It’s been a rough decade for the political left in the U.S.
In 2012 and 2014, Democrats saw extreme losses in both chambers of Congress. In 2016, they lost the White House to Donald Trump too. In 2020, Democrats took back the presidency, but it was obvious even then that the party had no mandate and its electoral coalition was fragile. In 2024, Democrats went down in flames, losing the popular vote and every single swing state.
In each of these elections, the party’s losses have been driven primarily by shifts in voting preferences among the very constituents the party claims to serve, such as less socioeconomically advantaged Americans, religious and ethnic minorities, young people, and women. The Democrats weren’t just losing; they were getting consistently rebuked by their own imagined base.
After such a bleak run, it is understandably tempting for supporters to overinterpret little wins. And they’ve been doing so in the wake of the 2025 elections.
For instance, Zohran Mamdani, a self-avowed democratic socialist running as a Democrat, was recently elected mayor of New York City. This outcome was widely described as “historic,” and it technically was: Mamdani will be the city’s first Muslim and/or Asian American mayor. Overall, however, there was far less to his election than meets the eye.
The top-line outcome (the Democratic nominee was elected mayor of New York City) should surprise no one. There have been 26 elections going back to 1932. Republicans won seven of them. Three of them went to independent candidates. Democrats won the rest. The last three consecutive mayoral contests went to Democrats by a 2:1 margin. Mamdani won because he was the Democratic nominee. In the absence of Mamdani, some other Democrat would have won instead.
Compared with the performance of other winning mayoral candidates, Mamdani’s was far from extraordinary. Looking at all elections since 1953 (when the relevant data began to be tracked), this race ranks 13 out of 19 with respect to turnout. If you look at the vote share Mamdani won relative to his opponents, he’s tied for 12th place out of 19 cycles. The million votes Mamdani won? They’re mostly a product of a larger NYC population (and were achieved in spite of middling turnout and vote share). The coalition Mamdani built to win looks the same as that of any other successful Democratic New York mayoral nominee along the lines of class, age, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, religion or any other dimension. Mamdani’s supporters and opponents alike are reading much more into the electoral results than the results themselves support.
A similar reality holds in Virginia’s gubernatorial election, where Democrat Abigail Spanberger flipped the seat. Many attributed the outcome to the government shutdown and DOGE, which have ravaged government workers, who make up a large share of the Virginia electorate, or to Spanberger’s moderate positioning, or to the extremism of her Republican rival. Yet we have every reason to think that the outcome would have been the same even if these specific details were changed.
Here’s a fun fact: For the last half-century, every single time there was a change of party in the White House, the Virginia governorship has gone to the opposite party the next year.
| Presidential Election Year | Presidential Victor | Subsequent VA Governor Race Year | VA Gubernatorial Victor |
| 1976 | Jimmy Carter (D) | 1977 | John Dalton (R) |
| 1980 | Ronal Reagan (R) | 1981 | Chuck Robb (D) |
| 1992 | Bill Clinton (D) | 1993 | George Allen (R) |
| 2000 | GW Bush (R) | 2001 | Marc Warner (D) |
| 2008 | Barack Obama (D) | 2009 | Bob McDonnell (R) |
| 2016 | Donald Trump (R) | 2017 | Ralph Northam (D) |
| 2020 | Joe Biden (D) | 2021 | Glenn Younkin (R) |
| 2024 | Donald Trump (R) | 2025 | Abigal Spanberger (D) |
It didn’t matter which issues were central at the time, which party controlled the presidency, how popular the president was, whether the economy was up or down, whether the gubernatorial candidates ran especially good or bad races, whether the candidates were men or women, Black or white, bland or charismatic, moderate or something else. Whenever the White House went to one party, the Virginia governorship has gone the other way a year later.
Thus that the Democratic nominee won the Virginia governorship after a Republican won the White House does not indicate anything unusual or special about this candidate or the current political moment. On the contrary, it suggests that this was a very regular cycle that played out in conventional and predictable ways.
Even Trump’s approval rating has been dropping in a manner and at a rate that is almost exactly on trend with other second-term administrations. None of the president’s extraordinary behaviors seem to have given rise to extraordinary political dynamics at the ballot box.
For Democrats, this might seem deflating. But it’s actually good news as they look toward the 2026 midterms. If the usual “thermostatic response” dynamics continue to hold, the GOP will almost certainly lose seats in the House — likely enough to lose the chamber.
