Democrats sweep the 2025 elections.

I'm Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today’s read: 13 minutes.

Quick hits.

1. A United Parcel Service (UPS) cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville International Airport, killing at least nine people, including all three crew members on board. The crash also caused widespread damage to an industrial corridor adjacent to the airport, with 11 injuries reported on the ground. (The crash) 
2. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on U.S. trading partners. (The case)
3. A bipartisan group of senators is reportedly in advanced discussions over a deal to reopen the government. The potential agreement includes a continuing resolution to fund the government and full-year appropriations bills. (The report) Separately, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said portions of U.S. airspace may be closed to air traffic if the government shutdown continues into next week due to air-traffic-controller shortages. (The warning) 
4. The Trump administration said it will comply with a court order to use emergency funds to disburse partial benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). On Wednesday, President Trump had suggested that he would only send out the benefits after the government shutdown ended. (The latest)
5. Hamas returned the body of the last U.S. citizen held in Gaza. Israel says seven more hostages’ bodies remain in the enclave. (The return)

Today’s topic.

The 2025 election results. On Tuesday, voters cast ballots in the first election cycle since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. Democrats won the most closely watched races decisively, including Virginia’s and New Jersey’s gubernatorial elections, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court retention vote, and the New York City mayoral election. Furthermore, several ballot measures passed decisively. Californians passed Proposition 50 to approve mid-decade redistricting, Mainers voted down a voter ID ballot measure and approved the creation of a “red flag” law, and Texans amended their state constitution to ban noncitizen voting and codify parental rights.

You can read our preview of the key elections and ballot measures here.

In Virginia, Democrats flipped three key Republican seats. Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) will become the state’s first female governor after defeating Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) by a 14.5% margin of victory. State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D) defeated talk radio host and political strategist John Reid (R) for lieutenant governor 55.6%–44.4%, and former state Delegate Jay Jones (D) won the race for attorney general over current Attorney General Jason Miyares (R). Jones ran several points behind fellow Democrats Spanberger and Hashmi but ended up winning by over six points in a race that was marked by controversy. Furthermore, Democrats increased their majority in the 100-member Virginia House of Delegates, going from 51 to 64 seats.

In New Jersey, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) won the governor’s race, defeating former state General Assembly member Jack Ciattarelli (R). Polling suggested a competitive race in the final weeks, but Sherrill won by 13%. 

In New York City, State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D) won the mayoral election decisively, garnering over 50% of the vote in a race against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (I) and activist and radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa (R). Mamdani, 34, defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June in what was considered a major upset, and he now becomes the city’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor. Voters also passed three ballot measures aimed at streamlining the development of new housing in the city. 

In Pennsylvania, voters sent three Democrats back to the state Supreme Court for another 10-year term in the retention election, maintaining Democrats’ 5–2 majority on the court. 

In Texas’s special election for the 18th Congressional District, no candidate reached the 50% threshold to win in the first round of voting, but Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards have advanced to an automatic runoff. 

In Minneapolis, no candidate received a majority of votes in the city’s mayoral election, sending the ranked-choice contest to a second round of tabulations. Incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey (D) received 42% of the first-round votes and state Sen. Omar Fateh (D) received 32%. 

In California, voters approved Proposition 50, or the “Election Rigging Response Act,” which authorizes the state legislature to redraw its congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms. The redistricting is expected to net Democrats up to five additional seats in the U.S. House, though the map will only be used until the state’s independent redistricting commission creates its scheduled map in 2030 using new census data.

Finally, in Colorado, voters passed a proposition that will lower the cap on tax deductions for individuals earning $300,000 or more per year in order to raise additional funds to support a free breakfast and lunch program for public school students. 

Today, we’ll break down the results of these major races, with views from the right and left. Then, Executive Editor Isaac Saul gives his take.

What the right is saying.

• The right acknowledges Democrats’ strong night, and many say the GOP needs to refocus on its economic pitch.
• Some argue the Democrats’ leftward shift will be a losing strategy in the long run.
• Others say Republicans need to begin preparing for a post-Trump world.  

The New York Post editorial board wrote about what the results “mean for Dems & the GOP.”

