The Dictatorship
Trump’s strength, Democrats’ message and the shutdown effect. What to watch on Election Day 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats dominated the first major Election Day since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
And while a debate about the future of the Democratic Party may have only just begun, there are signs that the economy — specifically, Trump’s inability to deliver the economic turnaround he promised last fall — may be a real problem for Trump’s GOP heading into next year’s higher-stakes midterm elections.
Democrats on Tuesday won governor’s races in Virginia and New Jerseythe only states electing new chief executives this year. They also swept a trio of state Supreme Court contests in swing-state Pennsylvania and ballots measures from Colorado to Maine.
Trump was largely absent from the campaign trail, but GOP candidates closely aligned themselves with the president, betting that his big win last year could provide a path to victory this time. They were wrong.
Democrats are hoping the off-year romp offers a new winning playbook, but some caution may be warranted. Tuesday’s elections were limited to a handful of states, most of which lean blue, and the party that holds the White House typically struggles in off-year elections.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Washington may be more excited than Democrats that a self-described democratic socialist will become New York City’s next mayor.
Here’s some top takeaways:
A new Democratic playbook emerges
Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to give Democrats a victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and make history as the first woman ever to lead the commonwealth.
Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger will become Virginia’s next governor — and its first female chief executive — while Rep. Mikie Sherrill won the New Jersey governor’s office by running campaigns focused largely on the economy, public safety and health care.
Early results showed Democrats outperforming their margins from four years ago in fast-growing suburbs, rural areas and even places with high concentrations of military voters.
The Democrats won by actively distancing themselves from some of the Democratic Party’s far-left policies and emphasized what Spanberger described in her victory speech as “pragmatism over partisanship.”
A growing collection of Democratic leaders believe the moderate approach holds the key to the party’s revival after the GOP won the White House and both congressional chambers last year.
Above all, the Democrats in both states focused on rising costs such as groceries, energy and health care, which Trump has struggled to control.
In addition to tacking to the middle on economic issues, Spanberger and Sherrill downplayed their support for progressive priorities, including LGBTQ rights and resistance against Trump’s attack on American institutions. Spanberger rarely even mentioned Trump’s name on the campaign trail.
Both also have resumes that appealed to the middle.
Spanberger is a former CIA case officer who spent years abroad working undercover, while Sherrill spent a decade as an active-duty helicopter pilot for the Navy before entering Congress. Both played up their public safety backgrounds as a direct response to the GOP’s attack that Democrats are soft on crime.
It’s (still) the economy, stupid
Trump and his Republican allies have been especially focused on immigration, crime and conservative cultural issues.
But voters who decided Tuesday’s top elections were more concerned about the economy, jobs and costs of living. That’s according to the AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of more than 17,000 voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City suggesting that many voters felt they can’t get ahead financially in today’s economy.
Ironically, the same economic anxieties helped propel Trump to the White House just one year ago. Now, the economic concerns appear to be undermining his party’s political goals in 2025 — and could be more problematic for the GOP in next year’s midterm elections, which will decide the balance of power for Trump’s final two years in office.
That’s even as Trump regularly brags about stock prices booming and boasted about leading a new renaissance of American manufacturing.
About half of Virginia voters said the economy was the most important issue facing their state while most New Jersey voters said either taxes or the economy were the top issue in their state. Just over half of New York City voters said cost of living was their top concern.
It was unclear whether kitchen table concerns weighing so heavily on voters might help break the impasse that has prompted the government shutdown, which has spanned more than a month.
A referendum on Trump
This was the first election since Trump’s return to the presidency and voters rejected candidates and causes aligned with his Republican Party from Virginia and Pennsylvania to Maine and New Jersey. It was, in fact, difficult to point to any significant victory for Trump’s party.
They also expressed strong feelings about the direction of the country under his leadership.
About 6 in 10 voters in Virginia and New Jersey said they are “angry” or “dissatisfied” with the way things are going in the country today, according to the AP Voter Poll. Just one-third said they are “enthusiastic” or “satisfied.”
