On Tuesday, voters in Virginia, New York City, New Jersey, Texas, California, and Mississippi overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates and ballot initiatives.

In New York, despite facing racist opposition from both Republicans and much of the Democratic establishment, Zohran Mamdani sailed to victory. The new mayor-elect won over 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race.

And in Virginia, Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger won with an even greater margin over her opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears, whose campaign weaponized transphobia in a vain attempt to defeat Spanberger.

In California, as of Wednesday, nearly two-thirds of the vote favored redrawing the congressional map to counter Republican gerrymandering in Texas.

The Intercept Briefing spoke with Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of the PAC Run for Something, and Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, to discuss what lessons Democrats and progressives should take heading into the midterm elections.

Mitchell pointed to Mamdani’s and other Democrats’ success last night at driving home a positive economic message for working-class voters as an important roadmap for next year.

“There’s elements of [Mamdani’s] victory that are very particular to New York, that are very particular to him, but the politics and the conditions that are a part of the victory are happening all across the country,” said Mitchell. “It’s clear that this was a wave election. And inside of that wave are a number of independent, progressive-minded folks who didn’t wait their turn, who are willing to fight for working people.”

Similarly, Litman argued that Democrats need to embrace a big tent that includes progressive voices. “You need candidates who know what they believe, who know how to communicate, who love the place they’re running, and who can articulate why voters should want them to win,” she said.

Litman continued, “Does every candidate need to have the exact same ideological profile? No. But also, the person who’s running and winning a seat on the Iowa City Council is probably not a good fit for the New York City Council, and vice versa. And that’s OK. To be a party that can win everywhere, which is what we need to be in order to stop authoritarianism and stop what the Republican Party has done, we need to have a big tent.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Transcript

Jessica Washington: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Jessica Washington.

On Tuesday, voters in New York City, Virginia, New Jersey, Texas, California, and Mississippi cast their ballots, in an early test of where the public stands ahead of a midterm election that could fundamentally reshape the political landscape.

The New York City mayoral election, in particular, has captured national attention — with both Republicans and establishment Democrats largely painting Zohran Mamdani as “dangerous” and weaponizing his Muslim identity to gin up post 9/11 levels of Islamophobia.

But Zohran Mamdani is now the mayor-elect, capturing more than 50 percent of votes in a three-way race as of Wednesday.

In Virginia, Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger won by even greater margins.

And in California, voters overwhelmingly passed a proposition to redistrict the state in favor of giving Democrats more congressional seats and counter Republican states’ gerrymandering efforts.

Now, as Democrats eye trying to reclaim Congress in the midterms, they’ll have to figure out which strategies to take from this election — and which ones belong in the political trash heap.

Joining me now to discuss are Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of the progressive PAC Run for Something, and Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party.

Amanda and Maurice, welcome to the show.

Amanda Litman: Good morning.

Maurice Mitchell: Good to be with you.

JW: Amanda. I’ll start with you, the million-dollar question: Did the results of Tuesday’s selection tell us anything about where the Democratic Party is headed, or at least where it should be headed?

AL: I think it told us lots of things about where the Democratic Party should be headed — which is that it needs to be heading in lots of different directions.

Run for Something had 222 candidates on the ballot yesterday. We’re still waiting for results in about 100 of them or so, but we’ve already had 94 wins, including red-to-blue flips in all kinds of places. The thing that I think we saw with our Run for Something candidates — with the New York City mayoral, with the New Jersey and Texas and California and Virginia — is that Democrats are, or voters, rather, are pissed at Trump. They don’t like this economy. And they want candidates who can speak to their issues in a way that makes sense to them. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that every candidate is going to be fully aligned on every policy, but every candidate is fully aligned on values, and they are connected to their community.

So when we look forward to what the Democratic Party needs to do going into 2026 and, honestly, beyond. I don’t want to say like I’ve been right for a long time here, but we need to keep doing what Run for Something has been doing, which is finding great candidates who can connect to their voters, who understand the issues folks care about, who keep it hyper-local, and who can communicate it in a way that makes sense to them.

It is not complicated. It is hard work, but it is not rocket science.

JW: And Maurice, I want to get your thoughts.

MM: We have a slightly different perspective when we ask and answer this question at the Working Families Party because we are building a separate third party that is labor community-backed from the ground up.

But a lot of my assessments align with what Amanda said. So I think there’s two driving forces here: the affordability crisis that Americans — regardless of their race or their region or their religion, or anything else — are feeling in a very, very deep way. It’s a crisis, and it’s going in the wrong direction. And people’s deep concerns and antipathy and fear of MAGA and Trumpism — at a time when there’s a government shutdown.

And those are two animating forces that I think are affecting the electorate writ large. But the other thing I want to say is that in June, when Zohran Mamdani won focused on affordability. There were Democratic Party strategists that were ripping up their playbooks and recognizing that in 2025, if you wanted to secure victory, you had to tell a story about affordability.

JW: Right, he won the Democratic Primary in June.

MM: And so the Democratic Party and the pro-democracy movement writ large, that we’re a part of — even as we’re building our own party and our own brand with our own candidates — it’s a complicated united front that includes a lot of different factions with different opinions, different ideologies. But the question of who’s leading the united front, I think, is clear.

“Zohran’s victory in June had a huge impact on how the Democratic Party in general is seeking to secure victories and to compel working people.”

The leaders of the united front, I think, are the folks that took a chance on the idea that working people deserve — in the richest country in the history of countries — deserve a dignified life. I think everybody in all the factions are learning from the people that are often called the “left” or the “progressive” faction of that coalition.

And so even candidates like Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger and many, many candidates around the country that are considered “moderates” — they ultimately were running on affordability. And I think Zohran’s victory in June had a huge impact on how the Democratic Party in general is seeking to secure victories and to compel working people, many of whom left them, to vote for them.

JW: I want to dive deeper into the New York City mayoral election. That is the election that has arguably garnered the most attention of any of Tuesday’s races. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa on Tuesday with 50 percent of the vote. Now that he’s won, do you think Democrats can take lessons for his victory, or does a candidate like Mamdani only work in a place like New York City?

And Maurice, I want to start with you on this.

MM: I think when we zoom out, the answer is pretty clear to us. Yes, Zohran was able to secure a victory in New York City. But what isn’t as touted is the fact that WFP-aligned progressives that built a labor and community coalition around them won in the cities of Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany. Also, we had an upset victory in Dayton, Ohio, for a mayor’s race that wasn’t top of mind for a lot of people — but I think it suggests that what’s happening is much deeper than a unitary phenomenon.

I think it’s true that Zohran is a singular talent. I think he’s a brilliant communicator, and we couldn’t be more proud that he built this movement in New York. And there’s aspects of the victory that are very particular to New York, are very particular to him. But the politics and the conditions that are a part of the victory are happening all across the country.

And........

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