“Election Day 2025 was a good one for less-radical Democrats, or at least Dems who play moderate, as Abby Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill triumphed in Virginia and New Jersey emphasizing their pragmatism, not their progressivism. Yes, Zohran Mamdani won in NYC, but the Democratic line is a near-guarantee of victory,” the board said. “We’d advise national Republicans to avoid obsessing about [Mamdani], at least until he actually produces disastrous results here. With control of the White House and (however thin) both halves of Congress, Republicans need to be running on their own accomplishments, showing the voters what they’re for, not simply pointing at boogeymen.”

“Though the GOP can sometimes win statewide in Jersey and Virginia, both have become blue states; it’s no real surprise that candidates who ran hard against President Donald Trump won in both,” the board wrote. “Republicans’ challenge in next year’s midterms will be to draw out the radicalism that Sherrill and Spanberger downplayed: Democrats nationally are still locked into lunacy on social policy (from DEI to trans issues) and bizarro boutique obsessions like killing US energy production in the name of fighting climate change.”

In Fox News, Mark Penn said “Democrats win the moment, but left-wing tilt threatens their future.”

“Democrats roared back in the 2025 off-year elections, and that’s no surprise given widespread voter discontent with the economy and the political system in general. Democratic-leaning areas that flipped to Republicans in 2024 returned to the party this year,” Penn wrote. “President Donald Trump was not on the ballot, but Republicans inherited a difficult situation from the Biden administration. Most voters believe the economy remains weak and that they are stuck in an inflationary spiral — one that may be lower than it was under Biden but still remains their top concern.”

“The big issue now for the Democratic Party is how far left it will drift under the influence of Democratic Socialists gaining ground within the party and being accepted by much of its leadership,” Penn said. “The [Democratic Socialists of America] agenda is far removed from mainstream Democratic values, with calls for open borders and the abolition of private property… Mamdani will likely prove a gift to Republicans, and the 2028 presidential primaries could become a defining battle for the direction of the Democratic Party.”

On his Substack, Erick Erickson suggested “lame duck status begins to kick in today.”

“It was a bad night for the GOP. Trump voters vote for Trump. Democrats have become so radicalized against Trump that there is no local politics anymore. Everything is defined by the R or D next to one’s name, and in off year elections, etc., that is very bad for the incumbent party,” Erickson wrote. “Donald Trump will start becoming a lame duck sooner than expected. He cannot turn out the vote unless he is on the ballot, and he will never be on the ballot again. So the jockeying will begin to replace him.”

“It’s also worth pointing out that New York, New Jersey, and even Virginia are not exactly red states and, because of the government shutdown, federal workers in Virginia have had a lot of idle time to vote and they lean Democrat. So there’s only so much you can read into these results,” Erickson said. “You won’t hear about Texas, where every Republican offered constitutional amendment passed, and even Austin’s progressive voter base rejected a tax hike. That suggests the ‘Blue Texas’ fantasy of next year should be dead on arrival, but the press won’t be able to help it.”

What the left is saying.

• The left celebrates the results, and some say Mamdani’s victory should be a model for other Democrats. 
• Many suggest Democrats’ success bodes well for the midterms.
• Others say voters made their displeasure with Trump known. 

In Jacobin, Eric Blanc said “Mamdani’s victory points the way forward.”

“Tonight’s historic win proves the skeptics wrong. Despite millions of dollars poured into billionaire-bought attack ads and despite Trump’s attempts to blackmail voters into backing Andrew Cuomo, New Yorkers are sending a thirty-four-year-old democratic socialist to Gracie Mansion with a strong mandate to make our city affordable again,” Blanc wrote. “It turns out things don’t need to just keep getting worse and worse. At a moment of deepening authoritarian attacks, astronomical economic inequality, and Democratic Party disarray, the shock waves of Mamdani’s political earthquake will be felt nationwide.”

“Zohran was a credible messenger for this transformative vision because he wasn’t beholden to corporate cash or part of a decrepit Democratic establishment. The fact that Mamdani is a democratic socialist, and that he refused to throw Palestinians under the bus, signaled his authentic, outsider status to millions of New Yorkers who are used to mainstream politicians saying one thing and doing another,” Blanc said. “Like Bernie Sanders before him — and very much unlike candidates like Kamala Harris — when Zohran talked about workers versus the billionaires, you knew he meant it.”

In Bloomberg, Ronald Brownstein called the results “an unmistakable warning to Republicans.”

