The technical term is kick ass.
Democrats came back strong in elections outside of 2025, flipping gubernatorial seats to positions in state and county legislatures, and the GOP failed to make any real gains under the weight of Donald Trump’s plummeting popularity.
Gone are the rumors about Trump’s single-handed domination of our politics and the futility of resistance. The US election is underway and Trump’s second honeymoon is over, while prices continue to rise and the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein haunts the president and his allies.
But Democrats need to learn the lessons of their big night in November. Because whatever sugar high they may be feeling will soon clash with the fact that their party’s approval rating remains stubbornly lower than Trump’s, according to multiple surveys compiled by CNN.
Much of the media attention is focused on the extraordinary rise of Democratic Socialist Assemblyman Zorhan Mamdani, 34, to the New York mayoralty after gaining 1 percent in the polls a year ago. But if you dig deeper into the data you will see that indexing his victory runs the risk of misunderstanding the mandate. That reality check should temper any temptation among Democrats to lean far left.
In New Jersey and Virginia, elected governors mikie sherril and Abigail Spanberger won victories, both with 57 percent of the vote, in states that typically elect Republican governors. Democrats made gains in virtually every county compared to last year’s presidential election. Yes, they benefited from the anti-Trump backlash, but more importantly, they made gains among middle-class moderates in the suburbs and even improved margins in rural areas. That’s a formula that can propel Democrats to victory in midterm elections and beyond.
Here’s the key statistic to keep in mind: Mamdani barely won 50 percent of the vote in a city that’s six-to-one Democratic. When all the votes are counted, he could well fall below majority support, which is academic to the extent that his opposition was split between Red Beret Republican Curtis Sliwa and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran half-heartedly as an independent. But for the Democratic candidate to barely exceed 50 percent in New York is not a huge mandate.
Yes, Mandami managed to inspire a young liberal base. Yes, he ran a brilliant and simple campaign. More than a million people came to support him. Their campaign message relentlessly focused on affordability and personal authenticity expressed through engaging short digital videos on social media.
Those are clear lessons that Democrats across the spectrum can learn from. In fact, Governors-elect Sherril and Spanberger also focused their messages almost exclusively on affordability and the economy. They refused to be drawn into divisive debates about the culture war.
They also share a broad political profile that can help Democrats broaden their appeal nationally. Both women were staunchly centrist members of Congress with street cred on national security issues: Sherril was a former Navy helicopter pilot and Spanberger was a former CIA analyst.
In contrast, Mamdani’s profile is less likely to help win swing districts and states. He has never worked in the private sector and has no military service history or executive experience, which is a practical challenge in managing a $117 billion budget.
While he is now a national hero for the Bernie Bros, Mamdani is already a punching bag for national Republicans. As my friend, New York 1 host Errol Louis, has joked: Mamdani is everything the Tea Party accused Barack Obama of being: born in Africa; a Muslim and a socialist. None of that, of course, is an excuse for Republicans to racially harass or scaremonger.
Part of the genius of Mamdani’s campaign is that it could have been an avatar of identity politics, but it never played that card strongly. While he resisted criticizing policies or people on his left (only halfway distancing himself from calls to “globalize the intifada” and from his own previous tweets calling to defund the police), Mamdani offered a relentlessly optimistic demeanor and a famously smiling face that inspired hope in many at a time when that is in short supply. Her success was a prime example of Maya Angelou’s warning that people may not remember what you said, but they do remember how you made them feel.
That’s exactly why the contrast with his victory night speech and those given by Spanberger and Sherill was so stark.
Spanberger called for “pragmatism over partisanship” in a state that has suffered under the right-wing policies of Trumpism. But Mamdani met his triumphant moment not with a call for unity in a divided city, but with something resembling a socialist manifesto, mentioning the name of Eugene Debs in the opening paragraphs, criticizing Trump and Cuomo and generally promising a new ideological order.
That is clearly what he believes is his mandate. But the mayor’s job is effective management: it is essentially a non-ideological problem-solving position. As his legendary predecessor Fiorello LaGuardia once said, “There is no Democratic, Republican or Socialist way to sweep the streets.” When it comes to governing, charisma is important, but competence is essential.
After the Bloomberg years, the last two New York mayors left their positions in the voters’ doghouse: Bill de Blasio barely showing up for work and Eric Adams beset by a constant stream of corruption accusations from his circle of cronies.
We live in an era of extremes. Donald Trump’s team has tried to normalize the idea that any victory, no matter how narrow, is a mandate to impose his extreme ideological vision on the nation. believe that might makes right.
To win the country, not just New York City, Democrats need to build a popular and durable majority based on more than opposition to Trump, which is necessary but not sufficient. Democrats have rightly, if belatedly, focused on the issue of affordability. The basic social contract that says if you work hard and follow the rules you will get ahead has been broken, and that justified frustration is fueling the populist fire.
But that passion must be channeled in a constructive direction or it will burn down the whole house. Democrats should not defend a broken status quo, but they should offer reforms in ways that appeal to more people than they alienate, focusing on rebuilding the middle class and middle class of our politics while shedding the culture war obsessions that drag them down. Since Donald Trump has decided to divide and conquer, Democrats have an additional obligation to try to unite.
This month’s election results show that Democrats can win big in swing districts, ousting candidates who fawn over Trump and excuse his unhinged excesses. But victories in New York City are not a model for winning in rural, purple America. Misinterpreting Democratic mandates and thinking that one size fits all plays into the hands of Republicans and will only perpetuate the polarization that afflicts our nation.
