What Tuesday’s Results Really Mean
In our conversation today, G. Elliott Morris [https://substack.com/profile/479143-g-elliott-morris] takes us through his comprehensive analysis of Tuesday’s election results.
Some key highlights:
* So much for the Trump realignment. The 2025 results reflect a typical anti‑incumbent reaction to the party in power after it failed to deliver on promises to address inflation and affordability. As Morris puts it [https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trumps-winning-2024-coalition-has], “The 2024 Trump ‘realignment’ is already over.”
* The economy dominated (as it almost always does). Exit polling revealed that the economy and cost of living were the top issues. Voters who prioritized these issues flipped hard to Democrats compared to 2024.
* The swing came from 2024’s Trump‑leaning groups. The biggest shifts in 2025 back to Democrats were among young voters, lower-income voters, Hispanic, Black, and Asian voters.
* The polling “miss” had a cause. Off‑year polls that re‑weighted to 2024’s presidential electorate overestimated GOP strength.
* Candidate quality mattered, but modestly. Weak GOP nominees were plausibly worth perhaps 1–2 points, but the dominant force was the anti-incumbent mood tied to affordability concerns.
* Looking to 2026: Expect a normal (and possibly amplified) backlash against the presidential party if economic perceptions don’t improve.
* Ideological lessons? The results don’t validate sweeping ideological narratives pushed by Democratic groups. Voters rewarded anyone who credibly addressed affordability—from a left-wing NYC mayoral candidate to the pragmatic governors in Virginia and New Jersey.
* What about democracy? The swing against Trump has some important lessons for the anti-Trump coalition. For me, at least, it is sobering, if not totally surprising, that it was mostly the economy—and not Trump’s attacks on the rule of law and democracy—that fueled Tuesday’s blue wave.
Some data points that Elliott and I dig into:
* What voting groups moved?
* Young voters: 22‑point swing back to Democrats.
* Voters with income of less than $50,000 per year: 18‑point Democratic swing.
* Black voters: 11‑point move back to Dems.
* Asian voters (VA): 42‑point swing back to Dems.
* Issue salience:
* Economy cited by 48% of Virginia voters and some 4 in 10 voters in New Jersey. These voters shifted from supporting Trump by 65 points in 2024 to supporting the Democrats by 30–40 points in 2025.
* A key local example: Union City, New Jersey (82% Hispanic) shifted from a 17‑point Democratic margin in 2024 to a 69‑point Democratic margin in 2025 (with higher turnout).
* Don’t overinterpret the results. These big shifts are caused by unattached, relatively non-ideological swing voters who quickly desert the party in power if it fails to deliver on its promises. That really has been the core story of the last 10 or so national elections in the U.S., and it vastly complicates both the right’s Trump realignment narrative and the left’s narrative about a natural anti-Trump majority.
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