They did win big! There's just no guarantee it will carry forward for a year

Written up in a little more detail owenwinter.co.uk/2025/11/10/d...

Definitely agree! bsky.app/profile/owen...

That said, the relationship looks a bit stronger for recent elections. Perhaps governors elections are more dependent on the national mood now. But far too little data to say anything with much confidence…

The predictive power of the VA + NJ results are even smaller once you hold out the effect of the previous house margin and the president’s party. Central estimate of ~1.8 points effect on House popular vote margin for Tuesday’s results compared with if Democrats had narrowly lost

The elections happened right as Trump's approval ratings hit their all-time low. Things might improve before the midterms. But these elections put Dems on the front foot (and could leave the GOP wondering if they've overplayed their gerrymandering hand) www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

Taken together, the results reinforce what polls have shown for months: that Trump's approval is crashing with the voters who swung behind him in 2024. Young, ethnically diverse voters whose top issues are the economy and cost of living www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

Spanberger also appeared to reverse Republican gains with younger people. In areas with few over 60s, she improved on Harris's margins by an average of 16 points (in older areas it was only four points).

Republicans appeared to lose the gains they made with Hispanic and Asian voters last year. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger reversed Harris's losses in areas with large minority populations: www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

It wasn't just favourable turnout that powered Dem victories. Exit polls and precinct data suggests a substantial number of Trump voters switched sides.

In New Jersey, counties that swung hardest against Harris in 2024 bounced back as Democrats rebuilt their 2020 coalition:

Democrats won landslide victories in Georgia and Pennsylvania where turnout collapsed vs 2024. And won by larger than expected margins in New Jersey and Virginia www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

Income actually wasn’t very predictive of mayoral vote. It’s more about race, age and housing tenure, which are correlated with car ownership

Yes! Completely agree

And demographically, Labour's vote is now relatively richer than the Lib Dem's

A the voter level, I think the idea that Lib Dems are substantially to the right of Labour voters is a bit overstated. They are very similar, especially now left-wing Labour voters are mostly moved to the Greens

Interesting! The CornwallLive articles I see on my social media are usually clickbait and apolitical

From our preview of the off-cycle elections by @daniellaraz.bsky.social www.economist.com/united-state...