'Repudiation': Democrats deliver warning to Trump as big midterm test approaches
The starting gun for the 2026 midterm elections found the GOP stumbling out of the gate, suffering losses across the country Tuesday in off-year contests that could signal discontent with President Donald Trump.
Trump was a big factor in many races and is charging into the midterms with one of the most aggressive agendas in modern memory. The 2025 election indicates voters may be ready to pump the brakes, with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer declaring the results a "repudiation of the Trump agenda."
GOP candidates who embraced the president - and were labeled by their Democratic opponents as Trump acolytes - lost governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia by big margins.
California voters overwhelmingly approved an effort to check Trump’s redistricting power plays and New York City elected a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who has feuded with the president. Mamdani targeted Trump in his victory speech.
2025 election results maps, analysis: Democrats NYC, Virginia, New Jersey, California
Democratic Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, votes at The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts on Nov. 4, 2025 in the Queens borough of New York City. Voters in NYC are voting for who will be replacing Mayor Eric Adams between the front runner New York Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani and New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa. More than 735,000 people have voted early, according to the Board of Elections, more than four times as many as in the 2021 contest. This election also has other city offices on the ballot, as well as six proposals.
Virginia's new Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, also criticized the Trump administration in her victory speech, decrying the "chaos coming out of Washington" from Trump's cuts to the federal workforce. She vowed not to “stand by silently while you attack Virginia’s workers.”
The president blamed GOP loses on the government shutdown, and the fact that his name wasn't on the ballot.
Trump has never carried California, New Jersey or Virginia, making it easier for Republicans to play down loses there.
"These are off-year elections in blue states and I was expecting Democrats to win," conservative commentator Scott Jennings said on CNN.
But the sizeable Democratic victories breathed life into a party that was throttled by Trump in 2024 and desperate to start winning again, while raising questions about the strength of the president’s MAGA movement and whether he has overreached in his second term.
Democrats also may have found a more effective way to take on Trump, with the two candidates for governor tying his policies to economic concerns. They railed on his tariffs, cuts to the federal workforce and withholding of federal funds in blue areas during the shutdown. Mamdani criticized Trump’s deportation push and use of the National Guard for policing, vowing to make the nation's largest city a bulwark against such efforts. Voters rewarded them.
In response, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy , who is running for governor in Ohio, said "our side needs to focus on affordability."
Trump has been maneuvering to prevent Democrats from winning a majority in Congress next year, which would put his legislative agenda on ice and usher in aggressive oversight of the White House. Facing an uphill climb in the midterms , which historically favor the party out of power, he is pushing to redraw the congressional map to create more GOP seats.
Those efforts faced a setback in California , where Gov. Gavin Newsom in a victory speech looked ahead to the midterms as a chance to "de facto end Donald Trump 's presidency."
GOP lost, despite Trump’s 2024 gains
The Republican losses in Virginia and New Jersey came despite both states moving toward Trump in 2024.
Trump lost Virginia to Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by five percentage points and New Jersey by six after losing both by double digits in 2020.
Spanberger is on track for a double digit victory, a sign that Trump’s policies may have backfired in a state with a lot of federal workers that has been hit hard by the Department of Government Efficiency cuts.
Trump has t ried to distance himself from the race, declaring he hasn’t been “too much involved in Virginia.” He didn’t endorse GOP candidate Winsome Earle-Sears and didn’t even mention her name in a tele-rally he did for the Virginia GOP on the eve of the election.
The president was more invested in New Jersey, endorsing GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli and promoting him on social media. He also praised him in a Nov. 3 tele-rally where he declared that “The entire country is watching New Jersey.”
Despite his efforts, Democrat Mikie Sherrill also is on track to pull out a comfortable double digit win.
Both Sherrill and Spanberger made Trump a frequent target, tying their opponents to the president's policies and blaming him for cost-of-living issues, which could be a model for Democrats going into the midterms.
California voters 'stick it to Trump'
The clearest setback for the president came in California, though, where his efforts to craft a more favorable midterm map hit a roadblock.
California voters resoundingly approved Proposition 50 , an effort led by Newsom to redraw the state’s House map to create more Democrat-leaning seats to counter a push by Trump that has created more GOP-leaning seats in Texas and Missouri.
Proposition 50, explained visually: How the measure can change California elections and shift Trump's strategy
Newsom said the California results show the Democratic Party is "on its toes, no longer on its heels." He painted the victory as an "extraordinary moment" in an ongoing campaign to pushback on Trump's presidency with midterm victories.
Proposition 50 supporters made the race a referendum on Trump. Ads called for voters to “stick it to Trump.” They did, showcasing a desire to rein in a president who has sought to expand executive power.
The extent of that appetite will be tested in the midterms, where voters have another opportunity to put a check on Trump with a Democratic majority in Congress. California may not have the final say on redistricting, though.
Trump is leaning on more red state leaders to deliver new GOP seats in an escalating battle over the congressional map.
Alarm bells for GOP
The election results add to a pile of evidence that backlash is building on Trump.
Millions of Americans hit the streets for “No Kings” protests in June and October, decrying everything from the president’s mass deportations to his deployments of the National Guard in various cities.
Democrats also performed well in special elections earlier this year, leading party leaders to predict that the Nov. 4 results would add to that momentum. Trump's disapproval rating hit 63% in a new CNN/SSRS poll, the highest level in CNN polling throughout both of his terms.
Even Vice President JD Vance warned in a Fox News interview earlier this year that one of the president’s pollsters “once told me that anger usually wins midterm elections.”
The left is “very angry right now and they’re very motivated,” Vance added.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats rebound, putting Trump on defense heading into midterms