Going back to the Civil War, almost every time there was a change of party in the White House, the newly victorious party would go on to see attrition in the midterms. Going all the way back to Lincoln’s election, there have been only two exceptions to this rule. The first occurred in 1934 when FDR was elected to chart a new course for the country after the onset of the Great Depression; the second was in 2002, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when voters chose to enhance George W. Bush’s abilities to wage a “War on Terror.”
Apart from those extreme situations, it didn’t matter which party had just won, how popular the president was, which issues were front of mind for voters, what was happening with the economy or foreign policy, or what types of candidates each party fielded. The president’s party lost seats in the House no matter what, most typically somewhere between 15 and 34 (although they often picked up a seat in the Senate).
| Midterm election year | Party in the white house | President | Net House seats lost/ gained by presidents’ party | Net Senate seats lost/gained by presidents’ party |
| 1862 | Republican | Lincoln | -3 | 8 |
| 1886 | Democrat | Cleveland | -15 | 3 |
| 1890 | Republican | Harrison | -85 | 0 |
| 1894 | Democrat | Cleveland | -125 | -4 |
| 1898 | Republican | McKinley | -19 | 9 |
| 1914 | Democrat | Wilson | -61 | 5 |
| 1922 | Republican | Harding | -77 | -6 |
| 1934 | Democrat | FDR | 9 | 10 |
| 1954 | Republican | Eisenhower | -18 | -1 |
| 1962 | Democrat | Kennedy | -4 | -2 |
| 1970 | Republican | Nixon | -12 | 1 |
| 1978 | Democrat | Carter | -15 | -3 |
| 1982 | Republican | Reagan | -26 | 1 |
| 1994 | Democrat | Clinton | -54 | -8 |
| 2002 | Republican | Bush II | 5 | 0 |
| 2010 | Democrat | Obama | -63 | -6 |
| 2018 | Republican | Trump | -42 | 2 |
| 2022 | Democrat | Biden | -9 | 1 |
| Mean | -34 | 1 | ||
| Median | -18 / -19 | 0/1 | ||
| Mode | -15 | 1 | ||
| Range | -125 to 9 | -8 to 10 | ||
The GOP currently controls 219 seats in the House out of the 218 required for a majority. At Trump’s urging, many GOP-controlled states have been engaging in mid-census gerrymandering to preserve their House majority. However, these efforts have been largely offset by Democrats responding in kind, and many of the proposed maps are facing legal challenges. All told, these moves seem like they’ll end up a wash for Republicans (at best). Either way, Democrats will probably take the House.
The Senate is a tougher pull. Republicans control that chamber 53 to 45, plus two independents. Out of the last 19 inaugural midterms, going all the way back to the Civil War, there have only been four instances when the incumbent party lost as many Senateseats as the Democrats would need to flip in order to take control of that chamber (the most recent occurring in 2010).
That said, with the right mix of candidates and circumstances, it’s certainly possible for Democrats to win the Senate. Indeed, although the outcome of the Virginia race typically doesn’t tell us much, the vote marginof that race has been something of a weathervane for how the midterms will play out. Spanberger’s margin of victory was far from unprecedented, but it was roughly comparable to results that preceded “wave” midterm elections in 2010 and 1994. This certainly doesn’t guarantee that Democrats will have a wave election next year, but it’s a positive indicator.
The generic ballot data is also encouraging. According to polls, the Democratic Party remains deeply unpopular. However, a growing plurality of voters are favoring Democrats in generic ballots as the lesser of two evils. When you look at the contemporary numbers relative to historical averages, they likewise suggest Democrats may do well enough next year to flip the Senate.
The stakes of the upcoming midterms seem particularly high given that the Republican majority has so far abdicated Congress’s role in checking executive authority. From the power of the purse to the deployment of the military and beyond, Congress has declined to oppose the president in any way or to even force him to follow regular authorization channels.
This is dangerous for US democracy. Healthy opposition is important for good government. The less willing or capable the GOP-led Congress seems to be to fill its core responsibilities, the more pivotal it becomes for Democrats to grow a spine and find their voice, so they can make good use of power if they’re able to win it next year.
As things stand, Democrats should be heartened by the 2025 electoral results. Voters did not demonstrate particular enthusiasm for the Democratic Party as a whole or any particular candidate or faction therein. But then again, they didn’t need to. The simple fact that regular political dynamics seem to be holding — underscored by this year’s banal and predictable electoral outcomes — bodes well for the Democratic Party going into next year’s midterms.