Mamdani triumphs on good night for Democrats
It’s been a busy night! Here’s a debrief of all the key moments to get you up to speed:
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Zohran Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City with a decisive victory over former governor Andrew Cuomo. With more than 97% of the votes counted, Mamdani received more votes – at least 1.03 million – than all the other candidates combined, including Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
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California passed Proposition 50, the measure that will temporarily redistrict the state in hopes of countering Republican efforts to do the same in Texas. The new maps could help Democrats pick up five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.
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It was a good night for Democrats, with Abigail Spanberger winning the Virginia governor’s race and Mikie Sherrill winning the governorship in New Jersey.
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President Donald Trump took to his favored platform, Truth Social, to distance himself from the losses. He also urged Republicans to pass voter reform and terminate the filibuster. As Mamdani was speaking, Trump posted a cryptic final missive of the night: “AND SO IT BEGINS!”.
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Mamdani directly addressed Trump in his victory speech in Brooklyn, vowing to use his role in city hall to counter his politics of division. The newly minted mayor said: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
Key events
You can view Zohran Mamdani’s historic triumph in New York City’s mayoral election in pictures via the gallery below:
The Associated Press has a brief explainer on the election in the 18th congressional district:
Confusion has lingered over the election in the 18th congressional district, where many residents will vote in a different district next year under a redrawn map demanded by Donald Trump in an effort to increase the number of GOP seats, reports the AP.
Republicans currently hold a seven-seat majority in the House, 219-212, with four vacancies, including the Houston seat. Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva won a special election in September in a heavily Democratic district along the Mexico border, but she has not been sworn in yet. A narrower majority gives Republican leaders less room to maneuver.
The current 18th district is solidly Democratic and spirals from northeast Houston through downtown, back up to northwest Houston and east again, until its two ends come close to forming a doughnut. Non-Hispanic whites make up about 23% of its voting-age citizens, though no single group has a majority.
The redrawn 18th stretches from suburbs southwest of Houston diagonally through the city and past its northeast limits. A little more than 50% of voting-age citizens are Black, which critics say is not a big enough majority for them to determine who gets elected, reports the AP.
Democrats Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards advanced to a runoff on Tuesday night in a special election for a US House seat that has been vacant since March and will narrow the GOP’s slim majority once a winner is sworn in, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Menefee, who serves as Harris County attorney, and Edwards, a former Houston city council member, received the most votes in a crowded field of 16 candidates. Neither received more than 50% of the vote, sending the race to a runoff that is expected early next year.
The winner is to serve out the remaining term of Democratic rep Sylvester Turner, who died two months after taking office representing the deep-blue 18th congressional district.
After Turner’s death, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott defended not holding a special election until November by arguing that Houston election officials needed time to prepare. Democrats criticized the long wait and accused Abbott of trying to give his party’s House majority more cushion.
Menefee said his message for President Donald Trump and his allies is, “We’ve got one more election left, and then you’re going to have to see me”. Menefee said:
For months, as this seat sat vacant, I heard from voters who were ready for someone willing to take on Donald Trump and the far right – not just talk about change, but deliver real results.
“It’s not enough to me just for us to fight back against the attacks waged by our president,” Edwards said, speaking to supporters after polls closed. “We must do that and forge a path for our future.”
Menefee ousted an incumbent in 2020 to become Harris County’s first Black county attorney, representing it in civil cases, and he has joined legal challenges of Trump’s executive orders on immigration. He was endorsed by several prominent Texas Democrats including former congressman Beto O’Rourke and rep Jasmine Crockett.
Edwards served four years on the council starting in 2016. She ran for US Senate in 2020 but finished fifth in a 12-person primary. She unsuccessfully challenged US rep Sheila Jackson Lee in the 2024 primary, and when Lee died that July, local Democrats narrowly nominated Turner over Edwards as Lee’s replacement.
New York has followed London in choosing hope over fear in electing Democrat Zohran Mamdani as the city’s new mayor, according to his London counterpart Sadiq Khan.
Mamdani, 34, defeated former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa to become the city’s first Muslim mayor and the first of South Asian heritage.
Sadiq congratulated Mamdani, who will become New York’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office on 1 January, on what he called an “historic campaign”. He wrote on X:
New Yorkers faced a clear choice – between hope and fear – and just like we’ve seen in London – hope won.
In his victory speech, Mamdani said:
New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and as of tonight, led by an immigrant.
If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.
The city’s Board of Elections said the vote had seen the largest turnout in more than 50 years, with more than two million people casting ballots.
Jewish group that endorsed Mamdani say his victory shows New Yorkers want to turn the page on divisive politics
The group Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVPA) cheered Zohran Mamdani’s win on Tuesday night, saying the mayor-elect’s victory had shown “that mass numbers of Jewish New Yorkers supported his candidacy not in spite of, but because of his support for Palestinian rights”.
Beth Miller, the political director for the JVPA, said in a statement:
Zohran ran and won on an agenda of affordability and dignity for all of NYC’s communities, as well as on a politics of consistency in which values do not stop at the city’s borders and a vision of freedom and dignity for all people that does not stop at the city’s borders.
The old political playbook that tried to exclude Palestinians and erase their humanity is coming to a close. Zohran’s victory is a clear message to the Democratic Party: A progressive agenda that includes Palestinian rights is popular.
Miller said Cuomo and his donors had attempted to use fearmongering and weaponized antisemitism, but said those efforts had “failed”.
“New Yorkers want to turn the page on politics that rely on dividing and attacking our communities,” Miller said. “We want to build a future in which we all thrive together.”
During his victory speech, Mamdani said he would see a city hall that stood “steadfast behind Jewish New Yorkers and does not waiver in the fight against antisemitism”.
