Election Recap
A year after the Presidential Election Seen ’Round the World, the first judgment day of the Trump reign arrived. The election held on November 4, 2025, was voters’ first chance to express their approval or lack thereof for the state of the country. And the results? A scathing review of the administration and a desperate plea for change.
Here in Virginia, the election results made history with Abigail Spanberger becoming the state’s first female governor, winning by roughly fifteen points. The Democrats didn’t just flip a seat; they swept the statewide offices and strengthened their hold on the legislature. Alongside Spanberger’s win, Ghazala Hashmi made history as the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office in the United States when she claimed the lieutenant governor’s post, and Jay Jones ’15 capped the sweep by taking the attorney general’s seat. Voters across Virginia, particularly in the suburbs and Northern Virginia, signaled their discontent with the current federal trajectory under Donald Trump’s second term, and the results made that sentiment unmistakable. In her victory speech, Spanberger put it plainly: “In 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos.”
Elsewhere across the country, the pattern was strikingly similar. In New Jersey, Democratic Representative Mikie Sherrill became the second woman to be elected governor in a decisive win that marked a reclaiming of momentum in a state that had flirted with the opposite party in the last presidential cycle. Out west, California voters approved a bold redistricting measure (Prop 50) as an aggressive counter to Republican redistricting in Texas.
In one of the most talked-about moments of the night, Zohran Kwame Mamdani pulled off a stunning victory for Mayor of New York City, defeating both the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo. His victory marked not only a rejection of the conservative federal administration but also a rebuke of the party’s old guard. While New York City is a historically liberal area, Mamdani’s win signals a potential shift in Democratic strategy—one that embraces younger, more progressive candidates and a renewed focus on grassroots energy.
In some of the night’s lesser-known moments, many states saw a similar shift towards blue. In Pennsylvania, three Democratic-backed state Supreme Court justices were reelected. While a quieter result, it still spoke volumes about the state’s broader political mood. In Georgia, two seats flipped blue in their statewide Public Service Commission for the first time in twenty-five years. In Boston, Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu ran unopposed and was re-elected, with her approval ratings in the city at great heights.
Taken together, these victories aren’t isolated. They form a clear pattern: the electorate is leaning away from the Republican agenda. Whether that momentum holds until the 2026 midterms will depend on whether Democrats can convert these wins into sustained momentum and perception change. One message is clear, though: the tide is changing.
