Tuesday's Elections

As Expected, but More So

The major elections we were watching on Tuesday all turned out as expected, but the results were more in favor of the winners than predicted.

Mikie Sherrill (D) won with 56% of the vote in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger (D) won with 57% in Virginia. Although both of these states have been largely Democratic, the polls predicted closer races. The fact that both races exceeded the polls must be significant in some way.

In New York City, Zohran Mamdani won with 50.39%, just passing the half-way mark. Many were predicting that the three-way race would see him elected with a plurality (the largest number of votes) but not a majority. That he was able to pass the 50% mark will be taken as a great success on his part.

Lessons?

It is always hard to discern what a given election might mean for future elections, which is really what everyone is interested in. Particularly, what might Tuesday tell us about the midterm elections next November?

For decades, the party that holds the presidency has suffered between presidential elections. These midterm elections (those occurring mid-way between presidential elections) usually favor the opposition party. So in some ways this result was expected. But again, the results were larger than expected. What do these portend for 2026?

In general, two things are being talked about. First, the losing Republicans got almost exactly the same percentage of the vote as Pres. Trump’s current approval rating. (This doesn’t apply to NYC, where there are almost no Republicans.) This is an usual result. It suggests that the elections were more determined by national elections than local and state elections. Given his overwhelming media presence and the fact that he seems to draw all attention to himself, we can’t be too surprised by this.

The second issue has to do with the exit surveys. Exit surveys are questionnaires given to people on the way out of the polling station. Voters are asked for whom they voted and then a whole bunch of demographic questions, such as sex, age, education level, etc. These can give us a lot of interesting information about who voted for whom, even if it doesn’t tell us why.

Demographics

The most striking result of the exit polls is the overwhelming partisanship of young women. 81% of women 18-29 voted for Mamdani in NYC, with similar numbers for Sherrrill and Spanberger. These are astoundingly lopsided numbers.

The other strikingly lopsided pattern has to do with education levels. In NYC, Mamdani won among voters with university education (again, about 80%) and lost those with only high school education to almost the same degree. Sherrill and Spanberger showed similar, if not quite as dramatic, patterns.

These two patterns are significant for the fact that they seem to be changing the parties. The Democrats are the party of young women and the educated, more specifically what have become known as the “precariat.”

Playing on the idea of the proletariat from Marxist ideology, the precariat are educated but in an economically precarious position. They have student loans but jobs that don’t pay enough. They are young women with no prospects for marriage. They did all the right things but don’t seem to have a future.

Economics

The other result of the exit surveys shows that economic issues were at the top of voters’ minds. Both parties will be poring over these statistics, trying to understand how to appeal to voters on this issue. On the one hand, it is all very easy. Make people rich and drive down the price of goods. But how? Ronald Reagan once complained that people seemed to think he had a dial under his desk which he simply had to turn one way or the other to control the economy. (There is no such dial, by the way.)

For the Democrats, two of their candidates for governor won on very standard Democratic platforms. Neither was terribly progressive in economic terms and both are highly accomplished technocrats. And yet they also had a very radical Social Democrat win in NYC who has no executive experience at only 34 years old. Which way should they go? Which style will help them win the House or Senate, or both, in November 2026?

The Republicans are trying to understand what to do to maintain control of Congress, knowing how poorly they performed on Tuesday. With majorities in both houses and the presidency, what can they do? As Reagan discovered, there is no dial. All eyes are now on the government shutdown.