Top donor against Prop 50 says he is saddened by its passage, but comforted he helped educate Californians
Charles Munger Jr., one of the top donors to the effort against Proposition 50, issued a statement after its passage earlier tonight.
He urged the state to heed the “many promises” made in the measure, including that it be a temporary change before redistricting power reverts back to an independent commission.
Munger, who spent at least $30m to defeat Prop 50, said:
For what looms for the people of California, I am saddened by the passage of Proposition 50. But I am content in this, at least: that our campaign educated the people of California so they could make an informed, if in my view unwise, decision about such a technical but critical issue as redistricting reform, a decision forced to be made over such a very short time.
He added he hopes to be a “resource” to all states as they pursue redistricting reform “that empowers voters to choose their representatives, and not the other way around”.
Anna Betts
Crowds cheer Mamdani’s victory outside Brooklyn music venue
Outside the Brooklyn Paramount, where Mamdani’s election watch party was held, there are crowds of people cheering in the street by the entrance.
Mamdani triumphs on good night for Democrats
It’s been a busy night! Here’s a debrief of all the key moments to get you up to speed:
-
Zohran Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City with a decisive victory over former governor Andrew Cuomo. With more than 97% of the votes counted, Mamdani received more votes – at least 1.03 million – than all the other candidates combined, including Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
-
California passed Proposition 50, the measure that will temporarily redistrict the state in hopes of countering Republican efforts to do the same in Texas. The new maps could help Democrats pick up five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.
-
It was a good night for Democrats, with Abigail Spanberger winning the Virginia governor’s race and Mikie Sherrill winning the governorship in New Jersey.
-
President Donald Trump took to his favored platform, Truth Social, to distance himself from the losses. He also urged Republicans to pass voter reform and terminate the filibuster. As Mamdani was speaking, Trump posted a cryptic final missive of the night: “AND SO IT BEGINS!”.
-
Mamdani directly addressed Trump in his victory speech in Brooklyn, vowing to use his role in city hall to counter his politics of division. The newly minted mayor said: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
Newsom, in his remarks, acknowledged that California’s retaliatory gerrymander was a significant victory in the fight for control of the House next year – but that it didn’t stop Trump and Republicans from drawing new, favorable maps in other states.
In response, Newsom issued a call to action for blue-state governors to join California in redrawing their congressional boundaries, to offset Republican gains in other states beyond Texas.
“We need the state of Virginia. We need the state of Maryland. We need our friends in New York and Illinois and Colorado,” he said. “We need to see other states, the remarkable leaders that have been doing remarkable things, meet this moment head on as well to recognize what we’re up against in 2026.”
“Let me make this crystal clear, we can de facto end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it, the minute speaker Jeffries gets sworn in,” he added, referring to the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries. “It is all on the line.”
California governor Gavin Newsom celebrates redistricting measure passing
Speaking in Sacramento, California governor Gavin Newsom applauded his state for approving a new House map, part of a coast-to-coast sweep of victories for Democrats on Tuesday.
“What a night for the Democratic Party,” he said. “We are proud here in California to be part of this narrative this evening.”
He called Democrats a “party that is in its ascendancy, a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels, from coast to coast, sea to shining sea.”
The passage of proposition 50 was a major achievement for the term-limited governor, who has made no secret about his presidential ambitions. In his remarks, Newsom denounced Trump’s record, accusing him of “vandalism to this republic and our democracy”.
“Why else is he trying to rig the midterm elections before one single vote is even cast,” the governor said of Trump’s unprecedented effort to persuade Republican states to gerrymander their congressional districts.
“We stood stood firm in response to Donald Trump’s recklessness,” Newsom said, “and tonight, after poking the bear, this bear roared, with unprecedented turnout in a special election with an extraordinary result.”
Data analysis: Sliwa didn’t spoil Cuomo’s night – Mamdani dominated the vote
With more than 97% of the vote in, Zohran Mamdani’s victory is decisive. He received 1,030,000 votes, more than all the other candidates combined.
People will argue for weeks and maybe years to come about whether Republican Curtis Sliwa dropping out would have helped Andrew Cuomo win. But the votes show that is a moot argument, with all the other candidates – including Sliwa, Cuomo, Adams – and all other write-in candidates, receiving only 1,014,000 votes.
Government shutdown becomes longest in US history
While the election results continue to roll in, the country has marked another milestone: day 36 of the government shutdown, the longest in US history.
The shutdown beat the previous 35-day record set in December 2018 and January 2019 during Donald Trump’s first term, when government funding legislation was held up over his insistence on including money to build a wall along the border with Mexico, Chris Stein reports.
The standoff began on the first day of October, after Democratic senators refused to vote for a government funding bill unless it included an extension of Joe Biden-era tax credits that lower costs for health plans purchased through Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges. Tens of millions of Americans are expected to be unable to afford insurance once the credits expire at the end of 2025.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives had in September passed the funding bill with only a single Democrat voting in favor, and speaker Mike Johnson has kept the chamber out of session ever since. That has shifted much of the legislative action to the Senate, where John Thune, the majority leader, has held 14 votes on the legislation – all of which failed due to insufficient Democratic support.
The nonpartisan congressional budget office predicts the shutdown will cost the economy as much as $14bn in GDP, depending on how much longer it continues.
Mamdani did not trade in subtleties in his remarks on Tuesday night. But a fleeting reference to a “Great New Yorker” certainly wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by his opponent – that great New Yorker’s son.
“A great New Yorker once said that, while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose,” Mamdani said, repeating the oft-quoted dictum from the late New York governor Mario Cuomo – a political truism that means the sweeping visions delivered on the campaign trail do not always translate into the unglamorous work of governing.
Mamdani offered his own twist, perhaps an acknowledgement of the many policy battles that lie ahead: “If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme and let us build a shining city for all.”