In a sign of the extent of the GOP’s struggles, Republicans lost the Virginia attorney general’s race to Democrat Jay Jones, who was forced to apologize after text messages surfaced weeks before Election Day in which he depicted the murder of political opponents.
Fearing a bad night, Trump tried to distance himself from the election results.
The president endorsed Ciattarelli in New Jersey but held only a pair of tele-town halls on his behalf, including one Monday night. Trump also did a Monday night tele-town hall for Virginia Republican candidates, but he focused mostly in favor of the GOP candidate for attorney general, who also lost.
Despite Trump’s distance, his policies — including his “big, beautiful” budget bill and his massive cuts to the federal workforce — played a central role in Virginia, New Jersey and even New York City’s mayoral contest. And the Republicans in each refused to distance themselves from the president or his agenda.
The results left the president ducking blame.
“TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,” according to pollsters, he posted on his social media account.
Trump planned to have breakfast Wednesday at the White House with Senate Republicans who have so far opposed his calls to end the shutdown by abandoning the legislative filibuster, the 60-vote minimum needed to pass most major legislation though the Senate.
A new star for Democrats (and Republicans) in New York City
Zohran Mamdani was elected New York City mayor Tuesday, capping his meteoric rise to national prominence. The 34-year-old democratic socialist will make history as the city’s first Muslim mayor – and its youngest in more than a century.
Moderates won in Virginia and New Jersey. But it was a self-described democratic socialist who cruised to victory in New York City.
Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old state legislator who backs radical changes to address economic inequality, will serve as the next mayor of the nation’s largest city.
His bold agenda and inspirational approach helped generate the largest turnout in a New York City mayoral race in at least three decades. It also spooked some business leaders and voices in the Jewish community, who otherwise support Democrats but oppose some of Mamdani’s past statements about personal wealth accumulation and Israel.
Trump, who actually endorsed Mamdani’s independent opponent, former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, falsely called Mamdani a communist on the eve of the election.
Some Republicans in Washington were quietly rooting for a Mamdani victory. Even before his win was final, Republican campaign committees launched attack ads against more than a dozen vulnerable House Democrats in New York and New Jersey linking them to Mamdani and his far-left politics.
The ad campaign is expected to extend to Democrats across the country ahead of next year’s midterms.
More Democratic wins
California voters approved new congressional district boundaries Tuesday, delivering a victory for Democrats in the state-by-state redistricting battle that will help determine which party wins control of the U.S. House in 2026
The Democratic successes extended beyond Virginia, New Jersey and New York.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats swept all three elections for state supreme court justices. The wins could have implications for key cases involving redistricting and balloting for midterm elections — and the 2028 presidential race — in the nation’s most populous swing state.
Conservative causes struggled on ballot questions in other states as well.
Maine voters defeated a measure that would have mandated showing an ID at the polls while approving a “red flag” rule meant to make it easier for family members to petition a court to restrict a potentially dangerous person’s access to guns.
Colorado approved raising taxes on people earning more than $300,000 to fund school meal programs and food assistance for low-income state residents.
And in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, frequently mentioned as a 2028 presidential hopeful, led a triumphant charge to redraw congressional maps to give Democrats as many as five more House seats in upcoming elections.
The push is the centerpiece of a Democratic effort to counter new Republican maps in Texas and elsewhere that were drawn to boost the GOP’s chances in next year’s fight to control Congress. For the new maps to count in 2026, however, Californians had to vote on a yes-or-no ballot question known as Proposition 50. It was easily approved.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United States and Iran reached an initial agreement early Monday to open the Strait of Hormuz and further extend a shaky ceasefire in the Iran warpotentially allowing desperately needed oil and natural gas to reach the global market.
Details of the deal were not immediately released and Iran signaled implementation would not start until the signing, which key mediator Pakistan said would occur Friday in Switzerland. It could provide a way to end a war that killed thousands across the Middle East, including the top leaders of Iran’s theocracy, and sparked a historic energy crisis.
