Donald Trump received a rebuke as Democrats swept every major contest on Nov. 4, which they hope foretells a nationwide backlash to Republican control in Washington ahead of the pivotal 2026 midterm elections.
The results represent the first judgment of Trump’s return to power by millions of Americans as the lame-duck GOP president’s approval numbers sag amid the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.
Democrats and their allies, who have been locked out of power in Washington since January, scored expected wins with former Rep. Abigail Spanberger and New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a socialist-aligned candidate, coasting to victory in the Virginia governor’s and New York City mayoral races, respectively.
More: Trump vs. the midterm blues: Can he get MAGA voters excited (and voting) in 2026?
Democrats also won the New Jersey governorship, where Rep. Mikie Sherrill decisively defeated Republican businessman Jack Ciattarelli, in a race that had been a dead heat in public polls.
“Congratulations to all the Democratic candidates who won tonight,” former President Barack Obama, who hit the 2025 campaign trail in both states during the final days, said in an Nov. 4 post on X.
“It’s a reminder that when we come together around strong, forward-looking leaders who care about the issues that matter, we can win. We’ve still got plenty of work to do, but the future looks a little bit brighter.”
In California, the Proposition 50 ballot measure, pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, thrust Democrats headfirst into the country’s escalating redistricting wars, which Republicans started by redrawing maps in Texas and other GOP-controlled states, at Trump’s behest, to increase the number of Republican-leaning congressioal seats. The Golden State ballot measure, which passed, will allow state leaders to temporarily bypass an independent redistricting commission and draw a new congressional map that will offset some of those Republican gains.
Conservatives who back the president downplayed the results by noting they occurred in four blue states that Trump had lost in the prior year.
Here’s a look a the 2025 election results, and what they mean for both sides in the moment and beyond.
After tough year, Dems get a big night
Maria Slabaugh, of Morristown, and other Mike Sherrill supporters cheer at a watch party for the gubernatorial candidat on Nov. 4, 2025, in East Brunswick.
For a year, Democrats have needed reason for hope and they got the boost they wanted in the 2025 off-year elections.
Virginia and New Jersey lean Democratic, with former Vice President Kamala Harris carrying both in the 2024 election despite her loss nationally. Yet the two victorious Democrats − Spanberger in Virginia and Sherrill in New Jersey − both won by double digits and by greater margins than Harris did a year ago.
Both women – Spanberger, a former congresswoman and Sherrill, a current member of Congress – ran centrist campaigns that re-established Democrats’ strength in suburbs that are critical to their success in 2026.
“We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Spanberger, who became the first woman elected to lead the commonwealth, said in her victory speech from Richmond, Virginia.
“We chose our commonwealth over chaos.”
More: Town halls, f-bombs and Elon Musk: How Democrats are waging a new messaging war
Even in contests where Democrats were on the ropes, such as the Virginia race for attorney general, Democrat Jay Jones secured a win, according to NBC and Fox, overcoming a text message scandal that threatened his chances.
Days before the election, polls showed him locked in a dead heat with Republican incumbent Jason Miyares, who Trump endorsed.
Democrats also maintained control of the state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state in the 2028 presidential election, as voters retained all three Democratic justices up for reelection. And the party flipped two Public Service Commission seats in Georgia Tuesday night, the first time Democrats have held statewide non-federal seats since 2006.
These outcomes mark a yearlong quest by Democrats to retrieve their mojo after a bruising loss in last year’s presidential election, but surveys show voters are not fully sold on the opposition party’s comeback narrative.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll that found Trump’s disapproval rating at 59% revealed more than two-thirds of voters believe Democrats remain “out of touch” with Americans. Roughly 68% of respondents in the poll concur that Democrats don’t get the concerns of most people, which is worse than the 63% who say the same about Trump and the 61% who say the same about the GOP.
MAGA agenda meets the voters without Trump
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump takes the stage to address supporters at his rally, at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 6, 2024.
The MAGA euphoria surrounding Trump’s second term faced a reality check in the first big round of voting since the president won in 2024, with signs that the president is overreaching and courting backlash in the midterms.
Trump already was facing an uphill climb in the midterms, which historically favor the party out of power. He blamed GOP election loses on the government shutdown and the fact that he wasn’t on the ballot in his first comments after key races were called.
“TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,” according to Pollsters,” Trump wrote on social media.
But the GOP’s loses add to the growing momentum among Democrats eager to push back against a president who has tested the limits of executive power.
More: Dismantling agencies and firing workers: How Trump is redefining relations with Congress and courts
While Trump’s moves have thrilled his supporters, they appeared to be a liability for Republican candidates running statewide in Virginia and New Jersey. The president never endorsed Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in the Virginia governor’s race directly, but his policies, specifically cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency, hung over the race.
Between January and May roughly 22,100 people in Virginia lost their jobs after DOGE axed larger swaths of the federal bureaucracy, according to Federal Reserve data.
Mamdani rides affordability, socialist wave to declare ‘mandate’
Mamdani left little doubt in the New York City mayor’s race, winning by a comfortable margin despite much of the city’s political and business establishment trying to beat him.
