（Seattle mayor-elect Katie Wilson delivers a victory speech during a news conference at the Seattle Labor Temple Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, in Seattle.）
The Democrats’ 2025 election success masks a deeper, longer-term ideological problem. For Democrats, ideology threatens to become destiny.
By conceding party control to America’s ideological minority, Democrats are diminishing their political competitiveness. Their increasing dependence on increasingly far-left supporters will lead to an overwhelming political realignment.
The Democrats’ electoral news this year was not their results in Virginia and New Jersey. At the beginning of 2025, had you been told Democrats would win the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, you wouldn’t have been surprised. These were off-year elections, a Republican was in the White House, neither state had voted for a Republican presidential candidate in decades, and Democratic frontrunners were ahead.
In contrast, a year ago, if you had been told a 34-year-old political neophyte would beat the incumbent Democratic mayor in August’s primary and a former Democratic governor in November’s general election, you would have been shocked. And you would have been stunned still more had you been told this upstart was a professed democratic socialist running on such policies.
So, the real news was Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York City. And it is very bad news for Democrats going forward, because it accelerates an ideological trend already driving their party toward national irrelevance.
Simply put: The Democrats’ majority is America’s ideological minority. Exit polling from 2024 shows the magnitude of the ideological advantage Republicans have over Democrats.
Conservatives accounted for 35 percent of voters, and 90 percent of conservatives voted Republican. Liberals accounted for 23 percent of voters, and 91 percent of liberals voted Democratic.
Clear as this is, it doesn’t show the breadth and depth of the problem. Fortunately, a recent Morning Consult survey does. In its latest tracking of Americans’ ideology in all 50 states, it shows that liberals are in minority status nearly everywhere.
Liberals comprise an ideological plurality in only 12 states whereas conservatives are the largest group in 36 states (self-reported liberals and conservatives are tied in Illinois and Delaware).
Liberals have a double-digit advantage over conservatives in only two states: Massachusetts and Vermont; conservatives have a double-digit advantage over liberals in 26 states.
Only in Vermont do liberals enjoy a 20-percentage point advantage over conservatives. Conservatives hold a 20-percentage point advantage (or more) over liberals in 14 states.
Liberals are the smallest ideological group in 22 states; conservatives are the smallest ideological group in six states.
To get to a simple majority of 51 percent, liberals on average need to add to their own ranks another 23.5 percentage points of support. On average, conservatives need to add only 13 percentage points of support in any given state.
These huge ideological deficits translate into political deficits. The 12 states where liberals have an ideological edge over conservatives account for 161 electoral votes. By my count, the 36 states in which conservatives have an ideological advantage over liberals account for 352 electoral votes.
Vermont, the one state where liberals have a 15 to 20 percentage point advantage over conservatives, has three electoral votes. The 19 states where conservatives hold a 15 to 20 percentage point advantage over liberals have 125 electoral votes.
Because it only takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency, the political advantage that Republicans’ larger conservative base gives them is substantial.
Conservatives’ ideological advantage in 36 states with 352 electoral votes means Republicans start the presidential race ahead of the number needed to win by 82 electoral votes.
Liberals’ ideological advantage in 12 states (and including D.C.) yields 164 electoral votes. This means Democrats start the presidential race behind the number needed to win by 106 electoral votes.
Yet evident as liberals’ ideological minority status is and its political consequences are, Democrats are increasingly reliant on liberals for their support. Early in 2023, Gallup reported that liberals reached an all-time high in the Democratic Party of 54 percent.
The Democrats’ leaders are no less left. And Mamdani is more extreme still — at least, until other Democratic politicians race to catch up. Madani is the mayor of America’s largest city: A democratic socialist with a budget in the billions and a population over 8 million.
Nor is Mamdani alone. In Seattle, Katie Wilson, another democratic socialist, won the mayor’s race.
Democrats won in Virginia and New Jersey by running against Trump. They won in states where they were supposed to win — in states where they have been winning regularly.
But Virginia and New Jersey are not the states Democrats need to win back. Their national leftward surge — not local feints in light-blue states — is what jeopardizes this.
Democrats are not simply swimming against an ideological and political tide; they are surfing a tsunami.
