United States | Kind of blue

A string of election victories energises Democrats

Yet most of them came in places that Hillary Clinton won

|ASBURY PARK, NEW JERSEY, AND FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA

CELEBRATING his first political victory, Phil Murphy, New Jersey’s governor-elect, awkwardly leapt onto the stage, clapping with legs akimbo, to “declare the days of division over. We will move forward together.” Roughly 230 miles south-west, Ralph Northam, Virginia’s governor-elect, pictured above, sounded similar themes (without the leaping): “Virginia has told us to end the divisiveness...and to end the politics that have torn this country apart.” In one sense, these statements are boilerplate. Every newly elected politician claims a mandate, and every one says that he will serve and unite the electorate that his predecessor divided and ignored.

But they are also rejections of Donald Trump, and the divisive political style he champions. Mr Trump did not campaign with Kim Guadagno or Ed Gillespie, the Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia. But he loomed nonetheless. Mrs Guadagno and Mr Gillespie ran race-baiting ads that spuriously linked Messrs Murphy and Northam to violent undocumented immigrants, hoping that Trumpism without the increasingly unpopular Mr Trump could prove a path to victory. It did not. Republicans and Trumpism suffered resounding defeats in the various elections held on November 7th, leaving Democrats energised and Republicans shaken as both parties look towards next year’s mid-term elections.

Mr Murphy’s win was the more routine. A former ambassador and Goldman Sachs executive who spent $20m of his own money, he brought in the big guns to stump with him: Barack Obama and Joe Biden; Cory Booker, the state’s charismatic and ambitious junior senator; and perhaps biggest of all in New Jersey, Jon Bon Jovi, a 1980s-rock star and native son.

The last round of polls had Mr Murphy up by 14 points; he won by 13. New Jersey has almost 900,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans and the state tends to elect governors from the party that does not hold the White House. Mrs Guadagno was lieutenant-governor to the unpopular and scandal-ridden Chris Christie, forcing her into the awkward position of talking up her experience and achievements in office, while trying to keep Mr Christie at a distance (he did not campaign with her). But neither candidate inspired much excitement; even by off-year election standards, turnout was low.

Mr Northam, by contrast, dramatically outperformed expectations. As election day drew nearer, his polling lead shrunk; the last round had him up by three points, around half as much as in October. He has a calm, steady demeanour but is not a gladhanding retail politician, and many thought that his campaign was faltering. After saying he would ban sanctuary cities—places that limit co-operation with federal immigration authorities—if any appeared in Virginia, a progressive activist group withdrew its support. He vowed to work with Mr Trump after having called the president a “narcissistic maniac” last summer. He admitted to having voted for George W. Bush twice. Some worried that a peeved base would stay home.

In the end, Mr Northam won by nine points, exceeding the margins of both the outgoing governor, Terry McAuliffe, in 2013 and Hillary Clinton last year. Exit polls suggest that voters who decided on a candidate in the campaign’s final week broke for him, which helps to explain the pollsters’ misfire. Mr Northam did best in the state’s most populous areas: Richmond, Tidewater and the liberal Washington suburbs. And he won far more votes than Mr McAuliffe did—532,689 compared with 373,413 in the state’s five most populous cities and counties—indicating an unusually motivated Democratic electorate.

Finger-pointing from Mr Trump’s camp began immediately. Breitbart, the politics website run by his former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, called Mr Gillespie a “Republican swamp thing.” From Asia Mr Trump tweeted that Mr Gillespie lost because he “did not embrace me”.

In fact, exit polls showed that 34% of Virginia voters cast a ballot “to express opposition to President Donald Trump”; Mr Northam won 97% of that group. A plurality of voters (39%) said health care was the motivating issue; Mr Northam won 77% of them. Mr Gillespie did best among voters motivated by immigration. But they comprised just 12% of the electorate. Mr Trump’s nativism has a durable but small core of support in an increasingly diverse Virginia.

Mr Northam had long coat-tails: Justin Fairfax will be Virginia’s second black lieutenant-governor. Mark Herring won a second term as attorney-general. Democrats also picked up at least 15 seats in Virginia’s House of Delegates, and may flip the chamber (as The Economist went to press some races were too close to call) from a nearly 2-1 Republican majority. Should the Democrats prevail, and maintain their majority until 2020, they would control the next round of redistricting. Among those elected were Lee Carter, a 30-year-old socialist who unseated the House Majority Whip, and Danica Roem, who will become Virginia’s first transgender state legislator after defeating Bob Marshall. Mr Marshall wrote a bill to force transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to their sex at birth, and once called himself Virginia’s “chief homophobe”.

Beyond these two races, Manka Dhingra won election to the Washington state senate, which gave Democrats unified control in all three West Coast states. Voters in Hoboken elected Ravi Bhalla New Jersey’s first Sikh mayor, despite campaign flyers warning voters “Don’t let TERRORISM take over our town!” Helena, Montana and St Paul, Minnesota elected their first black mayors, as did several small Southern cities. Voters in Maine approved Medicaid expansion over their Republican governor’s wishes; Utah and Idaho may offer voters the same choice next year.

Parties in power always fare poorly in off-year and mid-term elections. But Mr Trump is a deeply unpopular president who looks likely to imperil Republican fortunes in suburban America. After a year in office, his greatest achievement may be energising Democratic voters.

Yet most of the contests that Democrats won took place in Democrat-friendly territory. In south-western Virginia, Mr Gillespie’s margin of victory exceeded that of the 2013 Republican, Ken Cuccinelli, showing how toxic the Democratic brand remains in rural America. Mr Gillespie won 72% of white voters without college degrees—roughly the same share as Mr Trump won in 2016.

Victories let Democrats avoid the infighting and blame-casting that losses would have caused. They showed the limits of culture-war politics (which may also secretly delight mainstream Republicans, whom Messrs Trump and Bannon have pounded and frustrated for a year). And Mr Northam put the Democratic purity police on the back foot: the party can run progressive candidates in progressive districts and moderate candidates elsewhere without fatally depressing the base. Republicans’ rightward lurch under Mr Trump has left the centre open; Democrats would do well to grab it. To win the House, much less the Senate, next year, they will have to do more than run up their vote totals in friendly territory.

CORRECTION: This story originally said that Charlotte, North Carolina had elected its first African-American mayor. In fact Vi Lyles is the first African-American woman to hold the office.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Kind of blue"

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