2025 Special Elections Offer Encouragement For American Workers and Their Advocates

Riding a wave of resistance to the hard-right policies of Donald Trump’s Administration, Democratic candidates won decisively in every special election across the U.S. on November 4th.

Most notably, the election victories include:

• the first woman to become governor of Virginia
• a second woman governor candidate in New Jersey
• a democratic socialist as mayor of New York City
• California voters resoundingly endorsed a plan to counter mid-census gerrymandering in Texas by carrying out their own counter-gerrymandering
• Democrats flipped two Public Service Commission seats in Georgia

And, three Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices were solidly retained in office despite a last-minute personal push by Trump to unseat them, bolstered by reportedly massive fundraising.

The Tuesday results exceeded predictions from pre-election polls in those states.  Before Tuesday’s election, an array of high-quality nationwide polling showed a distinct pattern of voter preference for policies and positions advanced by the Democratic party.  That included a well-respected poll which showed unaligned respondents indicating they are “leaning” Democratic by nearly a 10% margin.

Let’s talk numbers.

• In traditionally blue New Jersey’s gubernatorial election, Democratic candidate Rep. and ex-Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by a solid 9% margin, or 414,000 votes.  Arguably more significantly, in more purple Virginia, former Congresswoman and ex-CIA case analyst Abigail Spanberger garnered a nearly 15% margin of victory, carrying the state by more than 490,000 votes.
• Also significant, Californians overwhelmingly adopted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to counter Trump’s five-congressional-seat Texas gerrymandering scheme by 63% to 36%.  And the three Democratic justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who were up for “retention” (unopposed) won by a margin of 61% to 36%, despite a last-minute surprise personal effort by Trump to turn out his supporters to remove them.
• In the traditionally blue city of New York, candidate Zohran Mamdani defeated two other contenders, winning by 50% (to 41% for his closest competitor, Andrew Cuomo) of the ballots cast.

Analysts looking at the results opined that they represent an even greater shift away from the party in power than typically occurs in mid-term elections, and may signal a more fundamental shift in voter preferences, driven largely by sharply rising living costs.  Every single county in New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia moved toward Democrats.  The leading issues for voters for Sherrill and Spanberger were health care and the economy, and they won 93% of those economy-motivated voters.  Zohran Mamdani’s winning campaign in New York City was laser focused on affordability.

Elections in a few places outside the media spotlight also showed trending more towards Democrats, as reported by the newsletter Popular Information.  In a Georgia state-wide election, Democrats for the first time won seats on the state’s Public Service Commission.  In Pennsylvania’s largest “swing” county, Bucks, voters ousted the county’s Republican sheriff, who had signed a formal agreement that his department would collaborate with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement programs and personnel.  In Mississippi, Democrat successes ended a thirteen-year Republican supermajority in the state Senate.  And in the third-largest school district inTexas, Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, progressive candidates won all three open board seats, giving them a 4-3 majority.  The prior Republican dominated board had removed books and chapters on climate change, vaccines, COVID-19 and diversity, and fired half of the district’s librarians.

These results reflected closely an array of polling numbers that shows that voter sentiment expressed in the November 4 vote is not limited to the states holding those elections, but is broadly shared by voters across the nation. An approval survey from late October, based on numbers from the aggregation site fiftyplusone.news, shows a continuing decline in approval for Trump since his inauguration. At that time his approval rating was 50% with a 40% disapproval rating; while current survey showed  disapproval by 55.3% compared to approval by 40.8%, a remarkable 14% decline in only nine months.  As our political analyst, Ian Silverii, pointed out, these numbers represent a weighted average of a variety of polls, which strengthens their credibility.  The disapproval level is also the largest yet for the president, even including the time during his first term when he was criticized for one million deaths of Americans due to COVID-19.

Mr. Silverii also reported on a high quality generic political poll showing Democrats ahead of Republicans by 3% percentage points.  He noted this poll is well regarded for predicting a party’s chances before an upcoming election.  Tuesday’s results, according to one analyst, predicts that Democrats will have an 8% generic advantage in 2026.

Mr. Silverii also pointed to a “leaned party ID” poll, which reports percentages of party identifiers and “leaners,” which showed that, for Quarter 3 of 2025, respondents leaning towards the Democratic Party outnumbered those inclined towards the Republican Party by 48% to 41% percent.  Those seeking further information about current voter inclinations might check CNN’s data guru, Harry Enten, who explains why the “leaning” poll matters.

In all, both the election results and his synthesis of nationwide polling data offer a solid basis for hope for supporters of American workers. With this encouragement, it appears clear that continuing, and greater, support for workers, through entities like the Stand Up for Workers PAC, have a better chance of success than many supporters have been anticipating. We look forward to working alongside advocates like you to ensure protections for workers continue to advance.

Written By Paul Merry, Stand Up For Workers Board Member