“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,” Brownstein wrote. “Democrats Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia regained significant ground among two groups where Trump made noteworthy advances last year: working-class people of color and young people, according to both media exit polls and county-by-county election results. The two Democrats also improved among college-educated voters.”

The results “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. Instead, Tuesday’s results signal that many voters in all the constituencies that moved toward Trump in 2024 remain within reach for both parties. Moreover, the same economic frustrations that boosted Trump among those groups last year are buffeting him, and other Republicans, now,” Brownstein said. “The convincing Democratic wins reinforced the core truth that attitudes about the incumbent president are now the driving force in off-year elections.”

In The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie wrote “Trump is an albatross.”

“As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump is a phenomenally effective vote-winner, capable of turning out millions of otherwise infrequent voters to deliver the White House and Congress to the Republican Party. But as president, Trump has been an albatross around the neck of his party,” Bouie said. “Although voters across Virginia, New Jersey and New York City were most concerned with the particulars of their respective states and localities, there was no question that this was also a chance to register their discontent in a way that might send a message to Washington and the rest of America.”

“Supporters of the president might pooh-pooh these results as unrepresentative. This isn’t a presidential electorate, they might say; there are different circumstances. But New Jersey and New York City both had high turnout for off-year elections (Virginia had a slight increase). In other words, it really is the case that Trump specifically, in his capacity as president, inspires ferocious energy and opposition against him among a large part of the voting public,” Bouie wrote. “The results, then, are a marked contrast to the accommodation, capitulation and outright surrender of prominent individuals and institutions in the face of Trump’s demands.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

Executive Editor Isaac Saul: Yesterday’s results span far too much ground to cover with one cohesive take. So instead, here are 15 assorted thoughts on last night:

