All right, all right, all right. Republicans had a bad night yesterday — and so did New York City in particular — but let’s keep a little perspective at the same time. The GOP has some lessons to learn from the elections yesterday, and perhaps especially on perceptions of the economy at the moment.
Let’s start with the lessons. Mark Halperin makes the doom-and-gloom case at the Daily Mail today:
Democrats didn’t just win on Tuesday. They crushed it. From Virginia to New Jersey to California, they rolled through every major contest, as a party that has rediscovered its swagger. …
Democrats didn’t just win because they were organized. They won because the Trump coalition, shorn of Trump himself, became deflated. Minority voters and suburbanites who flirted with the GOP under Trump’s spell just last year seem to have slipped off without him on the ballot. In Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans were wiped out among Hispanics and working-class non-white voters — the very blocs Team MAGA boasted had joined their movement.
In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer who first flipped a deep-Red seat during the anti-Trump backlash of 2018 and has since cultivated a pragmatic, centrist image, romped to victory. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor representing the affluent suburbs west of New York City, turned back her GOP challenger with ease. Exit polls show Spanberger winning 84 percent of non-white voters without a college degree, Sherrill winning 71 percent, and both women taking more than 70 percent of Latinas. Their Republican opponents, according to the exit polls, got only 31% and 34% of Hispanics and 5% and 8% of Black voters, respectively.
Data Republican points to a different, and perhaps much more pertinent, data set:
As far as I know, I was one of the few who expected a clean D sweep, and hopefully that gives me at least a little credibility in talking about why it happened. This is a structural problem and one that’s only going to intensify as the Buffett heirs begin spending their father’s…
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) November 5, 2025
… as the Buffett heirs begin spending their father’s fortune. That’ll be worth a couple billion dollars pumped into the civic engagement network annually.
That said, listen closely to what @honestpollster is saying. The same structural issues also drive outrage and add to a feeling of “everything’s rigged.” A lot of people, especially younger ones, feel like the system is stacked against them. And honestly, they’re not wrong.
I think the Israel stuff is mostly a way of externalizing that blame.
This lesson needs to be internalized on the Right. Forget about the performative outrage over “oligarchs” on the Left. Their entire financial model relies on billionaire “philanthropists,” especially second-generation oligarchs like Alex Soros and potentially Buffet’s heirs, oligarchs who fund the Left’s organizing structures. Ending the billions of dollars flowing out of USAID and Joe Biden’s Green New Deal bill through the EPA put a dent in those orgs, but hardly eliminated them. That is one lesson that came through loudly and clearly last night. The Right needs to organize better and work harder to keep up.
Halperin’s not wrong with his analysis either, but it lacks perspective. How many people expected Republicans to win elections in blue states like New Jersey, Virginia, California, and in New York City? The most surprising loss was Jason Miyares, and that’s only because most of the country expected Virginians to reject Jay Jones and his expressed desire to see the children of his opponents murdered to further his political agenda. Seeing Jack Ciatterelli lose as badly as he did in deep-blue New Jersey was disappointing, but hardly a surprise.
Halperin does note what happens when Trump doesn’t top the ballot, but again, these elections all took place in blue states. Trump was on the ballot a year ago, and Republicans still lost all of these states. No one even predicted an upset in any of these states a year ago; in fact, Trump scored major upsets in swing states that people thought Kamala Harris would hold (Michigan and Wisconsin), and in beating her by two million votes in the popular vote.
Basically, what happened last night was that Democrats won in Democrat jurisdictions, albeit by wider margins than expected. They won because this was an off-cycle election, and organization means a lot more in off-cycle and special elections. Better organization by the GOP might have narrowed the gaps in these elections, but it wouldn’t have changed the outcomes.
Today’s a good day to keep that perspective on these outcomes. One year ago, Trump triumphed in a presidential election cycle, winning a decisive victory over Democrats and their oligarchical infrastructure, even when it had full support through USAID back-channel funding. The White House is celebrating the anniversary today by reminding voters of Trump’s accomplishments in the first ten months of his presidency, and the list is impressive. They sent out a list of promises made and kept, at least half of which focus on immigration, trafficking, and border control. Perhaps with an eye to the midterms, however, the next set focused on the economy:
- PROMISE MADE: “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will make America affordable again.” (8/17/24)
- ✅ PROMISE KEPT: Core inflation is near its lowest level in four years, prices for everyday goods continue to fall, and Americans are growing increasingly confi
dent about the economic outlook. Jobs numbers have trounced expectations for four straight months, gas prices are at their lowest level in four years, blue-collar wage growth has seen the largest increase in nearly 60 years, and Wall Street sentiment is surging as the stock market reaches new record highs.
- PROMISE MADE: “A vote for President Donald J. Trump is a vote for prosperity.” (9/13/24)
- ✅ PROMISE KEPT: President Trump’s America First economic policy has created a windfall in the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq repeatedly hitting new record highs — while inflation has moderated, business is booming, and the economy is growing.
- PROMISE MADE: “We’re going to get your gas prices down.” (1/16/24)
- ✅ PROMISE KEPT: The national average for gasoline hit a four-year low under President Trump, dipping below $3 per gallon for the first time in years — and trending even lower.
The rest of the issue-set wins celebrated in their statement are:
- Cutting taxes for middle-class families
- Fortifying the American economy
- Lowering drug prices
- Restoring Peace through Strength
- Strengthening and modernizing our military
- Unleashing American energy
- Negotiating better trade deals
- Using tariffs as leverage
- Revitalizing American manufacturing
- Ending the weaponization of government
- Reforming the federal bureaucracy
- Cutting costly, burdensome regulations
- Returning education back where it belongs
- Ending the Radical Left’s insanity on race and gender
- Keeping men out of women’s sports
- Defending Americans’ Constitutional rights
- Protecting public safety
- Protecting Social Security and Medicare
- Securing our elections
- Keeping the U.S. as the global leader in AI
- Making federal architecture beautiful again
- Restoring safety and free speech to college campuses
- Ending the war on crypto
- Ensuring transparency in government
- Uniting the country through success
In other words, when we get to the midterms, Trump and the GOP have a good argument to make for staying the course. And before we get to the midterms, this should remind us that we don’t need to panic after some blue-state losses. What needs to happen is more organization and more resolve to ensure that the gains of this administration get communicated effectively and that GOTV structures get enough resources to compete.
.@POTUS: “We’re gathered today on the one-year anniversary of the single most consequential election victory, they say. This is them. This isn’t me. I’m a very modest person I would never say this.”😂 pic.twitter.com/03OMaDf0Da
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 5, 2025
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