By Juliana Vasquez | Staff Writer
As Democrats celebrate victories in faraway states like New Jersey and Virginia, it’s easy for Texans to turn a blind eye because they assume the state’s gubernatorial elections don’t have an impact on the policy decisions that the Lone Star State makes. However, state-wide general elections are indicators of voter satisfaction and inform political parties on the strategy they should utilize moving into an election year.
Dr. Patrick Flavin, political science department chair, said state elections are an indicator of voters’ satisfaction with nationwide politics.
“[These elections] are sort of an early progress report on how the president and the president’s party are doing,” Flavin said.
The fact that Democrats won in these states wasn’t a major surprise, Flavin said. New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York are all blue states; it makes sense that they would elect Democratic representatives. The surprise, though, was the margins by which they performed, particularly compared to Democrats’ performance in the 2024 election cycle.
“Both the Democratic candidates in Virginia and New Jersey outperformed Kamala Harris’ margin in the 2024 election,” Flavin said. “The general takeaway is that Democrats did really well.”
Although these elections occurred in blue states, the wins for Democrats were still a surprise. The Washington Post reported that these elections were initially expected to be closer, particularly in states like New Jersey, which had “shifted to the right more than any state besides New York last fall.”
These elections were a sneak peek for voters into how the 2026 midterms could play out, Flavin said. Particularly on the policy side, voters indicated affordability as a key issue we will likely see more of in next year’s election cycle.
“Voters are unhappy with how the Trump administration is going so far in terms of affordability,” Flavin said.
This trend will likely continue next year, with Democrats and Republicans campaigning on policy regarding affordability. This issue, which voters may attribute to President Donald Trump, is also a warning sign for the administration, Flavin said.
“This is probably a wake-up call that the voters are displeased and that [the Trump administration] needs to address that,” Flavin said.
Princeton, N.J., freshman Anita Axelson said Texan students should stay mindful about the elections in other states because of the relationships they have with those surrounding them.
“Even though you may not live in New Jersey, they’re still American, and while the impacts may not be obvious, it still changes the way things are a little bit,” Axelson said.
Overall, there was a lot of political uncertainty about the nation’s political makeup, which these elections only highlighted, Flavin said.
“There’s probably a general perception that there’s a lot of policy uncertainty in terms of tariffs being instituted and then revoked and the government being shut down,” Flavin said. “I think for a voter who’s potentially open to voting for either party, they take out all this uncertainty and say that they’re concerned by it.”
