Democrats had a very good night last night. That's even an understatement -- in actual fact, Democrats had a blowout night last night, as they romped home in just about every election everywhere. One year from Donald Trump's electoral victory, the Democratic Party came back strong. What it all means for the future is anyone's guess, but for the first time in an entire year, it's better to be a Democrat than a Republican, looking towards that future.

Donald Trump, of course, wasn't on the ballot anywhere. In fact, he will never be on a ballot ever again (unless he decides to run for some office other than the presidency, which doesn't seem very likely). But he was omnipresent in the campaign, as Democrats ran against him, his policies, and (most importantly) his economy. Which proved to be the winning ticket.

A quick review is in order, for those who didn't tune in last night. Here were the outcomes in the major races yesterday:

Virginia

Democrats won every state office on the ballot. Abigail Spanberger will be the next governor of the commonwealth, the first woman to ever hold the office. She won by a whopping 15 points, which was more than the polls predicted and more than any Democrat has won in the state since 1961. Ghazala Hashmi won the lieutenant governor's race, making her the first Muslim-American woman to win a statewide race anywhere in America. Virginia has only elected four women to statewide office in its entire history -- and two of them won last night. Even the beleaguered Jay Jones won the attorney general's race by almost six points, after weathering a scandal that most people predicted would end his chances of winning (full disclosure: I called on him to drop out of the race when the scandal broke). He is the first Black person to win this office -- meaning there will be precisely zero White men in the top ranks of the Virginia government, for the first time in history.

As of this writing, Democrats also increased their control in the house of delegates (Virginia's lower legislative chamber), improving from a razor-thin 51 seat majority (out of 100) to, as of this writing, 61 seats. The Democratic candidate is ahead in three of the eight races that still haven't been called, meaning Democrats could wind up with almost two-thirds of the chamber in their hands. This will mean Democrats will have a "trifecta" of holding the governor's office and both houses of the legislature, which will mean they will be free to implement their agenda in a way they haven't been for a very long time. One Democrat even won a district south of Fredericksburg, beating the longest-serving delegate ever, a Republican who first won office in 1989.

Looking at a map of the shift in voting between this election and the last gubernatorial election (in 2021) is instructive. Every single county shifted to the Democrats, and 15 counties flipped from Republican to Democratic. Spanberger beat the margins Kamala Harris managed last year in "more than 95 percent of Virginia counties and independent cities.... Spanberger's gains were comprehensive. She won Democratic and swing areas and chipped into support in Republican counties. The shifts came in rural, suburban and urban areas." In other words, she ran the table.

The Republican candidate tried to recycle the playbook used by Glenn Youngkin last time around, which leaned heavily on hot-button wedge issues such as trans kids in schools. Spanberger centered her campaign around one thing: affordability and how the cost of living hasn't improved under Donald Trump.

New Jersey

Mikie Sherrill was perhaps the most impressive Democrat of the night, winning the New Jersey governor's race by a stunning 13 points. Polling had shown she only had a single-digit edge over her Republican opponent, and many Democrats were fearing a very close race (and perhaps even an upset loss). But Sherrill's race was also a blowout victory.

The demographic shifts in New Jersey are likely to get a lot of attention from political analysts (and other political wonks). As in Virginia, the map showing voting shifts from the 2021 gubernatorial contest shows only blue arrows, as Sherrill bested even the last Democrat to win the governor's office. This is significant, because the last race pitted Phil Murphy against the same Republican who just lost to Sherrill. Except that in 2021, Jack Ciattarelli came within three points of winning. So a 13-point loss is a big shift indeed. Here is the big takeaway that is already causing some real fear in the Republican Party:

[Mikie Sherrill] outran both [current New Jersey Governor Phil] Murphy [in 2021] and [Kamala] Harris [in 2024] in every county in the state. She did the best compared to Harris in counties that shifted the most toward [Donald] Trump last year. These included Passaic and Hudson counties, where Latinos account for more than 40 percent of the population. Trump last year made big gains in those counties and flipped Passaic. But Sherrill won both, outperforming Harris by 11 points in Hudson and by 9 points in Passaic. She won four other counties that went to Trump a year ago.

This is big news, because Trump did indeed shift a big percentage of the Latino vote nationwide. Optimistic Republicans have been hoping this shift will prove to be a permanent one, putting much more of the Latino vote into their column. But New Jersey's results showed that it may have been more of a one-time flirtation with the GOP rather than any sort of permanent shift.

Democrats will also expand their majority in New Jersey's lower legislative house, by as many as seven seats. Democrats also won the governor's race in New Jersey for a third straight term -- the first time they've done so in 50 years.

The Republican candidate in the governor's race tied himself firmly to Trump, and (unlike in Virginia) Trump actually phoned in an appearance to endorse Ciattarelli during one of his rallies (Trump refused to even say the name of the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, in an election-eve tele-rally in the state). Mikie Sherrill focused her campaign around one thing: affordability and the cost of living.

New York City

As of this writing, Zohran Mamdani is winning the race for mayor with 50.4 percent of the votes. I mention this not because there is a chance he will lose (when every vote is counted) but because the total is over 50 percent. This is crucial, because it will allow Mamdani to avoid endless carping about how "He didn't win a mandate!" -- which would surely have happened if, for instance, he had won with only 49.9 percent of the vote. That extra half a point means Mamdani will not constantly be hounded by the mandate question.

