New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia have long been progressive strongholds. Was Tuesday a low-bar victory?
The Democratic Party has been desperate for a win in 2025. Since getting thumped by Donald Trump and the Republican Party one year ago today, disappointed progressives have been trying one thing and then another to regain hope and pride.
On Tueday, the party got a much-needed shot in the arm.
In New Jersey, New York City, and Virginia, Democratic Party candidates won decisive victories.
Democrats are ballyhooing Tuesday’s results far and wide, making much of the wins and celebrating. There is undoubtably a lot to unpack in these results, including analyzing why the polls were — once again — way off base. One common refrain is that this win is a repudiation of Trump and his policies.
“Well, what I think is so impressive about what Zohran Mamdani accomplished tonight, as well as the entire movement of New Yorkers that came out to vote for him, is that he had to not just defeat a Republican, he had to defeat a Republican and the old guard of the Democratic Party at the same time,” gloated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday night. “He was fighting a war on two fronts and not just one, and he still won resoundingly. And I think the message that that sends is that the Democratic Party cannot last much longer by denying the future, by trying to undercut our young, by trying to undercut a next generation of diverse and upcoming Democrats that have the parties, the actual party, the actual electorate and voter support.”
“People are hurting,” declared Sen. Bernie Sanders spiritedly on Tuesday. “They are sick and tired of a situation where one man, Mr. Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households. That is insane. There is no reason in the richest country on earth, Mamdani understands this, most Americans understand it, that we are the only major country not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. So if you run your campaign saying and being clear, you’re going to fight for the working class, you’re going to take on the oligarchs, that the ideas that you are talking about are not radical. They already exist in many other countries around the world. That’s how you win elections.”
It’s understandable: People believe what they want to believe. Progressives are desperate to believe that liberal policies like “Defund the Police” and “Open Borders” weren’t to blame for the loss last November. Unfortunately, this burning desire is blinding the party to the truth they were beginning to accept only last week.
“Left-wing ideas have wrecked Democrats’ brand, new report warns,” reported David Weigel for Semafor on October 27, 2025.
“Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self-described ‘white liberals’ while losing ground with other voters, according to a new center-left group’s report shared first with Semafor.
The group, called Welcome, consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is ‘out of touch.’ Most voters, the group found, believe the party over-prioritizes issues like ‘protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,’ and ‘fighting climate change’ while not caring about ‘securing the border’ or ‘lowering the rate of crime.’”
A growing number of prominent Democrats had started to come around to this way of thinking — until yesterday. Now, the moderates in the party have even less sway to counter the radicals in the the Democratic Party.
Part of the reason Democrats cruised to victory on Tuesday is the level of dysfunction in the upper echelons of Democratic Party leadership at the moment. The two sides, moderate and progressive, have been vying for primacy and finger pointing for the better part of a year now.
AOC didn’t need to wait for Zohran Mamdani to beat the Democratic Party establishment machine, the “Old Guard” as she put it.
Donald Trump just did that. Party leadership hasn’t recovered. Democrats are still throwing Democrats under the bus for the Biden debate debacle. Democratic Party donors are still furious at the party leaders and are not opening their wallets.
In 2025, the best the Democratic Party establishment could muster in the New York City Mayor’s race was Andrew Cuomo. Both Cuomo and current Mayor Eric Adams ran against Mamdani — who is undoubtably a gifted politician — and, fair or not, both candidates came with plenty of baggage.
If Mamdani cruised to victory on Tuesday, it’s because the Democratic Party leadership couldn’t stop him — or were afraid to try. For their part, at least Cuomo and Adams are two moderate Democrats who were willing to challenge the far left.
“They are, look, you have a civil war going on in the Democratic party,” explained Andrew Cuomo recently. “You have this far-left, extreme-left socialists. They are socialists. They call themselves democratic socialists. Forget democratic. It’s just a modifier for socialists. They’re socialists. Bernie Sanders, AOC, et cetera. That far left is having a war with the moderate mainstream Democrats. I’m now a moderate. All my life I was a crazy liberal, son of a crazy liberal. But the world shifted so fast that now I’m a moderate. Okay? So it’s the far left versus the moderate. A lot of the mainstream Democrats are afraid of the left. So they think they’re going to make peace by endorsing Zoran and they’re going to buy peace with the far left. I have news for them. The far left is never, never going to declare peace. They’re going to come for power and they’re going to come to kill them. But you have moderate Democrats who are just trying to make nice because they’re afraid the far left is going to come after them.”
His win might not end up being the boon Democrats want it to be.
The only cure for socialism and communism, they say, is a good, healthy dose of it. The citizens in New York City just voted for an experiment in socialism. Perhaps Mayor Zohran Mamdani will do a better job for NYC than Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has done for his city.
In New Jersey, a Republican came within a stones throw of being elected governor. That isn’t exactly a win for Democrats.
In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin managed to wrest control of the Virginia governor’s office away from Democrats during the last election cycle four years ago. Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears was never a strong candidate, and her struggles against the Trump-wing of the GOP didn’t help her in the race.
All of this isn’t to say that Democrats shouldn’t be pleased and relieved by Tuesday’s result.
But beware of making too much of the results.
(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)