November 4th was election day, and, despite being an off-year (Congress remains unchanged), elections were still held across the country. The overall trend – victory for the Democratic Party. Four races in particular, the gubernatorial election of Virginia and New Jersey, the New York City mayoral race, and a ballot measure in California, are key to understanding the impacts of this year’s elections.
The Governors
Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill (governors-elect of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively) have many similarities in their backgrounds. Both women were elected to Congress in 2018 and are largely moderate Democrats. Spanberger is a former CIA officer, and Sherrill is a former Navy pilot and prosecutor.
In Virginia, Spanberger, the state’s first female governor, is set to replace current Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin. She ran an affordability-focused campaign against the conservative Republican and current Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, whose campaign leaned heavily on social and cultural issues, especially transgender students in schools. The economy was the largest issue on voters’ minds during this election, and Spanberger focused heavily on the negative impacts of Trump’s tariff policy and cuts to government spending, a strategy that even gained her inroads in the deep-red rural areas of Virginia.
Mikie Sherrill ran a very similar campaign in New Jersey. Although the governorship in the state was already held by the Democratic Party, the state hasn’t elected the same party to the governorship three times in a row since the 1960s, making Sherrill’s victory an upset of the historical precedent. Her opponent, former Republican Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, ran for governor for the third time this year. Despite being a Trump critic in the past, Ciattarelli had the full-throated endorsement of the president, something Sherrill brought up frequently throughout the campaign. Like Spanberger, Sherrill’s main campaign issue was affordability, releasing numerous policy plans in March covering several areas, all with a focus on lowering the cost of living in the state.
The Mayor
One of the most watched and most contentious elections this cycle has been the mayoral race in New York City. Zorahn Mamdani made history as being the first Muslim and first person of South Asian descent to ever hold the office of mayor in the United States’ largest city, and the youngest to be elected in over a century.
The mayoral race has been fraught with controversy. Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June, but many Democrats were reluctant to offer him their endorsements. Mamdani’s competitor in the Democratic primary, who lost to him, former NYC mayor and New York governor Andrew Cuomo, entered the general election as an independent. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, ran unopposed in his primary, but trailed behind the other two candidates in polls throughout the race.
Mamdani is a controversial figure – as a self-described Democratic Socialist, his left-wing politics drew skepticism from establishment Democrats and, along with his inexperience, were a primary focus of Cuomo and Sliwa’s campaigns. Mamdani’s support for Palestine also drew criticism, with many of his opponents attempting to frame him as an antisemite – an accusation that is significant in New York, which has the largest Jewish community outside of Israel.
Mamdani, much like the governors, focused his campaign around affordability, and his policy proposals, including fare-free city buses, rent freezes, universal childcare, and high taxes on corporations and the wealthiest 1%, garnered strong and enthusiastic support, especially among young voters.
Proposition 50
Despite being a statewide ballot measure, California’s Proposition 50 will have nationwide consequences.
The measure comes as a response to a successful move by Texas Republicans earlier this year to redraw their state’s congressional maps in a partisan gerrymander, picking up an additional five seats for Republicans in the House of Representatives. Prop. 50 eschews California’s independent redistricting commission in favor of its own partisan gerrymander, aiming to pick up five Democratic seats to offset the new Texas map.
Critics of the measure, including former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, argued that it undermines the independent redistricting commission and over-politicises California’s congressional representation. Its supporters, including current California Governor Gavin Newsom, say that it is necessary to counter the effects of Texas’s map.
The measure passed with nearly 65% of the vote, a significant margin that many Democrats are taking as a sign of support for more aggressive tactics against President Trump and the Republican Party.
Of course, these four races aren’t the only significant ones in this year’s elections. Other notable elections include the Lieutenant Governors’ race in Virginia, where Democrat Ghazala Hashimi has made history as the first Muslim woman to be elected to statewide office in the US, and in Missouri, where Democrats broke a long-lasting Republican supermajority. Democrats are feeling especially optimistic after this year’s elections, and hope that their victories this year are a bellwether for further gains in next year’s midterms.
The Crescent Crier 