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One year after Americans across the country voted overwhelmingly to send President Donald Trump back to the White House, Democrats have secured a comeback in blue states, capturing several key offices in last Tuesday’s off-year elections.

The GOP’s reign in Old Dominion drew to a close last night as Virginia voters handed the governor’s mansion to Democrat Abigail Spanberger. “We sent a message to every corner of the commonwealth, a message to our neighbours and our fellow Americans across the country,” Spanberger declared in her victory speech. “We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos.”

Spanberger’s victory was not a surprise: she has been leading her Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, in polls by roughly 10 percentage points for weeks. Ultimately, Spanberger defeated Earle-Sears by 15 points, 57.5% to 42.3%.

According to exit polls, the president’s efforts to lay off federal workers, many of whom call northern Virginia home, was a significant factor in the election. Nearly half (48%) of voters touted the economy as the most important issue for the new governor to address, and 60% said that government employment and spending cuts had affected their household’s finances. Of those groups, the majority voted for Spanberger.

Violent Fantasies Condoned

While Democrat Ghazala Hashmi was elected as Earle-Sears’s successor, the first Muslim to hold state-wide office, the real upset came in the race for attorney general. Republican incumbent Jason Miyares had maintained a healthy lead in the polls over his opponent, Democrat and former state legislator Jay Jones, following the publication of text messages in which Jones graphically wished death upon his Republican opponents and their children.

However, Democrats who had cast their ballots for Jones in early voting prior to the publication of the text messages reported that they did not regret their votes and would have still voted for Jones anyway. Jones’s violent rhetoric and threats were apparently more of an issue for Republican voters than Democrats, and he won the position of Virginia’s top law enforcement officer 53.1% to 46.5%.

While Republicans hounded Jones and his Democratic allies over the former legislator’s text messages threatening to put “two bullets” in former House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert’s head, Jones issued a hasty “apology” and quickly pivoted to painting Miyares as a Trump henchman and himself as a check or balance against the president. It worked.

According to exit polls, 52% of Virginia voters “strongly disapprove” of Trump’s job performance — and 94% of that demographic voted for Jones. Of the 25% who “strongly approve” of the president’s job performance, 100% voted for Miyares, as did 93% of the 14% of the electorate who “somewhat approve” of Trump’s job performance.

Although 41% of voters said that Jones’s text messages should have disqualified him from holding office, nearly 30% said that the Democrat’s violent rhetoric was “concerning, but not disqualifying,” while a shocking 10% said that openly discussing and fantasising about the murder of a political opponent and his children was “not a reason for concern”. Nearly 20% of voters said that they had “not heard enough” about the text messages to form an opinion.

Democrats also took the governorship in New Jersey. While the Garden State has long been a deep-blue stronghold, Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli outperformed expectations against now-outgoing Governor Phil Murphy (D) in 2021, capturing 11 counties and 48% of the vote.

Last Tuesday, however, Ciattarelli only won seven counties and came in at 43% of the vote, while Democrat Mikie Sherrill swept the rest of the state and claimed over 56% of the vote. Exit polls show that 55% of New Jersey voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance as president, and 40% said that they cast their ballots “to oppose Donald Trump”, although 45% of voters said that the 47th president “was not a factor” in their voting decisions.

New York City

One of the most high-profile races of the off-year elections has been the race for mayor of New York City. As anticipated by pre-election polling, Ugandan-born Muslim and self-described socialist Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty with just over 50% of the vote, while ex-Democrat and former governor Andrew Cuomo placed second with 41.6% of the vote, and Republican Curtis Sliwa came in third place with approximately 7%. Mamdani dominated in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx, while Cuomo managed to snag Staten Island. Mamdani did not secure a majority of the vote in Queens, but still beat Cuomo by five points.

Former Secretary of State and failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton congratulated the Democratic victors in a series of social media posts. “Democratic women made history tonight: Abigail Spanberger will be the first female governor of Virginia. Mikie Sherrill will be the first female Democratic governor of New Jersey. I’m looking forward to seeing these strong, dedicated leaders deliver for their states,” Clinton wrote on X.

She also celebrated Mamdani’s win. “More people voted in New York City’s election this year than they have in 50 years. That’s a win for democracy, and a testament to [Mamdani’s] inspiring campaign. Congratulations to the next mayor of the greatest city in the world.”

Trump, who defeated Clinton in 2016, also commented on the election results, citing unnamed pollsters. “‘TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,’ according to Pollsters,” the president said in a Truth Social post.

Nearly one year into the president’s promised mass deportation and immigration reform agenda, the issue of immigration played a role in last week’s elections. According to exit polls, a majority (56%) of Virginia voters (94% of whom voted for Spanberger) said that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts have “gone too far”. Only 27% of voters said that federal immigration efforts have been “about right,” but 14% said that the Trump administration hasn’t “gone far enough.”

