NO KINGS AT THE POLLS -- THE OFF-YEAR ELECTION

For much of the past year, the news has been universally bad. 

Trump was elected to a second term despite having sponsored an attempted coup at the end of his first. A Cabinet of fools, sycophants or both was appointed, ostensibly to run the executive departments of the federal government but really just to stoke the ego of our narcissist (and liar) in chief. Unethical remaindermen (or women) in the Justice Department followed orders to indict his enemies while ignoring the crimes of his friends.

Pardons were given to felons who either supported his lies or lined his family's (crypto) pockets. Prestigious law firms, media outlets and universities paid extortionate tribute. The military now routinely violates both domestic and international law on the president's say-so. ICE's masked thugs arrest anyone who looks illegal. Mindless tariffs have turned erstwhile allies into enemies. The East Wing of the White House has been bulldozed.

And the Republican Party is AWOL.

Then came Tuesday.

In New Jersey and Virginia, the Democratic candidates for governor won by double digits. Both candidates, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, were centrists with attractive personal biographies.  

Sherrill graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994, served for nine years as a helicopter pilot and then as a Russian policy officer under the Navy's European commander, got a law degree from Georgetown in 2007 and then worked for a private firm before becoming an Assistant US Attorney in New Jersey in 2015.  In 2018 she flipped a Republican House seat in New Jersey in the largest partisan swing in that cycle, and then won reelection three times.  

For her part, Spanberger graduated from the University of Virginia in 2001 and then got an MBA in a joint program run by Purdue and Germany's Gisma Business School.  By that time, she was fluent in more than a half dozen languages. While undergoing a background check she was a postal inspector and in 2006 became a CIA case officer.  She left the CIA for the private sector in 2014 and ran for Congress in 2018, narrowly flipping a northern Virginia seat held by the Republicans since 2001. She was reelected in 2020 and 2022 and decided not to run in 2024.

New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial contests were not the only items on this year's electoral menu.

In California, 64% voted for a ballot initiative (Proposition 50) that redraws California's Congressional maps in a way likely to add five Democrats to the House of Representatives in the 2026 mid-terms. The initiative was the brain-child of California Governor Gavin Newsom and a direct response to Texas's Trump-demanded mid-decade redistricting designed to add GOP seats in that state.  

In Pennsylvania, voters retained three Democratic justices on its Supreme Court, all of whom the GOP had targeted to gut that Court of justices who had upheld mail-in and early voting in the 2020 election Trump claims (falsely) was stolen.  In Georgia, two statewide utility commission seats were up for grabs and Democrats won both. In Connecticut, twenty-seven towns flipped from Republican to Democrat in races for Mayor or First Selectman. 

In Virginia, the Democrats also won races for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General and added thirteen seats to their total in the House of Delegates.  In that lower legislative chamber they now command a 64-36 majority. In New Jersey, the Democrats added three seats to their caucus and now control a super-majority. 

A survey of this century's off-year elections shows they are important where they happen and often (but not always) carry national significance.  In 2005, 2009, 2017 and 2021, the off-year contests provided signals that portended the national results a year later. In 2005, 2009 and 2017, those signals were the strongest, with New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial wins (for the Republican in the second and the Democrat in the first and third) coming in advance of red and blue waves, respectively, a year later. 

In 2001 and 2013, however, the off-year signals turned out to be noise.  In 2001, Democrats won both the New Jersey and Virginia races but the GOP actually won control of the House of Representatives, and in 2013, a split in the off year disguised what turned out to be a red wave a year later. In contrast, a split in 2021 was consistent with the mixed result (a red win but no wave) a year later.

So . . .

What is this year's off-year telling us?

I count four messages.

First, Trump was on the ballot even if he pretends he wasn't.  

For the past year, Trump has been inundating the country with his demands, threats, Truth Social posts, press availabilities, shout outs to and from the helicopter and on the plane, made-for-tv cabinet meetings and (rare) formal speeches.  Whether he is insulting an opponent or demanding the Nobel Prize, he is always . . .

There.

In our faces.

What used to be outrageous is now the norm. 

He has made it crystal clear that he does not care about norms or traditions, will skirt the law if he can, and accepts nothing less than absolute loyalty from his appointees in particular and federal employees more generally, enormous numbers of whom he has effectively fired.

