In every high-profile race — from California to the East Coast — Democrats outperformed expectations in Tuesday’s election. Notable victories include Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York City mayoral race, Abigail Spanberger’s election as governor of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill’s win in the New Jersey governor race.
Democratic National Committee vice chair Malcolm Kenyatta said Mamdani, Spanberger and Sherrill all focused their campaigns on making life more affordable for their constituents.
“ Yesterday showed what happens when we make the type of local investments and have candidates that are speaking to the concerns of their neighbors, where they’re running for office,” Kenyatta said.
And, Kenyatta said, the results of these elections show that the American people are looking for solutions. While President Trump promised lower costs of living, Kenyatta said he hasn’t delivered, and people are realizing it.
“We know that the Republicans are going to lie,” Kenyatta said. “What we have to do is tell the truth about what we want to do to make life better for working people and working families. And we saw that all across the country.”
3 questions with Malcolm Kenyatta
Zohran Mamdani had a historic win. Some critics say his policies are too radical, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wouldn’t endorse him. Do you think Mamdani’s playbook should be replicated across the country for Democrats?
“ Zohran Mamdani ran an incredible campaign, and the DNC was proud to support him. Chair [Ken] Martin and myself, I think, endorsed him minutes after he won the primary, and that’s how it should be. Voters and Democratic primaries decide who our nominees are.
“I think there was a real through line between Zohran’s exciting campaign and also the campaigns that we saw in New Jersey and in Virginia that every single one of them understood that life is too expensive for the American people, and they talked about how they wanted to make life better for working people and working families.
“This is not about needing to go to the left or go to the right. This is about needing to grow the party.”
Republicans have already started campaigns linking the Democratic Party to Mamdani’s progressive policies. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Mamdani and other progressive Democrats “disdain the founding principles of their own country.” Do you have an answer to that?
“ I reject their framing. Mike Johnson talked about rejecting the founding principles of this country. He is bowing every single day to a guy who wants to be a king, a guy who is operating from an authoritarian, fascistic playbook. So we won’t be taking marching orders from Republicans.
“Americans are very clear on what they want, and we saw it in races in New York, New Jersey. We saw it in Pennsylvania. They don’t want a billionaire, corrupt class of Donald Trump’s friends who rigged the economy for themselves at the expense of everyone else.
“I’ve watched Mike Johnson and folks like this call every Democrat who’s running every name under the sun. What I said before I think is worth repeating, that every single candidate on the ballot ran their own race.
“And we are proud to have a party where folks like Mikie Sherrill can win, where folks like Abigail Spanberger can win, and also where you can have exciting upstart candidates like Zohran Mamdani win.
“The Democratic Party needs to grow. And so this is not about one wing of the party controlling who the party is. This is about growing the party and welcoming in Americans, Republicans, Independents, people who believe Donald Trump’s promises that he was going to make life more affordable, who are right now seeing that Donald Trump has made life more expensive.”
Ratings for the Democratic Party were at a 30-year low last week, and polls found that 68% of people think Democrats are out of touch. How do you keep winning with numbers like that?
“We just won historic races yesterday, and let me be very clear: you don’t beat something with nothing. Democrats had something. We had candidates who represented their neighbors, who were talking about the future of this country and how they’re going to make life better and lower costs for Americans. I think that’s the playbook moving forward.
“When I see Democrats who are saying, ‘fight harder, do more,’ we’re all singing from the same playbook. I want us to fight harder and do more. And that’s why you have a new DNC that’s doing just that. And when you look at New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Mississippi — where we broke the super majority of the Senate there — many of those victories were made possible because of the investments that the DNC is making at the local level, and that local organizing, that year-round organizing, having candidates who represent their neighbors and their communities who can speak authentically about what’s happening, where they live, that is a recipe for success.
“People are going to try make a lot of different claims about what yesterday means, and what I think the claim people should walk away with is that Democrats are back and we’re back to win. And not to just win so our jersey can win, but we’re back to win to lower costs for the American people to make their lives better.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Ashley Locke produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Micaela Rodríguez. Grace Griffin produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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