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By Niels Lesniewski, Mary Ellen McIntire and Daniela Altimari
The messages from Republican campaign outfits after Tuesday night, when Democrats won basically everything, were largely not about introspection or recalibrating. They were about New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, for instance, was asking whether Democrats in contested House races would want the endorsement of Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist. “Every Democrat running for office will have to answer for Mamdani’s socialist policies,” the email read.
Back in March, we looked at the GOP’s search for a new “boogeyman.” to succeed former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced Thursday morning she won’t seek reelection to her San Francisco-based House seat.
There have been GOP attacks featuring Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But no relatively junior member of the House minority could have the sway of either a speaker or a New York City mayor.
Mamdani ran on a bold progressive platform. He will soon have the chance to implement it — and Republicans will have a record to run against. That could be especially true in New York’s upcoming gubernatorial race, with GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik poised to challenge Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul.
In an election night post on social media, Stefanik again slammed Hochul for her “desperate endorsement of Commie Mamdani.”
“Democrats, Republicans, and Independents will unify and vote to fire Kathy Hochul to Save New York next year once and for all,” she said. “We will not fail.”
But as Ocasio-Cortez put it in an MSNBC interview Tuesday night, the mayor-elect’s agenda for New York City is not what other Democrats will be pushing elsewhere.
“This is a similar debate that I saw happen when I was first elected. And at the end of the day, I don’t think that our party needs to have one face. Our country does not have one face,” the congresswoman said. “In some places, like Virginia, for the gubernatorial seat, that’s going to look like Abigail Spanberger. In New York City, unequivocally, it is Zohran Mamdani.”
Spanberger, a former CIA officer and centrist-leaning congresswoman, sailed to victory Tuesday in the commonwealth’s governor’s race.
Starting gate
Swan song: Pelosi’s decision not to run for reelection brings to an end a highly consequential career that colleagues on both sides of the aisle commended Thursday. Roll Call’s Nick Eskow writes that the California Democrat’s legacy as a negotiator and vote-counter is cemented as she prepares to depart from the House, which she first joined in 1987. We also dug into our photo archives for a pictorial retrospective of Pelosi’s time in Washington.
Most vulnerable: We’ve revisited our rankings of the most vulnerable House and Senate incumbents with a year to go until next year’s midterm elections. Redistricting has reshaped the House list: In first place is North Carolina Democrat Don Davis, whose redrawn district is now even more favorable to Republicans. On the Senate side, new entrants include Ohio Republican Jon Husted, who faces a challenge from Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Massachusetts Democrat Edward J. Markey, who faces a primary challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton.
Tuesday night hat trick: Besides the victories for Mamdani in New York and Spanberger in Virginia, Democrats also saw Rep. Mikie Sherrill win a hard-fought gubernatorial race in New Jersey. Spanberger will be the commonwealth’s first female governor, while Sherrill will be the second woman to lead the Garden State.
#TX18: The special election for Texas’ 18th District is heading to an all-Democratic runoff this winter. Acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards were the two top vote-getters in Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary to succeed the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner.
Election reverberations: Democrats claimed the momentum after their victories Tuesday as they seek to build on Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s winning economic messaging going into the 2026 midterms. Despite the wins, Senate Democrats are torn over how to end the partial government shutdown, our colleagues Sandhya Raman, Jessie Hellmann, Lia DeGroot, Aris Folley and Jacob Fulton write. For Republicans, the election results show their candidates next year could face some headwinds, Roll Call’s John T. Bennett writes.
California shuffle: With California voters backing Proposition 50 to revise the state’s congressional map in Democrats’ favor, the jockeying has begun for the redrawn districts. At least one member-versus-member contest is set, with Republicans Young Kim and Ken Calvert both seeking the 40th District, Roll Call’s John M. Donnelly reports. Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, meanwhile, will seek reelection in the now significantly bluer 3rd District, currently held by Republican Kevin Kiley; Bera will leave open his slightly less blue 6th District. Kiley said Wednesday that he will run for reelection but isn’t sure from where, KCRA News reported.
Golden says goodbye: Maine Rep. Jared Golden made our most vulnerable House incumbents list, which came out Tuesday. A day later, the moderate Democrat announced he would not seek reelection next year, leaving behind a Trump-voting seat that could be hard for his party to hold without him.
Seeing the exits: Illinois Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García will not run for reelection to his Chicagoland seat next year. The fourth-term Democrat didn’t make his plans public until after the state’s filing deadline had closed Monday and after his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, filed to run just before the deadline.
RIP: Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney died this week from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease. He was 84. Besides serving as President George W. Bush’s second-in-command, he also did stints as Wyoming’s sole congressman and Defense secretary under Bush’s father. Funeral arrangements have not yet been made public.
More redistricting: Ohio’s redistricting commission last week approved a new congressional map that could help Republicans flip two Democratic seats. In Democrat-controlled Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore announced the formation of a redistricting advisory panel as the state weighs its own do-over. Meanwhile, Kansas Republicans say they won’t convene in a special election this year to consider a new map, although they could try again during the regular session in January, the Kansas Reflector reported.
Comeback in Jersey: Former Rep. Tom Malinowski is running to succeed New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill in the as-yet-unscheduled special election for the 11th District. Malinowski, who represented a neighboring seat for two terms before losing reelection in 2022, joins several other Democrats contending for the North Jersey district.
Life after Congress: Roll Call Managing Editor Jessica Wehrman caught up with former Rep. Ryan A. Costello as part of our recurring series on former lawmakers. The Pennsylvania Republican, who left the House in 2019 after two terms representing a suburban Philadelphia district, says he doesn’t miss the grind of the congressional schedule: “I don’t know that I really need to be doing appropriation amendment votes and two-minute vote series at midnight.”
ICYMI
Democratic endorsements: CHC BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is backing three Democratic challengers in battleground districts: local school board trustee Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd, state Rep. Manny Rutinel in Colorado’s 8th and former congressional aide Robin Peguero in Florida’s 27th. EMILY’s List is supporting Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Amy Acton in Ohio. The abortion rights group also rolled out several endorsements in a handful of redrawn California districts, including for San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert in the 48th; state Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains in the 22nd; and educator Audrey Denney in the 1st. Elect Democratic Women, a group formed by Democratic women in the House, has endorsed Colorado state Rep. Shannon Bird, who’s running in the 8th District.
Trump endorsements: The president rolled out a slew of endorsements in House races, including dozens of GOP incumbents. Trump also announced he’s backing former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, a onetime Senate hopeful who’s running in Arizona’s open 5th District.
Another primary challenge: Maine state Rep. Tiffany Roberts is challenging Rep. Chellie Pingree in the 1st District Democratic primary, marking the first time Pingree will face opposition for the party nod since her first House run in 2008.
Dropping out: Former Ohio state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Republican who lost Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes by 2 points last year, ended his bid for a rematch, saying he no longer saw “a path to victory” in the 13th District, which was made more favorable for Democrats under the state’s new map. In Colorado’s 8th District, Democrat Amie Baca-Oehlert dropped her challenge to GOP Rep. Gabe Evans, citing fundraising struggles amid a crowded Democratic primary. And in Texas, retired astronaut Terry Virts said he’s dropping his Senate bid and will run for the Houston-area 9th District, which state Republicans recently redrew in their favor.
Guv roundup: California Sen. Alex Padilla will not run for governor, with the Democrat announcing Tuesday that he plans to stay in the Senate. In Florida, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, the husband of former Rep. Val B. Demings, says he’s running for governor, entering a Democratic primary that also includes former GOP Rep. David Jolly, who joined the party this year. And in Minnesota, Lisa Demuth, who leads the state House under a power-sharing agreement, is the latest Republican seeking to deny Democratic Gov. Tim Walz a third term next year.
Trading ads: Both candidates running in next month’s special election in Tennessee’s 7th District have new ads this week. “I’m on a new mission to bring down prices, create good-paying jobs and lower health care costs for working families,” Republican Matt Van Epps says in a spot partially funded by the NRCC. Meanwhile, Democrat Aftyn Behn says in her ad that politicians in Washington “make it easy for their rich donors, tax cuts for billionaires and burying the Epstein files, while hardworking Tennesseans get a rough ride.”
Nathan’s notes
Roll Call elections analyst Nathan L. Gonzales of Inside Elections shares his takeaways from Tuesday’s big election night for Democrats. Among them, the results show that a party doesn’t need a clear leader or a clear message — or even to be popular — in order to win, Nathan writes.
What we’re reading
Flameout: How did the GOP effort to fight Prop 50, the California redistricting ballot initiative, fall apart? “What began as an alliance of convenience would eventually dissolve into internal feuding, strategic confusion and an exasperated Republican National Committee member approaching top party officials with a ‘tin cup,’” reads Politico’s deep dive into the failed campaign to stop the measure.
71-0: A Republican state senator from Indiana recently held a town hall to gauge public opinion on redistricting. State Sen. Greg Goode went into the meeting undecided on the issue, unlike the constituents who showed up: Seventy-one of them came out against the proposed mid-decade redraw of the state’s congressional map, and zero spoke in support, according to an account in The Indianapolis Star.
Behind the scenes at Heritage: The Washington Post looks at what it calls “the open revolt” among staffers at The Heritage Foundation. Kevin Roberts, the leader of the influential conservative think tank, is under fire for his defense of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Now for the prose: Politico Magazine looks at the top challenges New York City’s mayor-elect could face as he looks to implement his ambitious policy agenda.
The count: 150
That’s the number of counties in Virginia and New Jersey, combined, where the winning Democratic nominees for governor outperformed Kamala Harris’ vote margins from 2024.
That’s 97.4 percent of the 154 counties between the two states.
In the Old Dominion, Spanberger improved upon Harris’ vote share in 129 of 133 counties (97 percent), including flipping five counties carried by Trump last fall.
Sherrill similarly outran Harris’ share in all 21 New Jersey counties and also flipped five Trump-won counties in the process.
— by Roll Call’s Ryan Kelly
Coming up
Clarity is coming for Utah congressional candidates. Monday is the deadline for Utah District Judge Diana Gibson to pick from three options for a House map to be used in the 2026 elections. Gibson said this week that she would rule “on or before” Monday, the Deseret News reported.
Photo finish
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The post At the Races: Goodbye, Madam Speaker. Hello, Mayor Mamdani. appeared first on Roll Call.