Republicans are almost gleeful that Mamdani won this race, because they are already attempting to tie every single Democrat everywhere to the "Democratic Socialist" label. Of course, that's not the language they use -- they either call Mamdani an outright "socialist," or a "communist," or a "Marxist." And those aren't even the worst things they'll call him.

Mamdani will be judged on whether he is successful or not in implementing his agenda. But what is this "socialist" Mamdani agenda that Republicans are so gleefully attempting to demonize? Well, Mamdani says his highest priority will be to provide free child care to New York City parents, for every child from six weeks old to five years old. He wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations to do so, but he might not be able to convince his fellow Democrats in Albany to go along with this plan (much of what Mamdani wants to do will require the state government to go along with his agenda, which may or may not happen).

But let's say that Mamdani does manage to provide free child care for young children in the Big Apple. This isn't all that original an idea -- the entire state of New Mexico just implemented the same plan, in fact. Republicans can demonize "socialism" all they want, but Democrats will be able to counter with: "So what is Mamdani's big 'socialist' sin? He provided free child care to all parents in New York City. Now, how many of you think that's a horrible thing? How many of you think it would be absolutely terrible to lift the burden of paying an immense amount of money for child care from all parents? And how many of you think that maybe rich people can be taxed a little bit more to make that happen?"

Republicans are going to make the attempt to tie all Democrats to Mamdani, but this is likely to fail -- or even backfire, if swing voters hear both sides and conclude, "Well, that doesn't sound so bad... that would actually help my family."

Again, Mamdani will rise or fall on whether he can make good on his campaign promises. If he does, it will blunt the edge of the GOP attacks against him, since he'll have solid accomplishments to point to. If he doesn't, he'll wind up being a disappointment to many, but also he won't seem as all-powerful as the Republicans will characterize him as.

The key takeaway here is, once again: Mamdani ran his entire campaign on affordability and the cost of living. By doing so, he defeated a former Democratic governor of a political dynasty as well as the Republican candidate.

California redistricting

Governor Gavin Newsom scored the easiest victory last night, as his plan for mid-decade redistricting was declared the winner mere moments after the polls closed. It didn't quite win by a 2-to-1 margin, but it got awfully close to that mark (64 percent to 36 percent). California will now add five more safe Democratic districts, which will counteract the fact that Texas shifted five seats to be safe Republican districts.

This quite obviously boosts Newsom's political stature nationwide, as he prepares to run for president in 2028, and depending on the outcome of next year's midterms it might even provide him with a truly stunning achievement. If Democrats win control of the House by a very slim margin (five seats or less), then Newsom will be able to plausibly claim that the victory happened because of him. That could be a very powerful argument indeed.

This particular election had nothing to do with affordability, it was all about stopping Trump and the Republicans in their tracks.

Conclusions

Here's the best paragraph I've yet seen, to sum up what just happened:

This election was about [Donald] Trump. He endorsed major Republican candidates and tied all of these elections to his efforts to lower the cost of living: "If affordability is your issue, VOTE REPUBLICAN!" he posted on social media. But prices are up, Trump is broadly unpopular, and Democratic candidates welcomed making their elections about Trump. Network exit polls showed that most voters in Virginia and New Jersey disapproved of Trump.

There were other races on the ballot yesterday, and Democrats prevailed in almost all of them. Three liberal state supreme court justices were retained in office in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Democrats also won county executive races in two of the state's bellwether counties (Erie and Northampton). Democrats won two statewide races in Georgia (for public service commissioners). A ballot initiative in Maine that would have made voting significantly harder failed to pass. In special elections in Mississippi, Democrats flipped three state senate seats and broke the Republican supermajority there.

In short: Democrats had a blowout night.

The mainstream media's pundits are already trying to sow division within Democratic ranks, by framing the victories last night as somehow being in opposition to each other. Here's a good example of this, from the Washington Post, which tries to make it sound like there's some sort of civil war happening within the party between moderates and progressives.

But you know what? I don't see division, instead I see a remarkable unity from Democrats. In all three marquee races, the Democratic candidate won on one basic subject: affordability. Coincidentally enough, this is a dandy issue to reach out to all those disaffected blue-collar voters who channelled their feelings of being left behind into voting for Trump again. One year after Trump won his election, he has done precisely nothing for them. Grocery prices continue to go up. Rent continues to go up. Inflation is going up. The cost of living is a crisis for millions. And Democrats were the ones addressing such fears, and promising to at least make bold attempts to do something about it.

That is a winning formula for success. That is what Democrats should relentlessly focus on, heading into next year's midterms. Zohran Mamdani won two-thirds of voters under the age of 45. New York City voters turned out in numbers (more than two million votes cast) not seen for a mayoral election since 1969. That is enthusiasm. That is what giving the voters something to vote for can do.

For anyone who doubts that this is the way back to convincing blue-collar voters to vote for Democrats, I invite you to watch New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani's full victory speech. He speaks directly to those who feel left out. He addresses their economic concerns in concrete ways. He knows how to whip up a crowd. He is young and exciting. And if he can even do half of what he promised, he will be a transformative mayor for New York City. Maybe not every Democrat everywhere will get on board with his brand of politics or his full agenda, but he certainly does show them that campaigning on big bold ideas can be a winning formula.

Before Republicans spend hundreds of millions of dollars demonizing him, watch the video for yourself. It'll show you a big reason why Democrats did so well last night.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant