Inside Tuesday's blowout: Democrats' breakthroughs

Democrats' surprising victory margins Tuesday were fueled by dramatic gains among people who've drifted to the GOP in recent years — particularly Black, Latino and young voters, exit polls showed.Also jumping out of the results: In winning the races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill not only won a solid majority of women voters, they were backed by nearly half the men who voted in each state, CNN's surveys indicated.Why it matters: The deeper Democrats looked into the numbers Wednesday, the more encouraging it seemed for a party that has been in the wilderness much of the year since President Trump's election.For more than four decades, national and many state elections in the U.S. typically have a shown significant gender gap in voting — often 10 points or more, with men favoring Republicans and women backing Democrats.That two Democratic women running for governor could virtually eliminate that gender gap in their states was a "pleasant surprise" for the party Tuesday, one Democratic strategist told Axios.Zoom in: The Democrats' domination didn't stop there. As New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani rode to office partly by energizing voters 29 and younger, Spanberger and Sherrill won nearly every age demographic in their elections, exit polls showed.In several areas, Trump's immigration policies appeared to cut into gains Republicans have made among Latinos in recent elections.Both Spanberger and Sherrill got more than two-thirds of the Latino vote in their states, CNN's polls showed.In predominantly Hispanic areas of New Jersey, Sherrill soared. She had the best showing of any Democrat in Hudson County, N.J., in more than a decade. "The Great Hispanic Realignment Theory is no longer operable," The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last wrote. "And the polling on Hispanic disapproval of Trump is as real as it gets."Reality check: Republicans spinning the results noted many times that Tuesday's elections were only a small snapshot of the nation's attitudes, and that it can be perilous to read too much into an off-year election.Democrats, though, were quick to point out similar voting patterns in local and state elections across the nation. That included deep red states such as Mississippi, where Democrats gained enough seats to break up the GOP's super majority in State House.Voters in California overwhelmingly approved Gov. Gavin Newsom's redistricting plan that's expected to yield five more U.S. House seats for Democrats.But CNN's exit polls there also hinted at the challenge the party still faces: Nearly half of the voters said they had an unfavorable opinion of Democrats.Go deeper: A big blue wave for Democrats, and two paths forward

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