Inflation has not been tamed. The cost of health insurance is about to skyrocket for millions.  Housing is scarce. 

And expensive.

Meanwhile . . .

Trump is busy either building ball rooms or throwing Great Gatsby parties that recall the obscene wealth of 1929's pre-Depression America.

Roughly two-thirds of us either can't stand this or are seriously tired of it.

So . . .

If not all of us, then for sure many more than have done so in off-year elections past, went to the polls this past Tuesday perhaps for no reason more than the desire to tell him to  . . .

Shut up.

Second, off-years can be imperfect measures of what will follow either because turn-out in them is low or a national issue overrides or is inconsistent with the local message.  

This is what made 2001 a false signal.  

Even though the Democrats won, the 2002 mid-terms were the first federal election since 9/11 and the nation's laser focus on terrorism made any of last year's local signals parochial.  Neither the election of Mark Warner in Virginia or Jim McGreevy in New Jersey mattered to the war on terror.  And unlike Trump, George W. Bush was popular and perceived to be both competent and steady. The elections of Democrats in 2001 did not undermine that popularity or those perceptions. In addition, turn-out in both New Jersey and Virginia was low that year, down seven points in New Jersey compared to 1997 (the last gubernatorial election), and sixteen compared to the high-water mark in 1993 (a year before the red wave that overtook Clinton); Virginia's was also sixteen points lower in 2001 than in 1993.

Third, in both New Jersey and Virginia this year, there was a national issue consistent with repudiating the GOP and electing Democrats.  For the reasons noted, the issue was Trump himself.

And turnout was up.

By a lot.

In New Jersey, there are 6.6 million registered voters.  A little more than 3.3 million of them cast ballots last Tuesday, a 50.1% turnout rate.  Four years ago, the turnout rate was 40.5%.  In Virginia, there are 5.9 million registered voters and 3.4 million of them showed up on Tuesday, a 57.2% turnout. This wasn't as large an increase as in New Jersey, but Virginia started in a better place (54.9% of its voters had showed up in 2021).  In both states, however, these are high turnout rates for off year elections.

Fourth, a number of trends spotted after the 2024 national election appear to have been reversed in Tuesday's contests.  In particular, Latino voters who were necessary for Trump's improved numbers in both  New Jersey  and Virginia last year broke for the Democrats by double digit margins this year.  This includes Latino men, who actually favored Trump in 2024.  

The result was particularly striking in New Jersey. In nine municipalities where 60% of the vote was Hispanic, Sherrill's margins ran from a low of 26 points in Passaic to a high of 71 points in Paterson; her average gain across all nine cities was 50 points and she ran 37 points ahead of Vice President Harris's 2024 totals in those same areas.  

Democrats also made gains this year with young (under 30) voters. In both New Jersey and Virginia, the turnout among them surged -- by nine points in Virginia and seven in New Jersey. And in both of them, the Democrat won 69% of their vote.  This was a 38-point margin in both states. In New Jersey, this improved on Vice President Harris's 2024 margin by 32 points, and in Virginia it improved on her margin by 34 points.  In both states, all of Trump's 2024 gains with this group evaporated.

Nothing is certain in politics and reading tea leaves is always difficult. Both sides get to examine this year's results and make whatever strategic or tactical moves they deem warranted. Already, the GOP, aware of Trump's unpopularity and their track record in 2017, has decided to redistrict red states for next year's midterms in the hope that changing the lines will alter the outcome. And over the course of the next year, it will no doubt attempt to brand Democrats as the party of New York City's newly elected thirty-four-year-old Mayor, a Democratic Socialist.

For their part, Democrats are not sitting on the sidelines.  This year they turned out and California's just passed (by a landslide -- 64% -- and with a turnout -- close to 50% -- unheard of where the only item on the ballot is an initiative) Prop 50 proves two can play the mid-decade redistricting game. This year, they also had a message -- affordability -- that many embraced, including many in New York City who do not care what the new Mayor calls himself . . .

Or necessarily believe what others call him.

Americans are tired.

But these days they not passive. 

Millions turned out for this year's off-year elections that went blue in buckets. 

Two and a half weeks before that, millions more participated in 2,700 "No Kings" protests spread out over all fifty states.

Next year . . .

The two could very well converge.