The year of the blue state governors

As the smoke cleared after the 2024 election, it was clear that Democrats were going to be hamstrung in Washington. With Donald Trump as president, and with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, their options were limited. 

The Senate filibuster was pretty much the only tool available, but it couldn’t be used to defeat what was sure to be the parade of fools Trump would name to the cabinet. Government shutdowns were a possibility, but they are a blunt instrument that rarely works to change policy. And when Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, preemptively caved in March and voted to extend funding for the government for six months, kicking the can down the road, it looked like they wouldn’t have the stomach for it anyway. When the issue came up again in the fall, Democrats were shockingly united in holding Trump and the GOP accountable for expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, but a group of eight senators ended up capitulating. All of this has been compounded by the fact that the party’s congressional leadership have more often than not shown themselves to be afraid of a fight.

A year ago, I wrote about the one place Democrats might vest their hopes for real resistance to Trump’s coming onslaught: the big blue states. Our federalist system confers a lot of power to individual states, which has sometimes frustrated liberals and progressives who wanted to, for example, advance civil rights and civil liberties for all Americans. But in the current circumstances, this very system has worked in the party’s favor: Democratic governors hold a lot of institutional power themselves and have served as a counterbalance to Trump’s Washington. 

It had been a while since governors had been on any Democrats’ radar. In the old days, they were considered the most likely of presidential candidates because they had executive experience and were not tainted with having “gone Washington.” But since Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, most attention turned to the Senate; few looked very hard at Democratic governors. And the sad fact was that the party had neglected most state and local offices for some time, leaving Democrats with only 16 governorships by 2018. The bench was very shallow.

But that was then. Today, 24 of the nation’s governors are Democrats — and they are leading the way for the party. As I noted back in 2024, those governors had been planning what they might do if, god forbid, Trump managed to win. It showed the kind of foresight that had been lacking in Washington and offered some hope that there would at least be some institutional pushback. 

Looking back on 2025, they more than delivered on that hope. Time after time, Democratic governors across the country have offered forceful opposition to the parade of Trump’s terrible policies and abuses of power — from ordering the National Guard to American cities (and, in the case of Los Angeles, deploying the Marines), to the GOP’s gerrymandering efforts. 

Now, as we approach the one-year anniversary of his second term, and despite his insistence to the contrary, polling is not being kind to Trump. The most recent averages have him hovering around 40%, with quite a few of the individual surveys showing his approval rating even lower, in the 30s. The only president to hit such low marks at this point in a presidency is Trump himself back in 2017. 

The Republican Congress is faring even worse, with only a 35% approval rating in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. For a party that has full control of the federal government and is fulfilling their agenda at record speed, Trump and his party are certainly unpopular with a majority of Americans.

But that’s nothing compared to congressional Democrats. In the same poll, the party came in at a shocking 18%, a new low. In parsing the numbers, it’s clear that Democrats in Congress rate so much lower than their GOP counterparts because of their own voters. The Democratic rank-and-file are actively hostile to the party as a whole, disillusioned and feeling betrayed by the leadership’s inability — or unwillingness — to successfully challenge Republicans’ acquiescence to Trump’s extreme policies. And yet there’s an important caveat: The Quinnipiac poll also shows that 47% of voters want to see Democrats win control of the House next November compared to 43% for the GOP. 

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For those who are watching Trump and his enablers on Capitol Hill take a wrecking ball to our economy, government and democracy, that four-point spread looks a little too close for comfort. But it’s important to keep in mind that these numbers don’t reflect the astonishing results of 2025’s off-year elections, in which Democrats over-performed by double digits in races at every level — federal, state and local. Democratic voters may tell pollsters they are unhappy with their party, but they’re still showing they will come out in big numbers to vote for them anyway to stop Donald Trump and his MAGA coalition. 

Democratic governors have stepped into the gap. Throughout the year, they have been the voice of the party and it’s made a difference. Voters looking for opposition leadership and optimism have found it in the fighting spirits of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, both of whom took on the administration’s immigration policies that tore apart the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago. With tough rhetoric and skillful use of legal arguments and state government power, Newsom and Pritzker have become national figures that speak for Democratic resistance. 

Others, such as Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Laura Kelly of Kansas, modeled a winning red state Democratic style, focusing on the economic challenges of their constituents. Maine’s Janet Mills, who is now running for the Senate against Republican Susan Collins, became a national figure when she stood up to Donald Trump’s insults in a nationally televised meeting by saying, “See you in court” after he tried to impose his will on her and Mainers. Moments like that have been meaningful to Democrats and Independents who are hungering for leadership to speak for them. 

Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Minnesota’s Tim Walz, Maryland’s Wes Moore and Arizona’s Katie Hobbs are all touting successful administrations while taking the opportunity to slam Washington’s dysfunction. And two of the biggest races in the off-year elections had a lot of pundits and analysts predicting very close results — and they turned out to be Democratic routs. Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill shook up the political establishment with double-digit wins due to their emphasis on economics and willingness to fearlessly take on Republicans. It’s a potent combination. 

Many, if not most, of these Democrats may be setting themselves up for presidential runs in 2028. No one can say they don’t have ambition, and it will be a wide open race. But for the moment they are all providing a desperately needed service for the majority of Americans who are opposed to Trump’s extreme agenda by showing that Democrats still believe in something and are willing to fight for it. 

Democratic governors have been a bright spot in an otherwise dismal year, and their example may have even breathed some life into Democrats on Capitol Hill. Courage is contagious, and the blue state leaders outside the Beltway are showing how it’s done.