”
Zohran Mamdani told NY1 he didn’t get a congratulatory call from either Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams last night.
He did get a congratulatory call from Curtis Sliwa.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. So Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.”
— New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D), in his victory speech.
“The midterms start tonight and the warning signs are flashing.”
— Steve Bannon, on his podcast.
“More than a few Republicans are celebrating Zohran Mamdani’s victory, seeing the 34-year-old democratic socialist as a political gift and an albatross for the Democratic Party. Steve Bannon is not among them,” Politico reports.
“The former White House chief strategist has long preached the idea that populism is the engine of modern politics. And he sees Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City as proof of its staying power — and a sign of the growing anti-establishment force on the left that Republicans would be foolish to ignore.”
Said Bannon: “Tonight should be a wake up call to the populist nationalist movement under President Trump. These are very serious people, and they need to be addressed seriously.”
“Enough with the premature obituaries. The Democratic Party is back.”
— House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, on X.
A new memo from the center-left Third Way argues that despite “excellent” and “broadly applicable” campaign tactics, Zohran Mamdani’s “policies and message, which are radical and politically toxic outside the deep blue confines of New York City, do not translate.”
It adds: “We therefore urge Democrats at all levels to resist the pressure to align with Mamdani’s politics and agenda.”
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.”
Wall Street Journal: “California’s Proposition 50 appears passed after Newsom and other top Democrats convinced voters that temporarily redrawing congressional maps was the best way to counter Trump. No Democrat has clashed more with the president during Trump’s second term than Newsom, who is considering a run for president in 2028. This victory gives him some momentum as he attempts to claim the party’s leadership mantle.”
“The new maps will likely eliminate five GOP-held congressional seats, a direct response to Texas redrawing its maps in an effort to gain five Republican seats of their own. Other GOP states have followed suit and some Democratic leaders have said they will too.”
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.”
“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.”
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.”
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.