1. It’s hard to imagine the night going better for Democrats. They won every major race, often by huge margins, which provides some clarity on what their new coalition could look like: A broad group of voters opposed to Trump and focused on affordability. I took two lessons from these wins: 1) The fallout from Trump’s first 10 months in office is clearly motivating the left, and 2) It’s time for Republicans to start focusing on the affordability crisis they said they were going to solve. Marjorie Taylor Greene might be onto something!
2. Plenty of people, including me, thought the New Jersey governor’s election was going to be close. Instead, it turned into the loudest screaming alarm of the night for the right. Remember: Trump somehow made the state competitive in 2024; Biden carried New Jersey by 16 points, yet Trump got to within six points of Harris in 2024. Democrat Mikie Sherill ran a totally flat and unconvincing campaign (she couldn’t even answer basic questions about making millions on stock trades) and won decisively, by 13 points. Her election marks the first time since 1961 that the state has elected a governor from the same party for three consecutive terms. Not only is New Jersey not going red, it’s now consistently blue. 
3. Virginia’s and Georgia’s results were pretty remarkable, too. Virginia provided the first tangible blowback to cuts to the federal workforce from DOGE and the ongoing shutdown: As one Democratic strategist put it, “It turns out that firing half of Northern Virginia for no reason might not be super popular in Northern Virginia.” But it wasn’t just federal workers — nearly the entire state lurched leftward, as Democrats flipped the governor’s mansion and outperformed Biden and Harris in pretty much every county. In Georgia, the results were just as stark: Democrats won two non-federal statewide elections for the first time since 2006. If I were a Republican strategist, the results here and in New Jersey would be keeping me up at night.
4. Jay Jones was elected attorney general in Virginia despite his text messaging scandal, and I have to say I’m not surprised. Because of Trump, Republicans have been dismissing character deficits in favor of political unity for a decade. Remember the bumper stickers: “I’d Take Mean Tweets and $2 Gas Right Now.” Well… here you go: A lot of people will take mean texts and fighting Trump right now. Or mean texts and their federal job, or stability from the government, or even just political power. This is why people (like me) have been calling for the right and left to police their own. It’s not a great sign of the times.
5. This is a stop-and-pause moment that I predict will cause two immediate reactions: 1) A flurry of activity to reopen the government, given that Democrats withstood the political blowback and Republicans now hear alarm bells everywhere (this prediction is already starting to prove correct). 2) Many Republicans will reconsider the gerrymandering wars. The visible shifts in Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia are so notable that it could genuinely make them rethink the wisdom of trying to gerrymander even more districts where Trump had a 5–6 point edge that now looks tenuous. By attempting to redraw those districts, Republicans could be overreaching and putting themselves more at risk in 2026. Lots of commentators are already pointing this out.
6. I’m sure many Democrats are buzzing right now, but they shouldn’t get out over their skis: Remember, these were off-cycle races where, across the board, Democrats had a lot of advantages. In 2021, Glenn Youngkin winning the governor’s race in Virginia was supposed to be the first sign of a red wave; he was supposed to provide the playbook for how Republicans can win in Virginia. None of that materialized — not the 2022 red wave, and not even consecutive Republican governors in Virginia. The immutable rule, as I said after Trump won, is that political fortunes can change in a hurry.
7. Mamdani winning in New York City will dominate much of the news because so many members of the media (including on the right) are from New York or have roots there. I personally think the hysteria is totally overblown. And it is hysteria. ISIS did not endorse him. He will not be deported. He is not a raging antisemite. He is a leftist with brown skin who speaks some Arabic — he doesn’t have to be The Big Scary Thing. But yes, his policies are far-left and often socialist, and the big problem for Democrats nationally is that Republicans are going to give Mamdani the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez treatment: making him the face of the party’s “true socialist intentions.”
8. Let’s pause for a moment to talk about Mamdani’s agenda. He campaigned on freezing rent, free childcare, government-run grocery stores, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create “the strongest sanctuary city” in America. I think many of these policies are bad and unrealistic, but it isn’t an evil agenda. Some of the attacks against him (like calling him a radical Muslim who hates Jews) are overtly racist and Islamophobic. But most (like fearing New York will soon be a failed communist state) simply fail to take into account how difficult it will be for him to implement his policies. I think in four years we’re going to look back on the commentary about him — the calls for his deportation, the obituaries about New York — and realize how absurd and over the top they were. He’s inexperienced, and he can’t just flip switches to make things happen. I expect he will face a constant uphill battle, he’ll get very little done, and that New York will be fine.
9. On the other hand, I also dismissed many of the fears coming from the left about Trump’s second term as hysterical. Look how that turned out. Maybe the fears I’m dismissing from the right will end up coming to pass, and I’ll look slow to the punch again in one or two years.
10. And what’s more, Mamdani is being dealt a great hand. One undertold story of this election is that Mayor Eric Adams, however corrupt, has overseen some good years: Unemployment is low and trending lower, housing production is up, violent crime is down, sanitation is improving, bike lanes are expanding, and public school students are testing higher after the city implemented phonics-based learning. It’s pretty remarkable that Mamdani won in that environment, but that’s what you get when the competition is someone as detestable, and with as bad a record, as Andrew Cuomo. If a normal, moderate Democrat or Republican had run against Mamdani, maybe they would have won — after all, Cuomo lost by single digits, with Curtis Sliwa taking 7% of the vote. Also, last night, New York City voters approved three proposals to rewrite housing laws and make it easier to build in the city. Mamdani has an incredible opportunity to build (literally) on these wins — I hope he doesn’t screw it up in America’s greatest city.
11. In Pennsylvania, all three Democratic Supreme Court justices were retained, meaning Democrats’ majority is secure until the next election in another two years. Removing judges is rare, so this is what I expected, but a more interesting signal came from my hometown in Bucks County. A few years ago, Republicans had flipped a couple big school boards in Bucks on a message of fighting wokeness. Democrats retook control of two of those school boards in 2023. Last night, they removed all Republicans from both. In one of the most important swing states, Democrats have a popular governor, control of the high court, and are taking local power back in purple counties. 
12. Per NBC exit polling: In Virginia, Spanberger was +14 with 18–29 year old men. In New Jersey, Sherill was +10. In New York City, Mamdani was +40. We are getting some early signals that a populist coalition of young voters without clear party allegiances could be rising into a participatory voting age, and I’m not entirely sure the current political class is ready for it.
13. Prop. 50 passed in California, and I’m really not sure how to feel about it. On principles alone, I’m upset: Gerrymandering is a bipartisan scourge. I don’t want any more of it (even temporarily) and would much prefer to see the existing gerrymanders undone. At the same time, we have a president with control of Congress who wants and insists on a gerrymandering war, and I don’t think it’d be wise to just cede the field to him without a fight; otherwise, the people pushing gerrymandering the hardest will win and never lose control. To me, the only off-ramp is that both sides gerrymander so much they realize how bad they’ve made things, and then mutually agree to back off and undo the damage. We might be a few years (or more) from that, but I genuinely don’t see how we get to that off-ramp otherwise, especially when Trump is explicitly calling for this fight. 
14. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Republicans and the right lost every single race they were invested in last night. When I try to communicate the dangers of Trump’s excesses to the right (as Associate Editor Audrey Moorehead recently did for the left), I give the message I already articulated in point 6: Political fortunes can change in a hurry. Any power you exercise now against your perceived enemies, in this country, will one day be exercised against you. Trump won on the back of a promise to lower inflation and address the immigration crisis. Things are getting more expensive, and the Obamacare cliff isn’t even here yet; illegal immigration has plummeted, but the enforcement has produced some extremely unpleasant scenes. Simply put: The president isn’t yet winning voters over on the agenda he promised, and he’s also activating his political opposition with his power grabs. This is a recipe for a midterm blowout.
15. The good news for Republicans in all this is twofold: 1) Mamdani will be a great new foil. They’ll make him the face of the left to scare off moderates and independents, and it will probably work. 2) Democrats still don’t have a cohesive strategy going forward. The wins are helpful — but now what? Embrace the young, self-proclaimed Democratic socialist? Or the blue-dog moderates like the underwhelming Mikie Sherill (who is also a Navy vet) and Abigail Spanberger (a pretty milquetoast centrist)? I honestly have no idea. All of this is even more interesting considering Trump: Republicans have clearly been unable to turn out the vote without him, and once he leaves office, Democrats will lose their number one villain. The 2028 vacuum is going to be enormous. 