But the memorandum of understanding over the war already faced intense challenges. Israel’s continued hostilities with the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs Sunday, nearly derailed the negotiations.
Meanwhile, the deal gives just 60 days to resolve what to do about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and its atomic program. That took years to resolve in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from that accord in his first term, setting the stage for the tensions that culminated in the war.
“Congratulations to all!” Trump wrote on social media as he celebrated his 80th birthday Sunday with a UFC cage match fight at the White House.
He added, “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” which was imposed in retaliation for Iran’s grip on the crucial waterway.
He soon hedged, however, saying the strait wouldn’t open until Friday’s signing.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed the agreement on state television but said Iran would not start implementing it until it was signed Friday. He said the deal followed talks with Qatar, another mediator.
Israel, which has insisted it be allowed a freehand to pursue Hezbollah as it occupies southern Lebanon and has extended its military operations into areas its forces haven’t been in a quarter century, did not immediately comment. Israel joined the U.S. in launching the war on Feb. 28.
Benchmark Brent crude oil fell more than $4 a barrel on the news as Asian stock markets rallied.
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Pakistan, a key mediator, announces deal
Pakistan first announced the deal, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying “both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” It remains unclear whether Israel, which relies on the U.S. but has launched in wars against its enemies since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israelagreed to that term.
He added that mediators this week will facilitate meetings to “lay the foundation for the technical talks.”
Broader negotiations on outstanding issues like Iran’s nuclear program would continue over the next 60 days, two senior Pakistani officials said earlier Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. If the sides fail to reach a resolution within that time, the timeline could be extended.
Iranian state television cited the secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council saying the war on all fronts “will end immediately and permanently beginning tonight” — but that the U.S. blockade “will be terminated immediately and in full.”
Qatari mediators later left Tehran following 17 hours of negotiations, said an official briefed on the developments who spoke on condition of anonymity due to sensitivity of the talks. Separate preparatory meetings with each side will take place in Doha this week, the official said.
It was not clear who from Iran would sign the deal on Friday. U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News the White House was still figuring out who would attend: “I certainly plan to be there, but it’s possible the president himself could be there.”
But concern among Republicans in the U.S. already could be seen. They included U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who described Vance as “the architect of the deal.”
“I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming,” Graham wrote online.
U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Congress would exercise oversight on any accord with Iran.
“We have seen time and again: War cannot change the Iranian regime,” he said.
Interim deal faces intense scrutiny
The first strike of the war killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneiand Khamenei’s son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khameneiis now supreme leader. He has not been seen in the public since the war began, but his approval was needed for Iran to sign off on the deal.
There was apparent friction inside Iran in the hours before the announcement, as the government warned that division at home over the deal weakened its negotiating position.
The deal likely returns the region to a status that existed before the war, but with Iran having proven its ability to disrupt shipping in the strait. The waterway is crucial to significant shipments of oil, natural gas and related products like fertilizer, and its effective closure rocked the global economy.
Even with a deal, it will take months for oil and gas supplies to flow freely enough for the world’s needs to be met because shipping and insurance companies want to be confident the agreement will last, energy experts said.
Tehran also still has a ballistic missile arsenal and enough highly enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to pursue them.
Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and has not publicly committed to giving up the enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under three nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last year.
The U.S. has sought the removal of the enriched uranium from Iran as part of a deal. Russia has offered to take it. But Iran insists it wants to keep the uranium.
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Frankel reported from Jerusalem, Sewell from Beirut and Weissert from Washington. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Cathy Bussewitz in New York and Cara Anna in Lowville, New York, contributed to this report.
PARIS (AP) — From the outset, China wasn’t included when major powers gathered in 1975 at a chateau outside Paris to fix the slumping global economy, the first of what have become annual summits by the G7 club of wealthy nations to forward their interests.
No surprise there. Imagining Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong brainstorming with U.S. President Gerald Ford and other leaders would have been unthinkable.
