Bigger than 2017?

In 2017, immediately after Donald Trump’s first inauguration, millions of Americans rallied against him at Women’s Marches and protested at airports over the administration’s “Muslim travel ban.” All year, Democrats channeled grassroots energy into turning otherwise low-profile special elections into political Super Bowls, from Georgia (“Flip the Sixth!”) to Montana (remember Rob Quist?). Then came Virginia’s gubernatorial and legislative elections, where party organizations of all kinds bused in thousands of volunteers from DC and across the Mid-Atlantic to knock on doors and get out the vote. The results were decisive: the Party’s candidates swept statewide races, and Democrat Ralph Northam was elected governor of Virginia in a landslide. The press dubbed 2017 The Year of the Resistance, and the think pieces flowed freely and heavily.

Flash forward to this year, and Democrats’ vibes have been… well, less triumphant. Over and over again, the chattering class (including myself) has asked “What happened to the Resistance?” and the prevailing political narrative has been one of Democrats in major disarray. But despite the months-long doomerism that has become en vogue in DC, California, and New York, Tuesday’s election results were far more significant than what we saw in 2017. 

Journalist Dave Weigel, a go-to chronicler of the Democrats’ successes and failures, wrote of this week’s elections, “The blue tide washed further than most pollsters had predicted.” Axios founders Mike Allen and Jim Van de Hei wrote, “A half-dozen scattered elections did overnight what President Trump himself couldn't do in 10 months: revitalized the Democratic resistance, instantly and profoundly.” Jonathan Martin, a longtime Washington watcher, titled his Wednesday column, “The Night Democrats Finally Stopped Losing.” 

“This was not just an off-year election,” Martin wrote. “It was a circuit-breaker that finally ended 2024, the party’s annus horribilis.”

Just look at Virginia, where Democrat Abigail Spanberger claimed the governorship with nearly 1.96 million votes, about 600,000 more than her party’s 2017 nominee, Ralph Northam, received in his blowout victory over Republican Ed Gillespie. With votes almost all tallied, Spanberger defeated her opponent, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, by nearly 16 points - almost double Northam’s margin 2017 - and received more votes than any Virginia governor in history. The centrist former Congresswoman dramatically improved Democrats' performance across the Commonwealth, especially in suburban areas, securing 64% of the vote in bellwether Loudoun County alone, nearly doubling Kamala Harris’s margin of victory there in 2024 and landing 9 points ahead of Northam’s 2017 margin. 

Beyond the state’s gubernatorial race, Spanberger’s party achieved historic gains in the Virginia House of Delegates, flipping 13 seats and expanding their majority to the largest it has been since 1987. That included victories across both urban and rural districts, from Roanoke to Northern Virginia, knocking out multiple Republican incumbents that were not supposed to be at risk of losing. The expanded Democratic majority in the House, coupled with control of the governorship and State Senate, gives the party a trifecta in state government. 

Further north in New Jersey, few were predicting Democrats would have such a good night. There, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (a candidate I called a milquetoast moderate last month) garnered nearly 1.5 million votes, about 600,000 more than Democratic Governor Phil Murphy’s 2017 total vote count. By the end of the night, Sherrill had secured a commanding 56.3% of the vote versus 43.1% for her MAGA opponent, Republican Jack Ciattarelli, maintaining a double-digit margin close to Murphy’s. Her win marks the first time in 50 years that New Jersey Democrats have won three consecutive gubernatorial terms - a historic milestone underscoring the importance of what happened this week. 

And obviously you’ve read hundreds of takes by now about what happened in New York City, where a little known state assembly member named Zohran Mamdani swept to power to become one of the most famous Democratic politicians in the country. His campaign inspired a group of voters that have been disenchanted by the current state of the Democratic party, and they’ll be crucial to the party’s success next year and beyond. 

And the last thing I’ll mention is California’s vote to pass Proposition 50, a hyper-partisan move to counter Donald Trump’s unprecedented and chaotic redistricting efforts around the country. That Gavin Newsom was able to mobilize over 60% of Golden State voters to support a kind of complicated, divisive ballot initiative is a stunning political achievement, and one that will have a major impact on the midterms next year. 

Taken together, Democrats’ wins on Tuesday represent more than an off-year electoral collection of little victories, I think they’re the start of a substantial and much-needed vibe shift for the Democratic Party. At least one report has said that the party’s major donor class, sitting on the sidelines for months, are now once again interested in opening up their wallets. If Democrats in DC don’t mess it up (and no doubt the likes of Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand will try to), the small momentum from these wins could start to change the Democratic trajectory as it prepares for next year’s critical battles. 

Can’t get enough election hot takes? Here’s a few more:

One of the biggest messaging fights that has stumped operatives on the Left and threatened to rip apart the Democratic Party has been how to respond to Republican attacks over transgender people using public restrooms. And indeed, the issue was once again front and center in this year’s elections, especially in Virginia, where Winsome Earle-Sears and her allies hammered Spanberger with hundreds of thousands of dollars of negative advertising: