Unequivocally, Tuesday was a good day for Democrats.
Capitalizing on a backlash against President Donald Trump, Democratic candidates for governor won landslides in New Jersey and Virginia, states Trump lost by about 6 points last year. Zohran Mamdani romped in New York City’s mayoral election. California’s gerrymandering amendment passed with almost two-thirds of the vote, allowing Democrats to effectively cancel Texas’ Trump-ordered summer redistricting.
Democrats won less-noticed contests, too, including expensive state Supreme Court elections in Pennsylvania and utility commission races in Georgia—the first time since 2006 that Georgia Democrats claimed a statewide constitutional office.
The blue wave also crashed into North Carolina. In Charlotte, Democrats flipped a longstanding GOP-held seat on the city council, leaving only one Republican on the 11-member body, and swept the county’s school board races. Greensboro Democrats also ran the table in (ostensibly nonpartisan) city council elections. So did Wilmington Democrats, giving Mayor Bill Saffo—just elected to his 10th term—an all-Democratic council for what appears to be the first time.
In a statement to WHQR, New Hanover County GOP chairman John Hinnant blamed voters: “Unfortunately, it seems as if some local Republican voters have given up on our city.”
Of particular note to North Carolina Democrats were victories in the Triangle suburbs. In Wake County, Democrats dominated elections in Fuquay-Varina, Holly Springs, Zebulon, Wake Forest, Garner, and Wendell. Democrats also performed well in Alamance County, which Trump won last year by 8 points, winning mayoral races in Burlington and Graham.
These areas are key to the party’s long-shot hopes of reclaiming the General Assembly—or, at least, eating away at the Republicans’ majorities—in next year’s midterms.
Republicans hold a 71-49 advantage in the state House and a 30-20 edge in the state Senate. Senate Republicans have a supermajority that can override Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes. House Democrats can sustain vetoes if they all vote together.
Democrats would need to net at least 11 House seats and five Senate seats to break GOP majorities in the respective chambers. Thanks in part to gerrymandering, that will be a steep hill. But the state’s Democrats appear optimistic—though some more cautiously than others.
Asked if Tuesday’s results changed her outlook on the midterms, Sydney Batch, the Senate Democratic leader, responded in a text message: “Fuck and yes.” She added a smiley-face emoji.
The Dems’ best-case scenario goes something like this: This week, Virginia Democrats flipped 13 seats in the House of Delegates, expanding their narrow majority. In those districts, Democrats improved their performance by about 11 points over 2023, according to Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh-based, Democratic-aligned firm.
If North Carolina Democrats improved in every district by 11 points from 2024 to 2026, they would win the House and come up one seat short in the Senate.
But the environment in North Carolina next year probably won’t be as favorable to Democrats. Virginia, which has a large share of federal workers and contractors, has acutely felt the effects of the shutdown and the Trump administration’s cuts to government agencies. And federal elections—including North Carolina’s high-profile U.S. Senate race—will bring out more of Trump’s base, Jensen said.
“I’m skeptical that you’re going to see some sort of 9-point, across-the-board movement toward Democrats next year,” Jensen said. “But I would not be surprised if there’s a 6- or 7-point across-the-board movement.”
That shift would endanger seven state House Republicans who won by less than 7 points in 2024, Jensen added. “It’ll be very hard for Republicans to hold any of those in this climate,” he said.
Many of those districts represent suburbs with large numbers of unaffiliated voters, Jensen said. “Unaffiliated voters are much more likely than everybody else to flip back and forth from election to election. And frankly, they flip against whoever is in power.”
First on Democrats’ target list is state Rep. Tricia Cotham, a former Democrat who won her Mecklenburg County district by less than half a percentage point. Also in Democrats’ sights are Reps. Erin Paré and Mike Schietzelt, who narrowly won suburban Wake districts.
“I think the bull case for NC Dems is that at a certain point, you just won’t be able to win as a Republican in Wake or Meck,” said a source close to House Democratic leadership. “The question is whether that’s next year or further down the road.”
If Democrats win those seven races, they would still need to flip another four seats to get to 60, which would evenly split the House along partisan lines. Most likely, those four would include two districts in Alamance that Republicans won by about 10 points in 2024.
Even in that kind of deep-blue political environment, Democrats might pick up four state Senate seats.
Senate Dems won all but one swing district in 2024. Their easiest target is Sen. Lisa Barnes, who won District 11, a sprawling region northeast of Raleigh, by about 2.5 points in 2024. From there, they’d look at Sen. Michael Lee of New Hanover County, who won by about 8.5 points in 2024, and Sen. Chris Measmer, who was appointed to a suburban Charlotte district Republicans carried by about 9 points.
A source familiar with the Senate GOP’s political operation said Republicans assume those races will be competitive.
After that, however, Democrats have few options. Republican Sen. Buck Newton won his Goldsboro-area district by 10 points last year. But even winning that wouldn’t be enough to split the chamber.
To claim 25 of the Senate’s 50 seats, Democrats would likely have to win District 26, which a Republican won in 2024 by 13 points.
That Republican: Senate leader Phil Berger, arguably the state’s most powerful politician.
Jensen said that’s not as far-fetched as it seems. Berger is facing a potentially bruising primary challenge from Trump-aligned Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
“Whoever comes out of that primary is going to be really damaged,” he said. And wave elections sometimes produce unexpected outcomes.
Senate Republicans don’t think Berger’s district is facing any real threat, and they believe they might even maintain their supermajority. But they’re less confident about House Republicans’ prospects.
Johanna F. Still contributed reporting.
