Into the blue: Democrats win big
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.6 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the first electoral test of Donald Trump’s second term, Democrat supporters voted in a socialist mayor of New York and governors to New York and Virginia. What does this mean for next year’s midterms? Democracy in Turkey is being eviscerated. And the world may be becoming less grumpy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm Jason Palmer. |
| 0:14.6 | And I'm Rosie Bloor. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:24.2 | In the Autocrats' Playbook, one of the most common plays is stifling the opposition. |
| 0:29.8 | That's been going on for a while in Turkey, but it hasn't all gone smoothly. |
| 0:34.5 | We ask how far President Erdogan is willing to go to hobble his would-be challengers. |
| 0:41.2 | And apparently a lot of us are pretty grumpy. Polls suggest that we've been getting |
| 0:45.9 | angrier and sadder by the year. But a global emotion survey, yes, these things really do exist, |
| 0:52.2 | now point to the possibility that we're feeling just a tiny bit sunnier. |
| 1:01.7 | First up, though. |
| 1:10.1 | It was a big night for the Democrats. |
| 1:12.6 | We are breathing in the air of a city that has been reborn. |
| 1:18.9 | Years from now, may our only regret be that this day took so long to come. |
| 1:28.4 | New Yorkers turned out at the highest rate in nearly six decades |
| 1:32.2 | to elect Zoramam Darni, a 34-year-old Democrat socialist as mayor. |
| 1:38.1 | My fellow Virginians... |
| 1:43.7 | This was a tough fight, and this is a tough state, but I know you, New Jersey. |
| 1:50.1 | And I love you. |
| 1:51.6 | The party also got their governors into New Jersey and Virginia. |
| 1:56.0 | And a ballot initiative passed in California will allow Democrats there to redraw congressional districts in their favor. |
| 2:03.4 | Less than a year into Trump's second term, what do these elections tell us about the mood in America today? |
| 2:10.5 | It was the first electoral test of the second Donald Trump era. |
| 2:16.7 | John Priddo is the economist's US editor. |
... |
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