The election Tuesday of the charismatic socialist Zoran Mamdani as mayor of New York sucked up a lot of media oxygen. Most pundits and editors live there and always exaggerate its importance. But when it comes to political foretelling, New York is merely the capital of New York.

Gotham City is its own peculiar beast with particular problems of affordability and Mamdani had singularly weak opposition. Mamdani is not taking over the world. The more telling, if less exciting, results happened elsewhere.

Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey both won their elections for governor by comfortable margins. Neither are anything like Mamdani.

Spanberger is a former intelligence officer with an MBA. Back in 2020, assessing surprisingly poor results for Democrats in a number of House races and declaring them an abject failure, she said: “We have to commit to not saying the words ‘defund the police’ ever again. We have to not use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again.”

Progressives like Rep. Rashida Tlaib did not like what Spanberger had to say, but the voters in Virginia clearly did.

Spanberger won by 13 points and in her victory speech Tuesday night she said, “We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship.”

Most winners of elections don’t declare themselves the beneficiaries of pragmatism, preferring personally congratulatory rhetoric, but Spanberger did. And she’s right about what propelled her to victory. Enough with the chaotic overreach, voters declared. Spanberger saw that clearly. Time at the CIA focuses a person on the realities on the ground.

Spanberger went on to call for members of Congress from both parties and President Donald Trump to work together to end the monthlong federal government shutdown, as well they should. Good for her.

Sherrill, for her part, is a former naval officer from a storied military family. She won in New Jersey by 14 points. In her victory speech, she cited New Jersey being one of the first states to choose a motto, nearly 250 years ago: “Liberty and Prosperity.” When she asked the audience at her campaign headquarters what that motto was, nobody seemed to know, causing her to call for better civics education. But she stayed with its theme.

“It was a demand for freedom from oppression and a commitment to creating better opportunity and a brighter future,” she reminded her supporters after lightly upbraiding them. “Both liberty and prosperity,” she said, embracing what once were core Republican Party values, “are essential to democracy.” Trump, she said, was backing away from these ideals. It’s clear from Tuesday’s results that many voters in New Jersey agreed with her.

Obviously, successful candidacies don’t alleviate the challenges of governing that can reveal hidden truths and sometimes ruin reputations. We also acknowledge that it’s unsurprising that blue states voted for Democratic governors — then-Vice President Kamala Harris won Virginia and New Jersey in 2024. But based on what happened and what was said Tuesday, both Sherrill and Spanberger appear to us to to be far superior candidates than was Harris. Keep your eye on their names.

We’ve said from the start that the only effective way for moderate Democrats and Republicans to defeat the extremes of both parties is at the ballot box. Tuesday, there was a two-pronged reason to believe that Americans have had enough of Trumpian chaos and his waging of war on American cities. Both winning candidates defeated opponents who aligned with the president.

We hope this is a sign that not just candidates, but winners are plowing a better, centrist way. In so doing, there was a clear message sent to moderate Republicans that their own longevity will require more separation from the current occupant of the White House. As we write, even the Supreme Court is appearing unimpressed with Trump’s shaky justification for his beloved tariffs.

The other lesson from Tuesday for Republicans was a clear warning sign.

To the chagrin of his opponents, Trump won his election by doing far better than expected among Black and Latino voters. Tuesday night, polls showed that Democratic support among Latino voters grew by 9 points in New Jersey and by 5 points in Virginia. You do not need to be a pollster to figure out why. Most Latino citizens wanted a secure border and the deportation of criminals but now do not approve of the brutality of Trump’s immigration enforcement. Black voters made a smaller but still notable shift back to their traditional Democratic home.

By any standards, this was a bad night for the GOP. Smart Republicans will start looking for reasonable, professional, normal candidates like Spanberger and Sherrill. They could say much the same things and stay within the traditional Republican penumbra. Democrats, of course, need to find more of the same.

So instead of salivating over the possibilities of a socialist mayor wreaking havoc on New York City, maybe GOP strategists should turn their heads south, where there are warning signs that blind Trumpian loyalty is approaching its expiration date.

___

©2025 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.