China was in turmoil, nowhere close to becoming the economic giant it is now. Mao had also helped defeat France and U.S. forces in Vietnam, by militarily supporting Ho Chi Minh’s communists that took power. So Mao would have been the odd man out had he been at the inaugural Rambouillet summit of six nations, growing into the G7 when Canada joined the following year.
But as U.S. President Donald Trump and his G7 counterparts gather again in France from Monday, China’s exclusion from the informal club’s summits also looks odd, given its now immense sway over the world’s economic well-being and affairs.
Put simply: Without China, does the G7 make sense?
Here’s a closer look:
By the numbers, China would be a shoo-in
If determined only by economic success, China would already be in the club.
Its economy, swollen by decades of growth since Mao’s death in 1976, now dwarfs those of G7 nations Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada — leaving only the United States to catch. By this measure, a G7 summit without China is arguably like a soccer World Cup without 5-time winner Brazil.
From being “only a tiny, benign, panda bear” in 1975, ”China has become a great global dragon,” says John Kirton, a University of Toronto specialist on the G7.
“So many understandably ask: Would the G7 and the global community be better off if China became a member of the G7 club? A plausible answer is ‘Yes.’”
But it’s only for democracies
A year ago, Trump mused about possibly expanding the club to include China, saying “ it’s not a bad idea ” when a journalist asked him.
But an unwritten G7 rule has always been that it’s only for democracies.
“We are each responsible for the government of an open, democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement,” the founding leaders declared in Rambouillet in 1975.
China wouldn’t have cleared that bar then, during Mao’s rule that claimed many millions of lives through famine and revolutionary upheaval.
Nor, under President Xi Jinpingwould China do so now. By multiple measures, including the annual Freedom in the World study the World Press Freedom Index or the Canadian Fraser Institute’s ranking of economic freedom, China lags far behind G7 nations for civil liberties.
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China a priority subject for the G7
China’s clout impacts all G7 countries, in myriad ways. It sells far more goods than it buys, announcing a record trade surplus of almost $1.2 trillion in 2025, which is a source of friction with other industrial powers. It controls supplies of crucial rare minerals. Its technological advances and growing military strength are giving rivals cold sweats. And it is the world’s biggest emitter of climate-warming pollution.
All this means that China will be an elephant in the room at the Monday-to-Wednesday summit in the Alpine spa town of Evian-les-Bains.
As host, French President Emmanuel Macron has carved out time for the leaders to talk about how to rebalance trade with China, amid fears that soaring Chinese exports of cars and other products could wreck G7 industries.
The chemistry between Trump and other G7 leaders has been bad of late — over the Iran war and other bones of contention — but China could be an issue that unites them, said Cédric Dupont, who specializes in international politics at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
“They agree on the same thing, you know: China is a problem,” he said.
Beijing looking on warily
China’s Communist Party-led government has in the past criticized the G7’s exclusiveness and painted it as a relic of the Cold War when the world was more divided along ideological lines.
But in a statement to The Associated Press ahead of the Evian gathering, the Chinese Foreign Ministry took a more nuanced view, saying “the G7 should serve as a catalyst for solidarity and cooperation rather than an amplifier of division and confrontation.”
Beijing-based analyst Wang Zichen says that “Beijing is wary of the G7 because it sees the group as structurally aligned with U.S.-led Western power, and increasingly as a venue where China is discussed as a challenge or threat.”
But Chinese leaders cannot ignore it.
“China recognizes that the G7 still represents a very significant concentration of economic, technological, military and financial power,” said Wang.
China seen as a threat to G7 cohesion
Analysts say that admitting China into the club could wreck its cohesion, not only because Beijing’s authoritarian system of government, interests and its positions on Russia, Iran and other major issues don’t align with those of G7 democracies but also because its presence could test their long-standing alliances.
“China inside would indeed be a Trojan horse,” said Kirton. With a Chinese leader at the table, “individual members might be tempted to break G7 ranks to secure special favors from him on the economic, critical minerals, digital technology and other issues they address.”
Chris Alden, an international relations expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said that adding China “would make it very difficult for it to function.”
Russia’s example is also a barrier to China
The G7’s last expansion — accepting Russia as a member in 1998 — didn’t end well.
