6/11/25

Democrats’ electoral sweep deals blow to Trump

The vote was the first major electoral test of Trump’s second term

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This article is republished from The Financial Times.

Zohran Mamdani wins New York and Republicans defeated in New Jersey and Virginia

Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who seized on discontent with the high cost of living, was elected New York City mayor on Tuesday, as Democrats swept elections across the US in a rebuke to Donald Trump and his Republican party.

The Democratic victories, including clear wins in New Jersey and Virginia, came 10 months into the US president’s second term and offer a warning that American voters remain dissatisfied with inflation and Trump’s difficulty in bringing it under control.

“I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” Trump said on Wednesday morning at an event at the White House. “I don’t think it was good. I’m not sure it was good for anybody.”

With one year until next year’s midterms, Tuesday’s results will energise a Democratic party that has struggled to mount effective opposition to Trump and his Maga agenda.

The vote was the first major electoral test of Trump’s second term, during which he has shaken up global trade with high tariffs, cracked down on immigrants, deployed US troops to American cities, and torn down part of the White House to make room for a donor-funded ballroom.

“There are just a lot of voters of all different shapes, sizes and colours, who are ticked off by Trump,” said Charlie Cook, a veteran political analyst.

With 91 per cent of the votes counted, Mamdani had secured 50.4 per cent versus 41.6 per cent for Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic three-term governor of New York, according to the Associated Press.

The results of Tuesday’s election in New York will reverberate through America’s political establishment as 1mn voters endorsed a radical shift in policy in the city that sits at the heart of global capitalism.

Mamdani, 34, completed his remarkable rise from little-known local politician to become the first Muslim mayor-elect of America’s biggest city, comfortably defeating Cuomo, who was endorsed by Trump.

The president has called Mamdani a “communist” and threatened to withhold federal funding if he were elected mayor.

But Mamdani launched a challenge to Trump during a fiery victory speech, casting himself as the polar opponent to the president on the national stage.

“Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching . . . I have four words for you: Turn the volume up!” Mamdani said. “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”

Mamdani’s charismatic, social media savvy campaign, relentlessly focused on improving affordability, captivated the city’s electorate — especially younger voters. More than 2mn New Yorkers cast ballots on Tuesday, the largest turnout in a mayoral race since 1969.

Across the Hudson River, in New Jersey — a state that swung towards Trump in last year’s presidential election — Democratic congresswoman Mikie Sherrill saw off her Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli to become the state’s next governor, defeating him by double digits.

Sherrill campaigned hard to tie her opponent to the president, whose approval ratings have slumped across the country in recent months.

In Virginia, former Democratic congresswoman Abigail Spanberger also won by double digits, flipping the governorship from Republican control — and becoming the first female governor of the state.

Polling ahead of the election underestimated the scale of support for Spanberger and Sherrill.

Trump said at a hastily-arranged breakfast meeting with senators at the White House on Wednesday that Republicans had underperformed because he was not on the ballot, and voters were angry about the federal government shutdown.

“I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor negative for the Republicans, and that was a big factor,” Trump said. “And they say that I wasn’t on the ballot was the biggest factor.”

He also said lawmakers would “have a discussion . . . about what last night represented, and what we should do about it.”

Democrats had also on Tuesday notched up wins in Pennsylvania — extending the terms of three judges on the state’s Supreme Court — and California, where voters overwhelmingly backed the party’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps.

Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor who has emerged as a forceful Trump critic, urged voters to back Proposition 50 to send a message to the president ahead of next year’s midterms.

Kyle Kondik, of the non-partisan University of Virginia Center for Politics, called Tuesday’s results a “blowout” for Democrats similar to the party’s success in the 2017 off-year elections during Trump’s first term.

Those results foreshadowed the 2018 midterms, when Democrats took back control of the House of Representatives, ending Republican unified control of Congress.

Tuesday’s results should be “very concerning for Republicans”, Kondik said.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat — who like several other senior members of the party did not endorse Mamdani — called the results a “repudiation of the Trump agenda”.

“The cruelty, chaos, and greed that define Maga radicalism and are skyrocketing costs were firmly rejected by the American people,” Schumer added.

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