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Under the radar.

On Sunday, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the former top lawyer in the Israeli military, was reported missing, then found and arrested on suspicion of “leaking and other serious criminal offences.” Two days prior, Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned from her post after admitting that she approved the leak of a video allegedly showing Israeli soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee. The video caused international outcry, and five soldiers shown in the footage were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm. However, Tomer-Yerushalmi has drawn sharp criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called the leak “perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment.” The BBC has the story. 

Numbers.

• 3. The number of minutes after polls closed in New York City that Decision Desk HQ called the mayoral election for Zohran Mamdani (D).
• 13. The number of minutes after polls closed in New Jersey that Decision Desk HQ called the gubernatorial election for Mikie Sherrill (D).
• 19. The number of minutes after polls closed in Virginia that Decision Desk HQ called the gubernatorial election for Abigail Spanberger (D).
• 2 million. The approximate number of votes cast in New York City’s election (before polls closed), the highest turnout in a mayoral election since 1969. 
• 1.15 million. The approximate turnout in the city’s 2021 mayoral election.
• 8.8%. Mamdani’s margin of victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (I), with 91% of votes tabulated.
• 39.5%. New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s margin of victory over Curtis Sliwa (R) in the city’s 2021 mayoral election. 
• 13. The number of seats in the Virginia House of Delegates flipped by Democrats. 
• 64–36. Virginia Democrats’ projected majority in the House of Delegates after the election.

The extras.

• One year ago today we released our special edition on Election Day.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the ISIS-inspired Halloween plot.
• Nothing to do with politics: A deaf woman walking her dog survived being hit by a (small) plane.
• Yesterday’s survey: 620 readers responded to our survey on yesterday’s elections with 23% saying the race for New Jersey governor would tell us the most about the country’s political mood. “It is the collective of them all, if you want to view the ‘mood of the country,’” one respondent said. “I don't live in any of those places. My opinion about them is not important,” said another.

Have a nice day.

When Kevin Tang was eight, his grandmother fell at home without the family’s immediate knowledge; by the time help arrived, she had permanent brain damage. A few years later, Kevin’s grandfather also suffered a serious fall. Now 13 years old, Kevin used those experiences as motivation to invent a fall-detection system. Using a network of cameras placed around the house to monitor movement, Kevin’s invention can determine if someone has fallen and needs help. The creation earned $25,000 and the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” for 2025. Most importantly, Kevin says he is committed to making the product free or affordable to anyone who needs it. USA Today has the story.