November 2025 was a critical month for democracy in the United States, with the mayoral election in New York and gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. The Democratic Party collected a series of much-needed victories, securing larger margins than anticipated a few months ago. These results undoubtedly weakened President Trump, whose reputation further plummeted after the release of the Epstein files, with his net approval rating declining by 16%, according to The Economist (2025).
Yet, the Democrats are far from claiming victory, and as they set their eyes on the midterm elections in 2026, they still struggle to define a cohesive political direction, with their narrative surviving on the shared offensive against Trump.
The massive win in New York seems crucial in proposing an alternative route for the Democrats. To better understand the next moves for the Party, it is first essential to discuss Mamdani’s effect in New York.
Why was Mamdani’s mayoral win so unique?
On November 4th, 2025, Zohran Mamdani won the elections for mayor in the melting pot of the United States – New York City. This election stands out for both scale and composition. New York recorded its highest turnout in more than a decade, mobilising young people and former abstentionists around a shared necessity: affordability! It is by promising affordable rents, free or nearly free public transport, expanded municipal welfare and higher minimum wages—financed by increasing taxes on higher incomes and large companies – that Mamdani received the vote of more than 50% of New Yorkers.
A closer look at CBS polling reveals the attitudes and positioning of these voters. 15% per cent of Mamdani’s supporters did not vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, because they did not identify with the Democratic Party as currently constituted. After years of being exposed to variants of the same neoliberal plan and falling short of making significant changes and improving lives, citizens grew increasingly cynical, distancing themselves from the political life and platforms. In this vacuum, an assertive right seized the opportunity and offered the only perceived alternative to middle and low-class American workers who were asking for their dignity back. What is surprising about these elections is that 15% of Mamdani voters who did not support Harris instead chose Trump as president in 2024.
This mix of disaffected non-Democrats and former Trump voters suggests that Mamdani reached constituencies that had grown wary, and that this time, their choice turned to the left. Thus, it seems that for those 15% of Mamdani-Trump voters, the ideology of the party itself is of little concern; what matters is the pragmatic attitude of the proposed political agenda. As Trump’s approval rapidly declines, another radical, fresh alternative might, and did, attract those seeking change. Mamdani’s strength indeed lies in his listening to and understanding of the disenfranchisement of working-class voters who had gravitated toward Trump last year and those who had rejected figures such as Andrew Cuomo because they no longer saw themselves represented in the traditional Democratic platform. He offered both groups not just a different set of policies, but a different political language – one anchored in the tangible conditions of everyday life. Equally decisive was the manpower behind the message. More than 100,000 volunteers took part in field operations that blended canvassing, community-building and social media campaigning. This grassroots infrastructure transformed the campaign into a collective project capable of re-engaging citizens who had withdrawn from active political life.
New York is not the United States
But New York is not the United States. The socialist energy of Mamdani is not necessarily representative of voters’ needs nationwide, and while Trump voters did flip to the Democratic platform in Virginia and New Jersey, the candidates who won in those elections could not be more different from Mamdani.
In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill secured the governorship with a moderate platform that resonated strongly with suburban middle-class voters. A Naval Academy graduate, former Navy helicopter pilot, federal prosecutor and mother of four, she built a coalition grounded in pragmatic governance rather than transformative change. And it worked. While economic pressures and empathy were central to her campaign, she articulated the political agenda in a way that aligned with moderate Democratic traditions.
Virginia followed a similar trajectory. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer and House Representative, has long warned the party about the consequences of ideological overreach. Her victory, one of the strongest Democratic performances in the commonwealth in decades, was anchored in an appeal to competence and stability rather than ideological renewal. Her coalition was structurally distinct from Mamdani’s: shaped by national-security credentials, institutional experience, and a moderate policy profile.
These outcomes illustrate that similar economic concerns can produce different, yet successful political responses depending on local contexts. As such, Democratic strategists are, for now, reluctant to adopt Mamdani as the national blueprint for the 2026 midterm campaigns.
Fragmentation is not a condemnation
In the end, these mayoral and gubernatorial elections were undoubtedly a notable defeat for Trump, but for the Democrats, the picture is paradoxical. The victories in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia only make their fractures more visible and underscore the absence of a clear direction or a shared identity. Mamdani’s victory sits at the centre of this tension: celebrated by some – yet feared by others – he makes Democrats wonder whether they should embrace a more radical attitude to their current one and gradually shift towards a more socialist end of the political spectrum, joining the likes of Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders.
It is probably too soon to decide the fate of the Democratic Party and these successful elections suggest that such internal ideological diversity may become an asset rather than a limitation. It makes it harder for the Republicans to attack one identity, and it adapts to the grievances of specific electorates; furthermore, as long as they align against Trump’s administration, then the broad Democratic coalition can remain united – at least electorally.
To conclude, Mamdani’s win cannot be treated as the party’s North Star. Still, the Democratic Party would be mistaken not to learn from this victory: listen to voters instead of lecturing, develop economic agendas that speak to the everyday needs of the people, and most importantly, rebuild collective political spaces beyond individualism.
