The Democrats scored their first good news in a year, along with Americans who bet on the party to win a sweep in Tuesday’s elections.
Gamblers bet on big wins for the Democratic Party in the New York Mayor’s race as well as the gubernatorial ballots in Virginia and New Jersey.
Millions of Americans headed to the polls for what is the first major set of contests since President Donald Trump was elected one year ago.
After nearly ten months out in the cold, Democrats scored victories to inject new hope into their party’s future across multiple states as they gear up for next year’s midterms.
While off-year elections do not always serve as a bellwether, the results on Tuesday night are expected to provide new insights into how the country is feeling about the Republican president.
Trump, 79, is facing record-low approval ratings for his second term, nearly 11 months in, as the government shutdown hits Day 34, matching the most extended shutdown ever, also set under Trump in late 2018.
A series of recent polls showed some Democrats with a slight edge in key races while the party’s candidates hold whopping double-digit leads in others.
The Polymarket betting site also had the odds heavily favoring the Democrats at the top of the ticket in a series of races, despite Trump’s frantic series of social media posts over the past 24 hours urging Republicans to get out and vote.
On Tuesday, Polymarket gave Democrat Zohran Mamdani a 92 percent advantage over his closest rival, Andrew Cuomo in New York, Abigail Spanberger a 98 percent chance of victory over Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia, and in New Jersey, the other most closely watched state, Mickie Sherrill had an 83 percent lead with the bookies over Jack Ciattarelli.
The site gave the Democratic Party an 80 percent chance of a sweep.
Here are the major contests taking place across the country and their projected winners:
Virginia
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger was elected as the swing state’s first female governor on Tuesday night after leading Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears by as much as double digits throughout the race.
Spanberger’s win flips the state’s leadership from red to blue. The Democratic nominee was projected as the winner just an hour after polls closed at 7 pm ET.
Spanberger is a former House member who represented Virginia’s seventh congressional district until earlier this year. She previously served as a U.S. intelligence officer.
Earle-Sears is the state’s lieutenant governor serving alongside Republican Glenn Youngkin since she was elected in 2021. She is a businesswoman, Marine Corps vet and the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor as well as the first woman of color elected statewide.
The race has largely focused on the economy as well as Trump’s policies as Virginia serves as the backyard to Washington, D.C.
On the eve of the election, the president held a tele-rally to boost Virginia turnout, but it was not attended by Earle-Sears or other GOP candidates. However, the Republican nominee has leaned in heavily on culture war issues and embraced MAGA.
Spanberger has seized on affordability, health care, and the political turmoil coming out of the nation’s Capitol.
While some see the top of the ticket in Virginia as a referendum on Trump, voters will also have to elect the state’s next attorney general.
Democratic nominee Jay Jones, a former member of the state assembly, came under fire last month following the release of a text conversation in 2022 he had with a fellow Virginia delegate in which he advocated violence against the then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his family.
Republicans have used the messages to attack Democrats across the ticket for not distancing themselves enough from the nominee, who apologized for the messages but refused to exit the race despite calls from his opponent and others. He is up against Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, who has been serving in the position since 2022.
New Jersey
Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill triumphed over Republican Jack Ciattarelli in a nail-biting contest for the gubernatorial seat in New Jersey.
Sherrill, a former naval officer and federal prosecutor who has been representing the state’s 11th congressional district since 2019, replaces term-limited Democratic Governor Phil Murphy. This marks the first time since 1961 that New Jersey voters elected their governor from the same political party three times in a row.
Ciattarelli is a businessman and former member of the New Jersey General Assembly. This marks his third race for governor after he lost the GOP primary in 2017 before running a close race against Murphy in 2021.
Recent polls had given Sherrill a slight edge in the largely blue state, but the race quickly tightened. Former President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail with her over the weekend, while Trump held a tele-rally for Ciattarelli on Monday.
Sherrill worked to tie her opponent to Trump, having won her congressional seat as part of the anti-Trump wave in 2018. She also zeroed in on affordability in the increasingly expensive state.
Ciattarelli had not campaigned with Trump in person, but he had praised the president’s tax bill passed over the summer and leaned on MAGA anti-immigration messaging.
New York City
Voters in America’s largest city voted overwhelmingly in favor of 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani, making him the first Muslim mayor of New York and the youngest elected in over a century.
Mamdani, an assemblyman representing part of Queens, shocked the country when he won the Democratic primary in rank choice voting over the state’s former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Comptroller Brad Lander. Mayor Eric Adams did not run in the primary.
Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, came to the U.S. at the age of seven and became a naturalized citizen in 2018, is a member of the Democratic Socialists and ran an upstate campaign that relied heavily on viral social media videos and young voters at first, before gaining broader traction.
His proposals, including free buses, child care, and city-run grocery stores, have been criticized by opponents, including Cuomo, as unrealistic. Trump and Republicans in Washington have attacked him as a “communist.”
After Cuomo lost the primary, he jumped into the general election running as an independent while working to win over moderate Democrats and Republicans.
Trump has already threatened to withhold federal funding from New York. He repeatedly argued that electing Mamdani would be a disaster and ended up endorsing his former nemesis Cuomo in the race over Republican Curtis Sliwa in a last-ditch effort to tip the scales.
California Prop 50
Californians voted overwhelmingly in favor of redrawing the state’s congressional map to give Democrats up to five additional seats in next year’s midterm election.
State Democrats led by Governor Gavin Newsom rapidly moved forward with the measure, Proposition 50, in response to Republicans in Texas who gerrymandered their maps over the summer to give Republicans a greater advantage in next year’s midterms at the request of Trump.
Other GOP-led states like Missouri and North Carolina have also moved forward with redrawing maps in an effort to keep the House under GOP control in the second half of Trump’s term.
The California ballot measure asks voters whether the state should suspend its independent process and temporarily adopt a new congressional map more favorable to Democrats starting next year.
Under the proposal, the redrawing of House districts would last for the next three election cycles and then restore the state’s independent redistricting process in 2031 after the 2030 census.
Newsom has argued that Prop 50 is the best way to stop Trump and Republicans’ agenda, as some red states look to lock up the House. Republicans in the state have opposed the effort, with some also coming out against the gerrymandering in other Republican-controlled states, as well.
Recent polling showed strong support for the measure.