The club froze out Russian President Vladimir Putin when he seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, foreshadowing the full-scale war now raging since 2022.
Trump said last year that excluding Russia “was a very big mistake.”
But Kirton said the experience convinced other leaders “that they should never take a chance on a less than fully democratic power becoming a full member of their fully democratic club again.”
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Associated Press writers Ken Moritsugu and E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.
Iran and the United States reached a deal Sunday aimed at ending the Middle East war, according to President Donald Trump and Tehran’s deputy foreign minister, marking a major breakthrough after months of conflict and on-again, off-again negotiations.
The statements from Trump and Tehran raised hopes for an end to fighting that has left more than 7,500 dead, most of them in Lebanon and Iran, and rocked the global oil market.
“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” Trump announced on Truth Social. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
Oil prices fell in the hours following the announcement, with U.S. crude oil tumbling nearly 5%. Stock futures rose and Asian-Pacific stock markets traded higher Monday morning as investors appeared hopeful for a long-term peace deal.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi confirmed on Iranian state media that a deal had been reached and would be signed Friday in Switzerland. He said Iran’s agreement came after 14 hours of talks with mediators from Qatar.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has also worked as a mediator, announced on social media that “both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” where Israel has been battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
“With the agreement now in place, mediators will facilitate a series of meetings this week,” Sharif said. “These pre-implementation discussions will lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony.”
The announcement comes after weeks of intensive negotiations mediated by regional partners after both sides had signaled in recent days that an agreement was close.
The memorandum is not a final peace treaty. Instead, it outlines commitments by both sides as negotiators work toward a broader agreement, establishing a framework for a 60-day negotiating period. That window is meant for U.S. and Iranian officials to resolve outstanding disputes and negotiate a more comprehensive agreement.
A senior administration official told reporters on a background call Friday that the framework includes commitments related to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.
The proposed agreement, the senior administration official said, also calls for the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, with highly enriched nuclear material to be destroyed on-site by the U.S. and a guarantee of “long-term peace in the region.”
A senior Iranian officialhowever, told Reuters that the U.S. had agreed to allow Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium on Iranian soil under a final deal.
“I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said as news of the deal emerged Sunday.
The senior Trump administration official said the agreement would include Israel and Iran’s terror proxies — a notable element given that renewed attacks between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon on Sunday threatened to derail the deal entirely.
The war began Feb. 28 with joint U.S. and Israeli airstrikes that killed hundreds, including Iran’s longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump and others in his administration repeatedly promised it would be over in weeks and that deals to pause the fighting were imminent, only to walk back those statements.
Early in the fighting, dozens of children died when an airstrike destroyed a school. Despite reports from within the U.S. intelligence community that American forces were likely responsible, and that faulty intelligence may have played a part, the Pentagon has yet to acknowledge that, saying only that it was under investigation.
As combat wore on, Iran repeatedly fired missiles and drones at U.S. allies in the region and attacked ships trying to transit the Straight of Hormuz. Israel bombarded Beirut and other areas and sent ground troops into southern Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah leadership.
As gas prices in the U.S. soared, Trump’s approval ratings plummeted, piling tension on his relationship with congressional Republicans, especially those up for re-election.
Expectations for a deal had risen in recent days as officials from the U.S. and Pakistan, which has been acting as a mediator, indicated that progress was being made behind the scenes.
Though the deal is set to be signed next Friday, Trump said over the weekend that he expected a deal would be signed Sunday, which he first declared on social media a day earlier. He also shared a post from Sharif — who has played a key mediating role — announcing that an agreement was expected to be finalized “in the next 24 hours.”
Iranian officials poured cold water on the expected deal up until the last minute. Citing state media, Reuters reported Saturday that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei denied that the memorandum of understanding would be signed Sunday, which also happened to be Trump’s 80th birthday.
“We will have to wait and see about the exact date of the signing of the memorandum of understanding, although it will not be tomorrow,” Baqaei said, according to Reuters.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.
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