The lessons Democrats need to learn to win again

For some years now, the Democratic Party looked as if it could do nothing right. It lost the presidency twice to Donald Trump, the Biden victory looking more like an interregnum now. Once-solid blue states turned red. The left’s working-class base eroded; in 2024 even non-White voters drifted away. By July 2025, the party’s unfavorable rating had risen to its highest point in 35 years in a Wall Street Journal poll. This week’s elections mark a reprieve — and perhaps the start of a recovery. But only if Democrats draw the right lessons.

The race that drew the most attention was Zohran Mamdani’s outsider run to become New York City’s mayor. But New York is a liberal bubble. (Mamdani won with 50 percent of the vote; Democrat Bill de Blasio won his 2013 mayoral race with 73 percent.) The more telling bellwether was Virginia, a state with a popular outgoing Republican governor, where Democrat Abigail Spanberger trounced her opponent by nearly 15 points. Mikie Sherrill did the same in New Jersey, winning the governor’s mansion by about 14.

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