Continued from Part 1.
However!! Mamdani was not the only Democratic to win big last night. Far from it. Around the country, Democrats up and down the ballot pulled off unexpected victories with unexpected margins. Let’s get into it.
As expected, ex-CIA official and former U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger handily won the race for Governor of Virginia against her Republican opponent, Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.
Less expected was the blue wave that crested over all of Virginia.
In one of the more headline-grabbing victories of the night, Virginia’s Jay Jones defeated his race for Attorney General, despite text messages exhibiting violent rhetoric against his opponent leaking earlier this year.
In the leaked texts from 2022, Jones also said Gilbert and his wife were breeding “little fascists.”
Running a sterling campaign right through the end, Jones actually closed out his campaign by playfully (??) kicking a dog at the polls.
State Senator Louise Lucas didn’t hide from her peer’s bad press:
In another major surprise of the evening, U.S. Representative Mikie Sherrill easily beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli in their race for Governor of New Jersey in what many expected to be a nail-biter.
Very unsurprisingly, Prop 50 won in California; very surprisingly, Kansas Republicans saw early results come in across the country and dropped their own redistricting effort.
Democrats saw major victories in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and even Mississippi.
I don’t need to remind folks what happened the last time we all hopemaxxed. But with a strong showing going into a midterms year, Democrats across the spectrum granted themselves permission to lib.
In a very good sign for the Democrats’ effort to build a broad coalition for 2026 and beyond, Democrats of very different identities, backgrounds, and positions pulled off major wins last night. Unfortunately for those of us who follow political discourse last night, wins for progressives and moderates mean both sides of the Abundance vs. Socialism debate scored new talking points.
The only clear takeaway is that Democrats crush in off-cycle elections, and need to figure out how to replicate these results in presidential years.
The war for the soul of the Democratic Party wages on, but, for today, woke is back, baby.
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