“You have delivered a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city we can afford and a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that,” he said during his Nov. 4 victory speech.
He overcame weeks of attacks that he’s too young, too inexperienced and too far to the left to cruise past his chief rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 67, a longtime Democrat who ran as an independent after losing in the primary.
Political consultant Suri Kasirer told USA TODAY the mayor’s race “was a change election,” noting record voter turnout and Mamdani’s grassroots campaign and online engagement.
More: Mamdani wins NYC mayor’s race in generational shift for Democrats. Live updates.
Mamdani’s sizable victory − finishing with about 50% of the vote − immediately catapults the 34-year-old democratic socialist into the national spotlight. He campaigned on an economic populist message centered on affordability, with proposals such as free city buses and government-subsidized grocery stores.
“He is a bright light showing the future path for championing working families in New York,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a fellow member of the Democratic Socialists of America and a rumored 2028 presidential contender. “I know for Zohran, it’s not about Democrat, Republican, or independent, it’s about how we help people.”
Democrats see different paths forward
The race to lead the Big Apple drew more than 2 million voters, the highest turnout New York City has seen for a mayoral election in more than three decades. It ended the Democratic Cuomo dynasty, as the second-generation governor tried to coalesce support of moderate Democrats and Republicans to defeat Mamdani but couldn’t get quite enough of them.
Cuomo had an unlikely ally in Trump, who on the eve of the election endorsed Cuomo in a last-ditch effort to try to defeat Mamdani. Trump, a native of New York City, mocked Mamdani relentlessly, wrongly labelling the democratic socialists a “communist” and calling him a “total nut job.”
Mamdani, who is now set to be the first Muslim mayor and first Asian American mayor of the nation’s largest city, faces a showdown with Trump. For months, Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds from New York under a Mamdani mayorship, predicting this summer that he would “have a lot of fun with him” if he were elected.
Even many Democrats acknowledge Mamdani’s political formula that has excited a new generation of progressives might not work in the suburbs and other swing districts that the party will need to carry in two years in the 2026 midterm elections.
Sherrill and Spanberger won by larger margins than Mamdani, and did so by presenting themselves as pragmatists rather than radicals.
More: How Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill hope to redefine Democrats in Virginia and NJ
Spanberger pounded federal worker layoffs into the minds of voters on the campaign trail along with the ongoing government shutdown, cost of living concerns, her bipartisan record in Congress and past military service. She also leaned heavily into reproductive rights, which was a major issue for Old Dominion State voters given it is set to weigh a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights.
Political observers noted that paid off with voters, saying the former congresswoman and CIA officer performed better among non-college graduates than the previous Democratic contender, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, and did better than Harris did last year in key areas of the state, such as Loudoun County, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Newsom scores decisive Democratic win in redistricting wars
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a rally in support of a “Yes” vote on Proposition 50, a congressional redistricting measure in the November 4 special election, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 1, 2025.
Of all the Nov. 4 results, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ballot initiative aimed at slashing Republican congressional seats was set up as a one-on-one heavyweight bout against President Donald Trump, who has been relentless in pressuring GOP-led legislatures to redraw their congressional maps.
Proposition 50 is the unofficial start to both the midterms but also the 2028 contest because it is viewed as setting up the 58-year-old Newsom’s presidential bid after a year trying to distinguish himself from other White House hopefuls.
The initial results show the side favoring Proposition 50 winning the night by a 64-to-35 margin with about 60% of the vote counted, which gives Democratic legislator the pathway to create five new seats out of California that would be in their favor. This gives the national party hopes for potentially winning back control of the U.S. House of Representatives, which would be a major setback for the Trump administration.
“What a night for the Democratic Party,” Newsom said during a Nov. 4 press conference. “A party that is in its ascendancy; a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels… but it was not just a victory tonight for the Democratic Party, it was victory for the United States and the people of this country.”
The governor’s advisors were open with USA TODAY that this ballot initiative adds “momentum” to Newsom’s presidential pitch in 2028, as he is eyeing a presidential campaign announcement soon after the midterms results, according to CBS News.
If he’s seen as an architect of the party taking back a part of Congress that could put other rivals on their heels as they look for ways in the coming months to be distinguished by voters.
Other Democratic state leaders who are following Newsom into the trenches of an escalating redistricting war. The Virginia legislature passed a measure in October redrawing its 11 congressional districts maps via a constitutional amendment that aims to adding two or three Democratic-held seats.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced a new panel on Nov. 4 that will consider redistricting too, adding: “Trump and his allies are trying to rig the system” ahead of the midterms. It is a move that stands in direct opposition to fellow Democrat Bill Ferguson, the Maryland state Senate president, who said he is against the idea, according to reports.
In a Nov. 4 post on Truth Social, Trump alleged without evidence − and implausibly, given California’s Democratic tilt and the polls showing the measure was likely to pass − that the California vote is “a GIANT SCAM” which he suggested should be subject to “legal and criminal review.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump and MAGA agenda rebuked in off-year elections: 5 takeaways
