As they do the first Tuesday of every November, Americans went to the polls this week to elect their leaders. The peaceful occurrence of this democratic ritual indicates that the US still has some distance to travel before it reaches full-blown authoritarianism. The results were a clear rebuke to president Donald Trump. Yet American democracy remains imperilled. Tuesday’s results set the stage for future showdowns.
It was a very good night for Democrats. They flipped the governorship of Virginia and held on to the governorship of New Jersey. Both races were won by convincing margins. Even more impressive were the legislative results in Virginia, where Democrats won at least 64 out of 100 seats in the House of Delegates. These results, in states that lean Democratic but where Republicans can win, confirmed Trump’s deep unpopularity. Recent polls have Trump’s approval ratings falling to a second-term low of 37 per cent. With Trump so disliked, Democrats succeeded simply by not being Republicans.
The most significant result for the future of the Democratic Party came in New York City, where democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor, with 51 per cent of the vote in a three-way race. Earlier this year, few could have predicted the victory of this young Muslim of Indian descent.
Born in Uganda, Mamdani immigrated to the US as a young boy. He proved to be a remarkable communicator who gathered a passionate movement behind him. His message and authenticity resonated among voters, including many who wouldn’t normally vote: he won the most votes of any mayoral candidate since 1969.
To win, Mamdani had to defeat New York’s Democratic establishment, trouncing veteran Democratic politician Andrew Cuomo in both the primary and the general election. Unlike centrist Democrats who mostly ran against Trump, Mamdani ran for something: a vision of a more equal nation where power and wealth are redistributed from America’s oligarchs to its ordinary citizens. He also forthrightly criticised the genocide in Gaza, suggesting a possible sea change in Democratic policy toward Israel.
In Mamdani’s vision, democracy is not simply something to be defended from Trump but something that still needs to be achieved. Seeking a full democracy – in economic as well as political terms – puts him on a collision course not only with Republicans but with mainstream Democrats. Democratic leaders pointedly held off endorsing him, their party’s candidate. Bill Clinton endorsed Cuomo.
Mamdani’s election was a great victory for the left wing of the Democratic Party, that part of its electorate that supported the primary runs of Bernie Sanders. Mamdani, having not been born in the US, is ineligible to be president, but a politician in his mode – perhaps fellow New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – would have a significant chance of winning the Democrats’ presidential nomination in 2028. Partly for this reason, centrist Democrats and wealthy New Yorkers will do their utmost to undermine Mamdani’s administration. He might benefit, however, from Trump’s opposition to him.
Trump threatened to withhold federal funds from New York City if Mamdani was elected. And he will probably deploy the military to New York’s streets, as he has done in other major Democratic cities. It will be hard for Trump and his Maga base to avoid going after Mamdani, since he represents everything that they hate: immigration, Islam and socialism. And yet a showdown between Trump and Mamdani would probably rally New York’s population behind their mayor and give him a national platform.
Tuesday’s elections did not simply foreshadow future developments; they will help to shape them. In particular, Democratic wins in Virginia and the victory of a ballot proposition in California will enable Democrats to redraw congressional districts to improve their chances in the 2026 congressional elections. Democrats may gain as many as eight seats from these efforts, a significant number given that the current Republican majority is only six.
Gerrymandering has long been a fact of American politics, but it had been highly unusual to redistrict in the middle of the decade; districts were typically only redrawn following census results, which come at the start of each decade. This new form of gerrymandering began in Texas, where Trump implored state legislators to provide him with more Republican seats; they dutifully obliged. Democrats acted to ensure they did not contest the 2026 elections at a disadvantage.
This is a welcome development for Democrats who have had a bad habit of bringing a knife to a gunfight. And yet the overall effect of extreme partisan gerrymandering is detrimental to American democracy, providing fewer Americans with real alternatives at the ballot box and further polarising the American polity. It is a painful fact that in order to combat the short-term threat to American democracy, Trump’s opponents must undermine its long-term foundations.
[ Europe’s left takes heart from Zohran Mamdani’s radical rise in New YorkOpens in new window ]
The conclusion from Tuesday’s election is that Democrats are poised to flip the House of Representatives and at least narrow the republican majority in the Senate. In normal political times, one could simply leave it at that. But these are hardly normal political times. Trump pardoned January 6th insurrectionists and thereby emboldened vigilantes in his cause. He openly muses about remaining president after he has filled his maximum constitutional term in 2028. And he has deployed the military to American cities, in what could well be a dry run to intimidate Democratic voters in 2028. Even if Democrats win at the ballot box, Trump may declare such results fraudulent, as he did in 2020 – only this time he is much better positioned to overturn them.
Indeed, by demonstrating that Republicans are unlikely to win a fair fight in 2026, this week’s results may increase the chances Trump adopts such authoritarian means to retain his grasp on power. How far will Trump go to disrupt the democratic process? And how far will an American public increasingly disenchanted with his rule allow him to go? When Americans next head to the polls on an early November Tuesday, the elections might not be so free and fair.
Daniel Geary is Mark Pigott Professor in US History at Trinity College Dublin
