Backlash builds: Make no mistake: Trump is an albatross

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump is a phenomenally effective vote-winner, capable of turning out millions of otherwise infrequent voters to deliver the White House and Congress to the Republican Party. But as president, Trump has been an albatross around the neck of his party.

Consider his record as party leader. In the 2017 elections, Republicans suffered sharp defeats in Virginia and New Jersey, with Virginia Democrats sweeping all three statewide offices and winning a majority in the state General Assembly. The following year, Democrats won a landslide in the House of Representatives, their largest since 2006. Trump came close to victory in the 2020 presidential election but may have contributed to the Republican Party’s defeat in the Georgia Senate runoffs, handing Democrats full control of Washington for the first time since 2011.

Even 2022, a midterm under President Joe Biden, was less successful for Republicans than it could have been because of Trump’s influence in Senate contests, where voters rejected MAGA-aligned candidates in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. In 2024, Trump again turned out his fervent supporters and won the presidency, but once again, the coalition he drives is not the coalition that wins for his party down ballot.

Tuesday was the first major election since Trump entered the White House for a second term. And although voters across Virginia, New Jersey and New York City were largely concerned with local issues, there was no question that this was also a chance to register discontent and send a message to Washington.

In each state, Democrats delivered crushing defeats to Republicans. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor, cruised to victory along with Ghazala Hashmi for lieutenant governor and Jay Jones for attorney general. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli without ambiguity. And in New York City’s three-way mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani prevailed over both former governor Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Supporters of the president might dismiss these results as unrepresentative. This isn’t a presidential election, they may say; turnout is different. However, New Jersey and New York City both saw high participation in off-year contests, and Virginia’s turnout increased slightly. Trump, in his capacity as president, inspires intense and durable opposition among a large share of the electorate.

These results contrast sharply with the accommodation, capitulation and surrender shown by many political elites in the face of Trump’s demands. They remind us of a fundamental democratic truth: there is no singular “people,” and there are no permanent majorities.

It is a mistake to treat the 2024 election as a referendum on the ideological trajectory of the nation or as evidence of some lasting realignment. Even the seemingly durable coalition that made Franklin Roosevelt president four times showed signs of fracture within a decade. For some observers, the 2024 election suggested a shift of young people and Latinos toward the Republican Party, heralding a “vibe shift” or a durable turn rightward. But voters — especially infrequent ones — are driven as much by circumstances as ideology. The key factor last year was frustration with inflation during Biden’s term.

Americans voted for Trump to lower the cost of living and restore what they saw as pre-pandemic normalcy. But instead of meeting the public where it was, Trump and his ideological cadre took their victory as permission to pursue radical priorities. The result has been soldiers in the streets, masked agents carrying out aggressive immigration raids, arbitrary tariffs, new conflicts abroad, open flirtations with authoritarianism and chaos. At this moment, the government has been shut down for more than a month; the House of Representatives has not been in session since mid-September, and Trump is still threatening to defy court orders to restore food assistance to hungry families, even though his own administration has conceded it must partially comply.

The administration appears less interested in helping ordinary Americans than in fulfilling a program of austerity, pain and deprivation. It is all stick, no carrot.

Against this backdrop, voters went to the polls and cast millions of ballots against the president by backing Democratic candidates—moderate and progressive—who ran on affordability and the nation’s core values. They pledged to use the office to protect constituents from the provocations and disruptions emanating from Washington.

Had Democrats lost even one of these contests, commentators would now declare the party in disarray, unable to capitalise on the president’s deep unpopularity. But Tuesday was a Democratic victory across the board. The party didn’t just win — it won decisively, in nearly every arena.

In polls, in focus groups and now at the ballot box, the public is sending a clear message: Trump is simply too much. If Democrats see opportunity in this, Republicans should see a warning. Their party has tied its identity to a leader who can win power for himself but repeatedly drags those around him down.

The New York Times