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With the 2025 elections fading into the rearview mirror, the campaign spotlight moves 100% towards next year’s midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their fragile House majority and their control of the Senate.
And as this month’s elections showcased, the economy will once again be uppermost on the minds of voters.
How both parties handle the ‘affordability’ issue will likely impact whether Republicans can regain their standing with female voters, and with Black and Latino voters, who swung towards the GOP in 2024 but who shifted back to the Democrats at the ballot box in this autumn’s off-year elections.
One year after deep concerns over inflation helped Republicans win back the White House and Senate and successfully protect their House majority, Democrats say their convincing double-digit victories in 2025’s only two elections for governor came down to affordability, the issue they repeatedly spotlighted on this year’s campaign trail.
DEMOCRATS SEE MANDATE AFTER 2025 WINS — REPUBLICANS SAY IT’S A MIRAGE
Democratic Governors Association Executive Director Meghan Meehan-Draper said that Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, the two Democratic gubernatorial nominees that overperformed the public opinion polls as they cruised to Election Night victories in the blue-leaning states, “stayed laser focused on the economy,” and “talked about it all day, every day.”
It was also the issue that boosted a one-time longshot, socialist Zohran Mandani, to an initial victory in New York City’s Democratic Party mayoral primary, and another win in the mayoral election in the nation’s most populous city.
The numbers appear to back the Democrats up.
According to the Fox News Voter Poll conducted Oct. 22 through Election Day, the economy was by far the top issue for Virginia voters — with close to half ranking it as the most important. Those voters broke significantly for Spanberger.
And in New Jersey, the economy was the second most pressing issue, following taxes, according to the poll. And Sherrill won those voters by a 30-point margin.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE 2025 ELECTIONS
Pointing to the big wins for Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as in battleground Pennsylvania and left-tilting New York City and California, and battleground Georgia, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said his party’s candidates “are meeting voters at the kitchen table… From New Jersey and Virginia and New York, to Georgia and beyond, Democrats ran campaigns relentlessly focused on costs and affordability.”
And pointing to those victories, as well as down-ballot wins in a slew of other states, Martin touted “it was an unequivocal Blue Sweep.”
Republicans argue that Democrats are overplaying their victories in the 2025 elections.
“What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming. And no one should read too much into last night’s election results,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said the day after the elections.
Vice President JD Vance, in a social media post last week, said, “I think it’s idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states.”
VANCE DELIVERS POST-ELECTION REALITY CHECK, CONTENDS GOP MUST MAKE LIFE AFFORDABLE OR GET WALLOPED IN 2026
But Vance acknowledged that when it comes to the economy and specifically inflation, “We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond.”
In an appearance Thursday on Fox News’ “Hannity,” the vice president, pointing to former President Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House, charged that “we inherited a disaster. We’re very mindful of the fact that there’s a lot of work to do, but I think that we’ve made great progress.”
President Donald Trump, in his first post-2025 election interview, told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday that, on inflation, “We’ve done so much… Energy is way down … We’re going to have $2 gasoline. I did that. That brings everything else down. Groceries are way down, other than beef. Now, beef is going to come down … The fact is, we have prices way down.”
And the president argued in his “Special Report” interview that it’s more of a messaging problem for the GOP.
“As Republicans, you have to talk about it,” Trump said.
The president has kept to his affordability script in repeated appearances since last week’s elections, including during an interview on Fox News “The Ingraham Angle.”
And on Friday, the president took to social media to claim, “Affordability is a lie when used by the Dems. It is a complete CON JOB.”
But the focus on affordability appeared to pump the brakes on the GOP’s major gains last year with key parts of the Democratic Party base.
According to the Fox News Voter Poll, Sherrill captured the female vote in New Jersey by a 62%-37% margin, up from former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 56%-42% margin last year.
It was a similar story in Virginia, where Spanberger won women voters 65%-35%, up from the then-vice president’s 57%-42% margin in 2024.
One of the biggest stories in the 2024 elections was the gains Trump and Republicans made with Black and Latino voters.
In New Jersey, Sherrill outperformed Harris’ 2024 showing by 12 percentage points among Latino voters and by 15 points among Black voters.
Spanberger also made gains compared to Harris, with an 8-point increase in support among Latino voters and 7 points among Black voters.
“Up and down the ballot, Black and Latino voters overwhelmingly broke for Democrats. Our candidates stayed laser-focused on the issue that matters most to voters, affordability,” DNC Senior Spokesperson Marcus W. Robinson told Fox News Digital.
Martin says the 2025 elections were a preview of things to come in next year’s midterms.
“In ‘26, we’ll do it again. We’ll run a National Coordinated Campaign to win races up and down the ballot to provide a check on the out-of-control Trump administration and its Republican rubber stamps,” he argued.
But the rival Republican National Committee (RNC) sees a different political outcome in 2026.
“Republicans are entering next year more unified behind President Trump than ever before. The party is fully aligned behind his America First agenda and the results he’s delivering for the American people. President Trump’s policies are popular, he drives turnout, and standing with him is the strongest path to victory,” RNC National Press Secretary Kiersten Pels told Fox News Digital.
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