Curb your enthusiasm Democrats and Republicans. The national implications from this week's elections are limited, at best.
Off-year elections are always treated as a litmus test for how the upcoming midterm or Presidential elections will trend. An electoral reading of tea leaves, if you will. As political junkies, we’re always eager to read between the lines for some emergent truth that is revealed to us through elections in various states, like New Jersey or Virginia.
But here’s the biggest lesson from Tuesday’s elections: there is no lesson.
This isn’t a headline grabbing statement, and that’s okay. What occurred on Tuesday in places like New York City wasn’t earth moving, nor revelatory. In the sports world, we’d call this result chalk.
A Democrat winning in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City is just as predictable as my beloved Cleveland Browns getting trounced in Pittsburgh by the Steelers.
Democrats will be quick to point to margins that Proposition 50 succeeded in California, or Abigail Spanberger’s sizable victory in Virginia as proof that they’ve finally cracked the electoral enigma.
But an off-year election with historically low presidential approval ratings was always going to generate an energized Democrat base. If this election told us anything, it’s that Democrats in blue states were excited to go to the polls.
Despite there being no macro-trends for us to cling to as we look for indications on how 2026 will play out, here are the smaller storylines worth noting:
1. The Kids are Not All Right.
In New Jersey and Virginia, two thirds of youth supported Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Meanwhile, Zohran Mamdani carried NYC with sizable youth numbers, to no one’s surprise. The dominant theme of the 2024 election was that this was the most conservative generation in a long time. If 2025 tells us anything, it’s that it’s much more complex than that.
2. The Same Can Be Said for the Hispanic Vote
Meanwhile, the new Hispanic coalition that Trump built in 2024 appears to have shifted in some areas. Look at this change from ‘24 to the ‘25 Virginia Gubernatorial election:
This is a snapshot of Manassas Park, one of the most Hispanic areas in VA:
A big reason why Mamdani won: heavily Hispanic areas of The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens that backed Cuomo in the primary but are voting for Mamdani in the general election:
It should be noted, this is just a snapshot. But it’s something that’s worth keeping an eye on for next year’s election
3. You Can’t Just Throw an Independent Label on a Candidate and Expect Results
Andrew Cuomo was the only major independent candidate on the ballot in yesterday’s New York City mayoral election, running under the “Fight and Deliver” party after losing the Democratic primary. But voters saw through the label—Cuomo’s long history as a Democrat made his independent run feel more like a strategic maneuver than a genuine ideological shift. Our research shows that independents value authenticity and shared principles, not just a convenient “I” next to a name.
