Posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2025
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by Herald Boas
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In a few weeks, the late summer respite from partisan political drama will be gradually replaced with a new and final wave of announcements of retirements or entries in the 2026 midterm elections. With just over one year to go until Election Day 2026, the political events and economic developments that will directly affect voter sentiment are starting to unfold.
The country will get its first “preview” of the midterms this November with the 2025 off-year elections. Along with a smattering of special and local elections, voters in Virginia and New Jersey will also choose a new governor and decide control of state legislative chambers.
Democrats were initially expected to win both gubernatorial races with ease. But in New Jersey, Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli has pulled within striking distance of former Democrat Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill. Meanwhile, in Virginia, incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears has also pulled closer in her contest against former Democrat Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger.
The Virginia Republican nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general are also within the margin of error vs. their Democratic opponents in recent polls.
Two mayoral races are also drawing national attention. Both of them (New York and Minneapolis) feature overtly progressive neo-socialist Democrats running on radical left policies and programs against more traditional liberal Democrats.
Democrats currently hold most elective offices in most large U.S. cities, but such serious, openly socialist, radical mayoral candidacies have been unusual until now. If one or both of them win (both are currently frontrunners in their ranked-choice elections), the fallout from those results will likely spill over into the 2026 campaigns.
Republican strategists think high-profile socialist officeholders might well spur GOP voter turnout. Democrat strategists are hoping that a return of inflation, a weak stock market, and negative media framing of conservative policies will boost their turnout.
But with more than a year until the midterm elections, all-important future economic conditions are unknown. Also unknown is the impact of the murder of Charlie Kirk and the outpouring of interest in his conservative organization among young voters across the country in the aftermath of this tragic event.
The final net effect of untraditional mid-decade redistricting in several states further complicates any predictions, as does the long-term impact of President Trump’s wide-ranging domestic and foreign policies.
But the current phenomenon of the rise of notably more radical views by many urban Democrats, if it persists and grows among left-of-center candidates and their campaigns, can no longer be dismissed as just a passing emotional reaction to the liberal party’s decisive defeat in 2024.
Mainstream Democrat support of so many unpopular political, social, and economic issues is rapidly eroding Democrats’ base of support and producing a recent pattern of large net gains in new Republican voter registrations. This, combined with the trends indicated by the 2024 election exit polls and confirmed by more recent polling, is an ominous signal that the prospects for Democrats are dimming for 2026 and possibly beyond.
Having stubbornly blocked so many of President Trump’s appointments in the U.S. Senate, Democrats provoked the GOP Senate leadership to invoke the “nuclear option” and change the Senate rules so that a simple majority can confirm appointments. If the GOP upsets tradition and wins the 2026 midterms, this will have a dire effect on the power of the Democrats in Washington, D.C. over the next two years. If it leads also to GOP victories in 2028, the left will enter a possible prolonged era of essential political irrelevance.
This is what happened to Democrats after the Civil War, and to Republicans after the onset of the Great Depression.
The political rehearsals for 2026 are almost over. The political stage is about to be set. In a few weeks, the curtain on the 2026 national midterms will rise. Soon after that, voters will begin to decide what they like and what they don’t.
The choices American voters make over the next year will determine whether Democrats can recover from their 2024 defeat – or whether Republicans can solidify a new governing majority. What each party chooses to articulate between now and then will have an immense impact on both their electoral prospects and the future direction of the country.
What a political party and its candidates say has consequences.
Herald Boas is a contributor to AMAC Newsline.
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