The people are a sovereign whose vocabulary is limited to “yes” or “no.”
E.E Schattschneider (political scientist)
The 2025 off-year election results are in. Yet again, it was an anti-Trump wave election that has Democrats giddy about the 2026 mid-terms, when they’ll re-take the House and Senate, and turn swing states blue. Take liberal pundit Jessica Tarlov on The Five: doing an End Zone Dance in what was more intra-squad scrimmage than national election. As if California, New Jersey, New York City, and Virginia are predictive. Not!
Start with President Trump’s “I wasn’t on the ballot” observation on social media. Compared to Trump 2024, California’s Prop 50 won 400,000 fewer votes, and New Jersey’s and Virginia’s Democrat governor-elects won 150,000 fewer votes. Further, these blue states voted for Kamala Harris, and made sketchy “chief executive” choices last week.
New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani was a “foreclosure prevention housing counselor” and back-bencher in the New York State assembly. New Jersey’s governor-elect Mikie Sherrill was a lieutenant in the US Navy, outreach and re-entry counselor at the CIA and back-bencher in the US House. Virginia’s governor-elect Abigail Spanberger was a CIA desk jockey, college consultant and back-bencher in the US House.
Not a single senior leadership position on their Wikipedia pages; the curse of today’s up-and-coming Democrats. So how’d they outperform their party’s 2021 candidates? How’d Sherrill (NJ) win almost 500,000 more votes than Phil Murphy, Mamdani (NYC) win nearly 300,000 more votes than Eric Adams, and Spanberger (VA) win about 250,000 more votes than Terry McAuliffe? Hard to say for sure, but the guess here is Republicans stayed home.
Gavin Newsom’s Prop 50 won in California because Republicans cast just 2,303,371 of 10,014,657 total ballots. Sherrill is New Jersey’s governor-elect because Republicans cast 1,002,727 of 3,234,606 votes. Mamdani is New York City’s new mayor because Republicans cast only 305,577 of 2,037,183 votes. Spanberger won Virginia because Republicans cast 1,044,844 of 3,370,464 votes (source: CNN exit polling). Enough, because last week was simply voters saying “yes” to one bad proposition and three lame candidates.
What good Republicans want to know is how these results predict whether Democrats can regain the House of Representatives next year? Possible. And probable in most off years, but 2026 looks like an outlier. Right now, voters are stressed out by DOGE down-sizing, high energy costs, ICE doing its job, and tariff uncertainty, and forget that Democrats left Republicans a huge mess to clean up.
Stimulus packages that increased federal spending from $4.5 trillion to $7.3 trillion (source: Federal register). A war on fossil fuels that increased home electricity costs 34% (source: Statista). Open borders that allowed 650,600 criminal illegal aliens into the US (source: ICE). Inattention that allowed the US trade deficit to grow from $678 billion to $1.06 trillion (source: Commerce Department).
So, it’s the Trump administration’s fault until voters start seeing some positive results, which is Speaker Mike Johnson’s prognostication for November 2026. He’s confident the Big Beautiful Bill’s stimulus will have taken effect by then, and that’s not even the most important development for Republicans. That honor belongs to redistricting (and not what’s going on in California and Texas).
2026 could be decided in the Supreme Court, if five conservatives overturn Section 2 (minority-based congressional districts) of the Voting Rights Act. Without this provision, GOP-controlled states can redraw at least 19 more voting districts to create safe Republican seats. Black Lives Matter’s Cliff Albright claims this will reduce the Black and Hispanic Caucuses in Congress by 30% and 11%, respectively, costing Democrats up to 23 seats, which will give the GOP “one-party control of the House for at least a generation” (source: NPR).
The mid-term wild card is, of course, the President’s push to abolish the Senate filibuster in order to pass election-integrity laws. Requiring a photo-ID to vote, restricting mail-in ballots, and excluding non-citizens from voting would disrupt the rampant ballot-harvesting that Democrats currently abuse.
We’ll have to wait on the Supreme Court and Senate, but we’ll learn soon enough that Mamdani, Sherrill and Spanberger talked a good “affordability” game to voters, but have no power to actually reduce electricity and gasoline prices, increase the supply of housing, or control healthcare costs. That all depends on Trump’s changes taking effect (like a new Fed chairman).
Swing voters refusing to switch horses in midstream for fear of another 2021-2024 Democrat nightmare, and fewer Democrat safe seats: that’s the GOP recipe for holding onto Congress, and that’s what I’ll be tracking for the next 12 months. Stay tuned.