Nov. 5, 2025

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

 

 

Democrats Overperformed By Double Digits In NJ, VA Routs With Congressional Midterms Just 12 Months Away

By Robert Romano

The outcome of the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races in 2025 were not surprising — the Democrats won in blue states that Democrats carried in the presidential elections of 2024, 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008. It’s not the fact that they won.  

It’s the size of the leads that should capture the political punditry’s attention, particularly on the Republican side, with the 2026 Congressional midterms just one year away — that is if Republicans hope to hold onto the House and Senate. 

It’s a loud reminder to Republicans that elections are always a referendum on the incumbents, and when you don’t believe it or hope it’s not true or maybe sometimes it’s not true, you get torched. 

Democrats thought they could just ditch the incumbent in 2024 — nice try, by the way — and it didn’t work, just as it did not work when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson opted not to run in 1952 and 1968, respectively.  

Democrats are running like Donald Trump is on the ballot, and Republicans are not. 

In New Jersey, Republican Jack Ciattarelli at 1.38 million got more votes than not only any Republican in the history of New Jersey elections, but more votes than any governor in all New Jersey history, including Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy’s 1.34 million in 2021, but still lost easily as Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, now Governor-Elect, blew the barn doors off the hinges with massive off-year turnout of 1.79 million for her candidacy.

Since 2021, New Jersey’s resident population has only increased 2.5 percent. Democratic turnout increased 33 percent, with voter enthusiasm off the charts. Republican enthusiasm was up, too, with Republican turnout increasing 10 percent.

The Democrat won in New Jersey with 56 percent of the vote compared to the Republican’s 43 percent, a 13-point rout in a race that polls said was only separated by 3 points. In Virginia, Governor-Elect Abigail Spanberger similarly overperformed what the polls showed, delivering a 15-point rout instead of the projected 10-point win. 

These are some of the biggest polling misses in recent memory. And, critically, they happened in both states. So, the odds are it’s happening everywhere else, too.

The polls are wrong. 

Undoubtedly, the survey readings were thrown off by the swamp of turnout, which broke records in New Jersey, and should have Republicans rethinking what their own turnout is going to look like in just 12 months.

The same outfits doing Virginia and New Jersey are also charting “light” lead in the generic Congressional ballot. 3.6 points? There’s no way that is possibly true. If the midterms had happened yesterday, Republicans would have been annihilated.

One clearly defined aspect of this was early voting in New Jersey: 614,000 Democrats voted early compared to 347,000 Republicans and 235,000 independents. That was 267,000 difference between Democrats and Republicans, but Sherrill won Election Day turnout, too, adding to what became an insurmountable lead of 414,000 and counting.

To weigh the magnitude of this feat, in the previous two gubernatorial elections, in 2017, Murphy got 13.5 percent of the New Jersey resident population of then 8.8 million, and in 2021, he got 14.4 percent. 

Sherrill netted 18.8 percent of the now 9.5 million New Jersey resident population. For an off-year election in recent memory, that is only topped by former Sen. Bob Menendez’ 19.2 percent of the resident population in the 2018 Congressional midterms. 

Ciattarelli for his part went from 13.5 percent of the resident population to 14.5 percent. For an off-year election with a Republican in the White House, the GOP turnout was miraculous. Any other year, 2021, 2017, you name it, that would have been enough to win. 

But nowhere near where it would have needed to be to beat the Democrats’ turnout machine that showed up on Nov. 4.

The 2018 midterms saw Democrats in New Jersey boost resident population turnout by almost 6 points from the 2017 governor race. That was aided by the Senate race. In 2026, Republicans are either fortunate or unfortunate depending on how you look at it (you’ll find out in 12 months) that 19 out of 20 of their seats up for grabs out of the 33 seats up are in states President Trump carried in 2024. 

To keep those seats, Republicans will have raise the turnout bar significantly in 2026. 

In other words, usually the national Congressional midterms are even heavier turnout than what is seen, but it depends heavily on competitive statewide races. In Virginia, the 2021 governor’s race saw more turnout than the 2022 Congressional midterms, but there was no Senate race in Virginia in 2022.

In midterm elections dating back to 1906 through 2022, the party that occupied the White House lost seats in the House 27 out of 30 times, or 90 percent of the time, and in years with losses those averaged 34 seats. It was only overcome in 1934, 1998 and 2002, with the Great Depression, Monica Lewinsky and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks acting as exigent events.

Another edge case is 1962, wherein Democrats only lost three seats, and came within weeks of the Cuban Missile Crisis being resolved. 

In 2018, Republicans lost 41 House seats. The Senate is a little better, with losses only occurring 66 percent of the time, with losses averaging 6 seats. In 2018, Trump and the GOP picked up two Senate seats.

As for 2026, based on what is being seen right now, Republicans should assume even greater Democratic turnout in 2026 than in 2025 per capita. 

When they run the numbers, it could be a much-needed wakeup call for President Trump and Republicans, who will need the President barnstorming through Senate race states with rallies whether the candidates like it or not, massive voter registration operations and matching Democratic early voting if they want to keep their majorities. 

If Republicans are looking for some hope, here’s one glimmer: The two times in recent memory the midterm jinx was broken in 1998 and 2002 when the White House party actually picked up House seats, the opposition party had just swept the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ races. Just don’t bet on it.

Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/11/democrats-overperformed-by-double-digits-in-nj-va-routs-with-congressional-midterms-just-12-months-away/

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Cartoon: Turnabout

By A.F. Branco

Click here for a higher level resolution version.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/11/cartoon-turnabout-2/ 

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Out of State Interests Buoyed Democrat Governor Wins In VA And NJ Plus Democrats Go All In On Socialism in New York City  

By Manzanita Miller 

Tuesday’s election results are sobering for Republicans, who relinquished three key Virginia statewide races to Democrats as well as the New Jersey Governor race and watched New York City embrace Democratic socialism with the ascension of radical leftist Zohran Mamdani as  mayor. 

In an unsettling if unsurprising turn of events for anyone who has glanced at polling over the past few months, self-identified socialist Zohran Mamdani, running as a Democrat, beat out independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa for New York City mayor. 

Mamdani won just over half the vote (50.2 percent), while his opposition vote was split between Cuomo (41.6 percent) and Sliwa (7.1 percent). Mamdani’s win marks a forward lurch for socialist-style policies in the city, including taxpayer-funded free city buses, a rent-freeze for a million tenants, and rumors of a wealth tax on wealthy residents and an increase in the city’s corporate tax rate. His win also indicates Democrats have no objection to rallying around actual socialism, and hints that the party could be lurching even further left. However, the likelihood that these policies have a fighting chance outside of hubs like New York City is unlikely.  

In the Virginia Governor race, which was tightening in the weeks before the election, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the race against her Republican opponent Winsome Earle-Sears by just over fifteen points, 57.5 percent to 42.3 percent. Spanberger drummed up a total of 1,961,990 votes, a record-breaking number that pushed the state closer to presidential turnout levels than a typical governor race. For comparison, Spanberger’s vote total eclipsed former Governor Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 vote total by over 290,000 votes on Tuesday.  

Democrats developed a turnout machine to be reckoned with in Virginia, but it didn’t hurt that Spanberger raised nearly double the campaign money that Earle-Sears did. Spanberger raised $65 million during the campaign while Earle-Sears raised $35 million according to The Virginia Public Access Project reports. One of Spanberger’s largest donors was the Democratic Governors Association, which descended on the Virginia race, pouring 10.4 million into Spanberger’s coffers. This is more than it has spent on any Virginia race since at least 2012 according to Open Secrets, indicating Democrats were willing to bankroll the Virginia race to secure the outcome they wanted. 

In the Virginia Lieutenant Governor race, Democrat Ghazala Hashmi beat out Republican John Reid by 11.4 points, 55.6 percent to 44.2 percent. Hashmi significantly outraised Reid, with The Virginia Public Access project reporting that she raised $7.8 million to Reid’s1.3 million as of Oct. 23. Ghazala received over $1.2 million from the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, and hundreds of thousands from left-leaning groups like Planned Parenthood VA and New VA Majority. 

In the Virginia Attorney General race, Republican Jason Miyares put in a significant final push in the weeks before election day, but ultimately lost to Democrat Jay Jones by 6.5 percentage points, 53 percent to 46.5 percent. Miyares and Jones both raised significantly more in funding than is typical in an Attorney General race, with Miyares outraising Jones according to Open Secrets data. That said, Jones’ 14.2 million pre-election fundraising level 12 days before the election dwarfs any recent Democrat candidate for Attorney General. Jones also received over $1 million in donations in the weeks after disturbing text messages from 2022 were discovered in which he said he wished there were “two bullets” in the head of the Republican leader of the House of Delegates. 

In the New Jersey governor race polls showed a tightening race in the final weeks before the election, but Democrat Representative Mikie Sherrill ended up beating Republican Jack Ciattarelli by thirteen points, 56.2 percent to 43.2 percent. Like Spanberger in Virginia, Sherrill significantly increased Democrat turnout levels, winning over 1.7 million votes. This is over 450,000 more votes than former Governor Phil Murphy won in 2021. For his part, Ciattarelli improved on his 2021 numbers by over 100,000 votes as well, demonstrating Republicans did not have a turnout problem, but Democrats pushed turnout to near-presidential election levels.   

Similar to the Virginia Governor race, Mikie Sherrill was well-funded by out-of-state interests who zeroed in on the New Jersey Governor race to secure the seat for Democrats. Sherrill raised a total of $17.5 million overall with $6.5 million on hand leading into the final weeks of the election, and Ciattarelli raised $16.5 million and had $4 million on hand. 

However, much of Ciattarelli’s donations stemmed from New Jersey donors while Sherrill received funding from an array of out-of-state groups. According to the Brennan Center, the super PAC boosting Sherrill raised $7.8 million for her campaign, and much of that amount stemmed from groups fully or partially shrouding their sources. This included over a million dollars from groups whose addresses were listed outside of New Jersey.    

Funding from national Democrat-aligned groups fixated on securing power for the party ahead of the midterm cycle played a role in both the New Jersey and Virginia Governor races. Democrats also managed to push voter turnout to near-presidential election levels, indicating trouble for Republicans in the midterms if they are unable to match Democrats’ spending and turnout spree. As for Mamdani’s win, the city will become a social experiment that can be looked back on in four years, and Democrats will finally have a “real socialism” case to cite. 

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/11/out-of-state-interests-buoyed-democrat-governor-wins-in-va-and-nj-plus-democrats-go-all-in-on-socialism-in-new-york-city/