Four takeaways after Democrats seal key wins

After scoring decisive victories in New York’s mayoral races and gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, it is clear that the Democratic Party will be strengthened on Tuesday’s big election night.

It’s a far cry from the scenes after last year’s presidential election, when the party was left searching for answers after Donald Trump and Republicans scored a landslide victory.

The results also mark one year since the vital midterm elections. So, now that the night’s picture is clearer, here’s what we’ve learned from the results.

Democrats achieved key victories when they swept the first major elections of Trump’s second term.

The various candidates’ headquarters witnessed joyful celebrations, in stark contrast to the pessimistic scenes after the painful defeat suffered by the party in the 2024 elections.

Abigail Spanberger won Virginia, flipping the governorship from a Republican, while Mickey Sherrill was elected governor of New Jersey. Both won decisively, receiving more than 56% of the vote.

In New York City, Zahran Mamdani defeated independent Andrew Cuomo and became the first candidate to receive one million votes since 1969.

Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s former deputy national security adviser, told the BBC that Mamdani “changed voters” by urging young people and immigrants to vote.

“More importantly, he built a movement,” he said.

A string of decisive victories could bolster a party that has struggled at times to quickly counter President Trump’s second-term agenda and rebound from its defeat in 2024.

“The Democrats are back and we are winning,” Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday. “We have momentum going into the midterms.”

A pledge to lower the cost of rent, food and child care has been at the heart of Mamdani’s left-wing campaign, but it has also been a winning issue for more moderate Democrats elsewhere.

Both Sherrill in New Jersey and Spanberger in Virginia have addressed the rising cost of living front and center in their campaigns. This appears to have been a top priority for voters as well.

Polling data from major US networks indicated that the most important issue for voters in all three races was the economy and affordability.

Interestingly, according to poll data conducted by CBS News, the BBC’s partner in the US, the majority of voters who considered the economy the most important issue for them voted for the Democratic candidate in New York, New Jersey and Virginia.

This could send a message to the party to unite before next year’s crucial midterm elections – and pose a challenge for Republicans to confront.

“I can’t see the future, but I see that Republicans will lose the House if Americans continue to pay paycheck to paycheck.” Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told Semafor recently.

“It is clearer than ever that affordability must be the focus of the Democrats’ message ahead of the midterm elections,” political communications expert Andrew Koniszewski told AFP.

“The affordability message cuts across demographics and highlights a key weakness for Republicans,” he said.

When Trump won his decisive victory over Kamala Harris last year, he received significant support from Latino voters who have been a key part of the Democratic voter base for decades.

Trump saw a massive 14 percentage point increase in support from that demographic compared to the 2020 election, according to exit polls. No Republican presidential candidate has ever won a higher percentage of Latino voters.

While he was not on the ballot Tuesday night, there were some potentially troubling signs for his Republican Party. The winning gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey had commanding leads of about 30% among Latino voters, according to exit poll data.

There are also interesting twists when examining the results more closely.

Analysts often cite Passaic County, New Jersey — which census data shows is nearly half Latino — as an indicator of Trump support among those voters. He won it by 3 percentage points in 2024, but Sherrill won it by 15 points on Tuesday.

Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant who specializes in Latino voting trends, noted that the cost of living — a major topic in Democratic campaigns — was a major factor.

“There has been no poll conducted anywhere in the country in the past month, but the economy is the number one issue for Latinos,” he said.

In liberal New York, Mamdani ran as a democratic socialist, where he would tax millionaires and corporations to the tune of $9bn (£6.9bn), in order to pay for policies such as childcare and free buses.

But things were different in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, where Republicans had much greater electoral success in the past.

In those states, both Democratic candidates were establishment-backed moderates who emphasized practical policies likely to attract voters less liberal than those in New York City.

The same night demonstrated the wide differences in the party between its left and center wings, and raised questions about how it will handle elections and choose candidates in the future.

Democrats need to field candidates who reflect a specific electorate, rather than taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach, Koniszewski noted.

“In some cases, this may mean fielding progressive candidates. In other cases, this may mean fielding moderate or centrist candidates,” he said.

New York City Comptroller and Mamdani ally Brad Lander echoed this point, Nada Tawfik, BBC correspondent, says: That Democratic leadership must recognize that different things will work in different parts of the country and must allow the primary process to move forward.