Immigration also ranked relatively low in a list of issues important to Virginia voters, clocking in at 11% behind the economy (48%) and health care (21%) and tying with education (11%). In an exit poll interview, one Kenyan immigrant reported that she voted for Spanberger as a means of opposing Trump’s immigration policies.

Likewise, in New Jersey, 53% of voters (92% of whom voted for Sherrill) said that Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts have “gone too far”, while 30% said that they are satisfied with the president’s actions so far, and 14% said that the president hasn’t “gone far enough”. Additionally, 49% of voters said that the new governor should refuse to cooperate with federal authorities enforcing immigration law, compared to 47% who said that the new governor should cooperate.

Impact of Mass Immigration

However, immigration may have the greatest impact on the election in New York City, where much of the population is comprised of immigrants and their families. Among those who have lived in New York City for less than five years, 85% voted for Mamdani, according to exit polls. Likewise, those who have lived in the city for five to 10 years voted for Mamdani by 79%.

Among those who have lived in New York City for 10 years or more but were not born in the City, 54% voted for the Ugandan-born Muslim mayor, while only 38% of those who were born in New York City voted for Mamdani; 50% voted for Cuomo. Additionally, 61% of voters (70% of whom voted for Mamdani) said that the new mayor should not cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

According to a 2024 report from the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA), roughly 40% of New York City’s population is foreign-born, and at least 15% are non-citizens. As The Washington Stand previously reported, Mamdani has earned substantial support from the city’s foreign-born population, drumming up support ahead of the election in immigrant enclaves and neighbourhoods. According to Patriot Polling, Mamdani would have lost the election if only American-born New Yorkers had voted.

In his victory speech Tuesday night, Mamdani thanked the foreign-born New York City residents “who made this movement their own.” He continued, “I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.”

The impact of immigration on the New York City mayoral race has sparked much discussion among conservatives. Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the president’s immigration policy, shared demographic statistics via a social media post.

“Almost 50 per cent of New Yorkers live in family households with at least one immigrant. Over one million children, equaling 62 per cent of all children in New York City, live in a household with at least one foreign-born family member,” Miller posted, citing official New York City government numbers. “Of the one million New Yorkers who live in mixed-status households, 265,500, or 27 per cent, are children. 80 per cent of these children are US-born citizens.”

William Wolfe, a former Trump administration staffer and now the executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, explained, “It’s incredibly important to understand that Mamdani was not actually elected mayor of the historic American city that we know as ‘New York City’ because that city doesn’t exist anymore. Due to intentional mass replacement immigration, New York City is now a third-world metropolis wearing the Big Apple as a skin suit.” He continued, “Americans didn’t elect Mamdani; foreigners did.”

As far as Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, is concerned, “Decades of mass immigration, plus a historic, disastrous influx of illegal migrants under the Biden policies, have transformed New York City and other major metropolitan areas into collections of immigrant settlements where the newcomers seem more interested in maintaining their culture, with better economic prospects (and better welfare benefits), than they are in becoming Americans,” she told The Washington Stand.

“The Democratic playbook is to encourage ethnic and immigrant identity politics, rather than to encourage true citizenship,” Vaughan warned.

Commentator and activist Matt Walsh said of Mamdani’s win, “A third-world communist won in New York because New York is a third-world city now. This is mass migration working exactly as intended. It isn’t any more complicated than that.” The Blaze columnist Auron MacIntyre commented, “Really need the GOP to understand that Mamdani did not win because he won the argument, because he convinced people that communism works.” He added, “He won because NYC is flooded with immigrants who don’t care about fleecing the country they came to.”

FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter tried to put the results in perspective, telling TWS, “Last (Tuesday)’s election results should serve as a wake-up call to Republicans across the country: in almost every contest, the progressive option prevailed. Neither dysfunction nor historically low approval ratings for Democrats will save Republicans. They cannot go into 2026 saying, ‘The other guys are extremists!’ Indeed, Democrats ran a candidate for New York City mayor who is an angry, Islamicist-adjacent socialist, and a candidate for Virginia attorney general who has advocated violence, and yet they still won, and millions voted for them,” he lamented.

“If you are a Republican voter in Virginia, today you woke up and will go to work and interact with people who — unbeknownst to you — at best, thought nothing, or at worst, agree with Jay Jones’s vile text messages,” Carpenter said. “What should be clear to Christians in America is that our hope can only be found in Christ. If the world must relearn the foolishness of socialism over and over again, we should similarly remind ourselves that Christ is on the throne, no matter what the election outcomes are.”