The Democrat Wave in 2025, and the Return of the Yellow Dog Democrat

Well, that was a depressing election day, wasn’t it?

The big three (plus two) 2025 elections have all been tabulated, and the Democrats won bigly.   

New Jersey Governor

In New Jersey, the Democrats won a yuge race for governor.  Democrat Rep. Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11), despite being a terrible candidate according to normal candidate metrics, beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli 56.3 percent to 43.2 percent.  

My prediction was totally off here, as I assumed that the Republican nominee would win a narrow majority or plurality.   In this race, Democrats broke a historical trend going back to 1961, despite the unpopularity of the sitting Democrat New Jersey governor and his poor management of taxes and energy policies. 

So, why did this unprecedented event happen?  There appear to be three distinct possibilities:

1. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed that “Jack Ciattarelli would have won four years ago and he would have won tonight if you just take all the Republicans who’ve left New Jersey since I’ve been Governor and (they) moved to Florida.”   
2. I reached out to one of my little birds in New Jersey, a prominent conservative pollster, and he argued that Ciattarelli had no “message” and that he could not “define what change is.  Just being for change is not enough.  It allows your opponent to define what the change is.” (But keep in mind when a campaign loses, it is frequently blamed on the lack of a "message.")  
3. Political guru Ryan Girdusky blamed yuge Democrat turnout. “In the end, Ciattarelli received 122,000 more votes than he got in 2021… more votes than (Gov. Phil) Murphy (D) received when he won re-election (that year).  But it wasn’t enough because Sherrill received about 450k more votes than Murphy and only 400k less than Kamala received.”

It is also possible that the results were some combination of the three.  Feel free to pick your poison. 

SEE ALSO (VIP): 'Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled': GOP Took a Beating in Tuesday's Elections – but Fight Is Far From Over

New York City Mayor

In New York City, communist radical Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty. Mamdani won with 50.6 percent of the vote, to Andrew Cuomo’s 41.7 percent, and Curtis Sliwa’s 7.1 percent. 

Two of the three predictions I made here were correct – Mamdani won, and the race was much closer than much of the polling had indicated it would be. The last RCP average I cited had a 15 percent advantage for Mamdani, and many individual polls had an even bigger gap in his favor.  My only failed prediction was that I believed Mamdani would win a plurality, as the RCP average seemed to indicate that; instead, he got a bare majority. 

Importantly, Mamdani won because he continued to bring in the ‘Karen’ vote, the non-religious vote, and the Muslim vote, and, because he was on the Democrat line, he added support from black voters and Hispanics.  In fact, as Girdusky tweeted, “(h)ad blacks and Dominicans not abandoned Cuomo, he would have won.”

One more thing about Mamdani – I am guessing that we will find that he had more hidden, probably illegal, sources of money coming into assist his campaign.  Like we found out he had during the primary campaign, where there was another $40 million plus for him. 

This is important – my earlier prediction of Mamdani not winning the Democrat primary was clearly vindicated by this report.  You can’t adequately evaluate races without knowing the full and complete picture, and there was no way for me to know this!

Virginia Statewide

In Virginia, the Democrats swept the three statewide offices.  Democrat former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (VA-07) soundly defeated GOP Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, 57.3 percent to 42.7 percent.  Democrat Ghazala Hashmi beat Republican John Reid, 55.4 percent to 44.4 percent in the lieutenant governor's race.  And to the everlasting shame of my former state, Democrat Jay Jones, who fantasized about killing a Republican House Speaker and his children solely in response to that Speaker’s praise of a deceased Democrat, upset Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, 52.9 percent to 47.1 percent.   

I got three of my six predictions correct here. The problem was that the Democrat tidal wave was much stronger than any polling showed, and Spanberger won yuge, carrying Jones along with her.  To Virginia’s everlasting shame.

Only the scope of Democrat wins here was surprising.   But other than that, the story was that “Democrats won in blue jurisdictions.  That would not be surprising in any election year, let alone an off-year with a Republican in the White House.”  Especially in Virginia, which is, at least, Democrat leaning thanks to all the federal government workers it has. It also has a political history of voting against the presidential party.  And let’s not forget that Virginia is uniquely susceptible to the ongoing federal shutdown. 

READ MORE: Virginia, What in the World Have You Done?

So, what else can we learn from this ignominious night?

1. Since Donald Trump appeared, the Democrats have done better in off-year elections, as their base is more likely to turn out to vote.  This hasn’t changed, and the GOP needs to deal with it.
2. In a prior column, when I explained why I went with the RCP average, I pointed out that one reason was that polling accuracy changes from election cycle to election cycle.   This happened again in 2025.  In 2024, Atlas and Trafalgar were fantastic.  In 2025, they struck out.  The better polls this cycle were the college polls that had performed so poorly in 2024.  
3. The Democrats are still running solely on TDS.  That was the entirety of their campaign.  And in states that lean Democrat, that is enough for them to win.   
4. As a result, this election confirms that we are seeing the resurrection of the Yellow Dog Democrat.  Post-Civil War, in the South, the Yellow Dog Democrats were “(t)hose faithful Democrats (who) swore that they would 'vote for a yellow dog' before they’d vote for a Republican.”  Today, in solid Democrat jurisdictions, a Yellow Dog can be elected if they scream about Trump being the devil loud enough - as we just saw Sherrill, Spanberger, Hashmi, and Jones do.  The traditional candidate strengths probably don’t matter anymore in those areas, even if they are horrendous candidates. See Jones, Jay.  Yellow Dog Democrats also empowered Mamdani in New York City (see above).  

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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