"The greater reality, which even chest-thumping Democrats may not want to acknowledge just yet, is that MAGA is in twilight. In the days before his inauguration, Donald Trump was actually liked by a majority of Americans. He had won a popular-vote election, and voters were largely disillusioned with all the Democrats had to offer, whether it was Joe Biden slipping into senility or milquetoast Kamala Harris."
"There's a narrative that Democrats are adrift or, at the very minimum, bereft of obvious leaders. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries aren't very popular, and none of the 2028 contenders seem, outside of redistricting brawler Gavin Newsom, to stir the blood all that much. Yet after Tuesday night, there's much for Democrats to celebrate. Virtually every election result, from New Jersey to Virginia to Georgia to California, was exceedingly good for them."
Democrats appeared leaderless yet achieved strong off-year victories across New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, and California, delivering wins for left and moderate factions alike. Progressives won local offices such as Zohran Mamdani, while moderates celebrated the successes of Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger. California voters approved Proposition 50, enabling Governor Gavin Newsom to oversee a Democratic redistricting effort to counter the Texas GOP. The 2025 results echo 2017's off-year patterns that prefaced a larger blue wave. Donald Trump once had majority approval before his 2025 inauguration, but the MAGA movement’s dependence on him means his failures erode its prospects.
Read at Intelligencer
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