
<p>There is no spin that can change the fact that Democrats had a huge victory in the off-year election,</p>



<p>One can fairly note that the major races were in blue states – and Democrats were expected to prevail. ; Even the one state in which the governorship flipped – Virginia – has generally been listed among the bluer states.</p>



<p>What should keep President Trump and the GOP awake at night is the scope and depth of the victories. ; The races in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City were expected to be close. ; That is what the pundits were saying, and the polls were showing. ; (Once again the pollsters missed.)</p>



<p>The races were blowouts – landslides by today’s standards. ; In Virginia, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger topped Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears 58 to 42 percent. ; In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill defeated Jack Ciattarelli by 56 to 43 percent. ; While Zorhan Mamdani was expected to prevail in the Big Apple, he was not on track to win a clear majority against former Governor Andrew Cuomo and perennial candidate Curtis Sliwa – but he did.</p>



<p>As expected, the voters of California approved Governor Newsom’s plan to redistrict the state to provide more Democrat congressional seats – up to five, by most estimates. ; This was in response to the Texas plan to redistrict to gain five new Republican seats.</p>



<p>The Democrat victories ran deep – winning up and down the ballot in state and local offices. ; It is almost impossible to find offices that flipped from Democrat to Republican. ; Counties that Trump had won in 2024 flipped back to the Democrats by wide margins.</p>



<p>More bad news for Trump and the GOP was the Black and Latino vote. ; Trump had done well with minority voters – even winning a majority of male Hispanics. ; That trend hit a brick wall this year. ;</p>



<p>Those are the facts. ; The critical question for Trump and Republican strategists is “why?” ; How can a party with a record low approval rate win so big?</p>



<p>The second question is easy to answer. ; It is how elections have been decided in recent years. ; There is universal disdain for the ruling class in both parties. ; Voters are forced to choose which candidate or party they dislike the least. ; It was Trump in 2016 and 2024, and Biden in 2020. ; This year voters disliked the Democratic Party the least.</p>



<p>Republican pundits point to population shifts. ; For example, approximately 800,000 people have left New Jersey since 2024. ; They surmise that they were mostly more conservative folks – Republicans. ; Even if true, that hardly explains the magnitude and depth of the Democrat sweep.</p>



<p>Another ominous sign for Republicans was the size of the voter turnout. ; That is never considered to be good for the party in power. ; Voters generally turn out in big numbers to turn out the party in power. ; In this case voters viewed Trump and the Republicans as the party in power. ; The vote was a pushback against Trump and Trump policies. ; Democrats successfully made Trump the issue in this election – essentially nationalizing the election. ; We know that because 70 percent of voters said their vote was anti-Trump. ; He was THE issue in their minds as they cast their ballots.</p>



<p>I have routinely advised candidate clients that elections are won or lost on what the voters decided to decide upon. ; We can see how that worked in New Jersey. ; ; According to pre-election polls, the number one issue on voters’ minds was high taxes – New Jersey being one of the highest tax states in the country. ; That should have been a problem for Democrats in the Garden State. ; But the voters decided to decide their votes on Trump.</p>



<p>Just one year ago, Trump stunned the political intelligentsia by pulling off his greatest victory against the longest odds. ; One year later he is – to some measure &#8212; politically toxic. ; How did that happen?</p>



<p>First and foremost, there has been the continuing extreme criticism. ; Trump has been repeatedly compared to the world’s worst despots – even Adolph Hitler. ; The entire GOP has been demonized had Nazi cultists. ; ; That is all a lie, but as Joseph Goebbels noted, big lies repeated over and over will gain credibility. That is what we have been seeing.</p>



<p>But much of the problem has been Trump, himself – and the policies and actions he has so aggressively pursued since reclaiming the presidency. ; He started doing things that did not have popular appeal – and he should have known it. ; Most Americans thought his blanket appeal for the January 6<sup>th</sup> rioters was wrong. ; That was true even of people who believed the rioters were overly prosecuted. Folks were not happy with the impact of tariffs on retail prices. Building a larger ballroom for the White House was much needed by most accounts, but the timing was bad optics. ; And Trump and the GOP were getting the blame for the shutdown.</p>



<p>Trump’s biggest problem was presiding over an economy that was not getting better in most folks’ judgment &#8212; at least in the perception of the consumer public. ; It has been true in virtually every election that the economy is a major factor in how the public votes. ; As Democrat strategist put it, “It is the economy, stupid”. ; It was true again this year.</p>



<p>The economy is doing okay and poised to do better in the future. ; But it is today’s economy that voters were considering – especially against Trump’s promise to improve the economy ; from day one. ;</p>



<p>There is a lot of speculation as to the impact of the off-year election on the 2024 mid-term election. ; I will wade into that turbulent water in a future commentary. ; For now, I can only concede that the off-year election was not good for Trump or the GOP.</p>



<p>So, there ‘tis.</p>

Trump and GOP lose big in off-year election
