ATLANTA — Democrats flipped two seats on Georgia's statewide Public Service Commission by wide margins, one of many surprise victories for the party Tuesday up and down the ballot in the handful of races across the country.
Polling shows the Democratic Party is historically unpopular, but at polling places this year voters have helped the party overperform in elections against the backdrop of President Trump's even less popular policies.
Beyond the blowout victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races, Zohran Mamdani winning a majority of votes in New York City's mayoral election and California voters approving a plan to temporarily redraw the state's congressional districts to add Democrat-leaning districts, the party continued its trend of electoral success in the 2025 general election.
Here are some other notable election results around the country:
In Georgia, Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson will be the newest members of the state's five-person public utility regulator after earning roughly 60 percent of the vote. It's the first time Democrats have won a nonfederal statewide office there since 2006 and one where soaring energy costs and displeasure with incumbents dominated the race.
Pennsylvania voters chose to retain three state Supreme Court judges that were first elected as Democrats after millions of dollars in outside spending driven by conservative billionaire Jeff Yass' efforts to reshape the state court's politics. Democrats also won special elections for a seat on Pennsylvania's Superior Court and a seat on its Commonwealth Court.
Also in Pennsylvania, Democrats swept the top "row offices" in the purple-hued Bucks County, electing the county's first-ever Democratic District Attorney and defeating an incumbent Republican sheriff a year after Trump narrowly won there. Democrats similarly notched commanding victories in county executive races in Erie, Lehigh and Northampton counties, all bellwether counties in recent presidential elections.
At the state legislative level, Mississippi Democrats have broken a GOP supermajority in the state Senate after flipping two seats in that chamber plus another pickup in the state House. A federal court ordered lawmakers to redraw 14 total House and Senate districts after finding the maps drawn in 2022 discriminated against Black voters.
Democrats have also vastly expanded their control of the Virginia House of Delegates and New Jersey's state Assembly, giving the party supermajorities in those chambers.
In many local races across the country, Democrats touted victories that will reshape their communities, like the flipping of all three city council seats in Georgetown, S.C., the unseating of the last remaining Republican city council member in Orlando, Fla., and winning back mayoral races in Connecticut.
For the first time in a half-century, Democrats control the Onondaga County legislature that includes Syracuse, N.Y. Democrats saw a city council seat in Charlotte, N.C., switch parties for the first time since 1999.
Democrats across the ideological spectrum won, too. Beyond Mamdani's victory in New York City, the Democratic Socialists of America touted municipal wins for members in Detroit, Atlanta and Cambridge, Mass., among others.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin previously predicted in an interview with NPR that the party's success in special elections in 2025 — where the party has overperformed prior margins by an average of about 14% — would continue into the midterm cycle.
"The important thing to remember is midterm elections are not a referendum on a party that's not in power," Martin said. "So our numbers really don't matter here. Donald Trump is at an all-time low in terms of his favorability and his approval numbers… the Republican Party is as well."
Tuesday's results also show that the economy and affordability continue to be top of mind for voters, and voters have registered their displeasure with Trump and Congressional Republicans' agenda on that front.
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