The best overnight analysis I’ve read is by Stephen Clermont, a pollster with Change Research in Washington. I’ve known Stephen since he worked with Harrison Hickman on polls for Governor Jim Hunt in the 1990s. We recently worked together on a poll of rural voters in North Carolina. Here’s his take on Tuesday:
Last night was as thorough a rebuke of Donald Trump and the authoritarian project as we can get through the cloud of bullshit and nonsense we get from Washington and the Trump-cowed media.
In Virginia, where the Republican Lt. Governor spent millions of dollars fighting wars against trans people and even appropriated the line that so many said won the race last year for Trump – “Abigail Spanberger is for they/them, Winsome Earle-Sears is for you” – Abigail Spanberger (photo) led a historic rout, winning 57.5% of the vote. To put that in perspective, no Democrat has achieved a share that high since 1961, the last election before the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
The Democrats in Virginia are in position to win 64 out of 100 seats for the House of Delegates. To put that in perspective, when Donald Trump “came down the escalator” at Trump Tower in 2015 and declared for President in front of a paid audience, Democrats only held 32 seats in that chamber, so gerrymandered it was that Democrats made no gains despite sweeping the statewide offices in 2013. Since then, Democrats have doubled their total, breaking a rigged map and making substantial gains in 2017, 2019, 2023, and 2025. That is all Donald Trump. He did this. As a Virginian, I thank him as there was no path for that kind of majority, one not seen since the 1987 election.
In New Jersey, despite several red-wave pollsters pumping out numbers showing the race for Governor tied, Mikie Sherrill won comfortably by 56.2% to 43.2%. This is the first time Democrats have won an election following a two-term Democratic governor since Richard Hughes won narrowly in 1961 to replace Robert Meyner. Mikie ended up doing better than current Governor Phil Murphy did eight years ago (56.2% versus 56.0%). So much for Democratic fatigue. This election was supposed to be close because Kamala Harris only won it by six points, down from Joe Biden’s 16-point margin. New Jersey was supposedly “becoming a swing state” on the strength of “Hispanic voters joining a new multi-racial working-class Republican Party.” So much for that analysis.
My own bellwether for whether this shift among Hispanic voters to the Republican party was real or a figment in the minds of celebrity pundits and podcasters is West New York Town. Right across the Hudson from Manhattan, West New York is an 80%+ Hispanic community. In 2020, it gave Joe Biden 69.0% of the vote. In 2024, 9% fewer people voted and Kamala Harris only received 55.3% of the vote. Yesterday, Mikie Sherrill won with 77.8% of the vote.
All too often when trying to understand where American voters are, we get trapped by recency bias. The last election supposedly gives us a definitive path for where people want the country to go. Sometimes though, an election is just an election and tells us nothing about the future, just that one person beat another person. Many have treated the 2024 election like a holy writ when it is really just an election. Donald Trump won with 49.8% of the vote. Voters wanted lower prices and stability they have not felt since before COVID. Trump has governed like a madman – doing what he wants with no pushback, having masked agents grab people off the street, blowing up boats far away from our shores, pardoning violent felons who engaged in seditious conspiracy against our country, destroying the federal government and driving thousands upon thousands of dedicated people out of public service, and knocking down the White House to build a tacky palace.
Combined with the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in the spring, and dozens of special elections across the country, voters spoke as clearly as they could that they don’t want this. We don’t want to live in an authoritarian regime run by a demented game show host who is losing his grip on reality more and more each day. Our votes matter too, not just MAGA’s. And hopefully this puts to rest all of the 2024 takes and we start seeing it for the outlier election it was.
Follow Stephen: stephenclermont@substack.com.
