"Tuesday night could hardly have gone better for Democrats. They easily held the governor's mansion in New Jersey, flipped it in Virginia, and won voter approval to gerrymander California aggressively in their party's favor. In all three of these elections, they won by more than Kamala Harris did in the 2024 presidential election, and by a much larger margin than the polls had suggested they would."
"In the Trump era, Democrats have routinely dominated low-turnout elections. The more random the election date and the more under the radar the office, the better they seem to perform. Getting the highly engaged to vote blue has never been the problem. Democrats' weakness manifests in presidential elections, in which more people vote, and in elections for the Senate, where small, rural states hold disproportionate power."
Democrats achieved notable wins in recent low-turnout contests, including gubernatorial results in New Jersey and Virginia, a California gerrymandering approval, and decisive victories in Georgia regulatory races. These successes reflect strong mobilization of highly engaged Democratic voters and apparent overperformance relative to recent presidential results. Special-election trends show Democrats outperforming past presidential margins by several points. Persistent vulnerabilities remain in presidential and Senate contests where turnout is higher and small, rural states wield outsized influence. Demographic shifts within the Democratic coalition include an older, whiter, richer, more female, and more highly educated base.
Read at The Atlantic
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