Democrats HAVE Trump to Thank for the 2025 Elections….

There are his explicit actions: The DOGE layoffs and government shutdown reductions-in-force hit federal worker-heavy Virginia hard, and then he “terminated” funding for the Gateway Tunnel construction between New Jersey and New York. Both handed ad scripts that write themselves to the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls.

Yet the more fundamental challenge Trump presents is that his expectation of unwavering fealty denies blue-state Republicans the opening they need to establish independence that’s crucial to success in states where he’s unpopular. Particularly in governor’s races, and particularly when your party is in the White House, Republicans running in blue states and Democrats competing in red states must take steps to appeal to independents and voters in the other party by separating themselves from the national brand, at least symbolically.

Nonetheless, Virginia’s Winsome Earle-Sears and New Jersey’s Jack Ciattarelli have embraced Trump in states he’s never won in three consecutive presidential elections. On its face, such a posture is confounding. But the two Republicans, as with every GOP candidate in this era, fear the president. It’s what Trump has wrought: To even gingerly step away from him is to risk a thunderbolt from the White House that would drive days of news and risk depressing a MAGA base that’s hard enough to turn out when the president isn’t on the ballot.

The idea that a candidate could criticize Trump and not face blowback is unthinkable. He’s not the sort who’d respond well to an aspiring governor privately telling him: “You know, Mr. President, I may have to ding you a little bit to get through this race. You won’t mind, will ya?”

So GOP hopefuls, no matter their state or district, are handcuffed to an unpopular president and act as though their primary never ended or they’re all running in Alabama.

It’s how Ciattarelli is made to stand up at a debate and, when asked what grade he’d give the president, awards him with an “A.” And it’s why Earle-Sears, running in a state in which the federal workforce is akin to the auto industry in Michigan, can never offer a word of criticism about her own voters being forced out of their jobs.

It will likely ensure defeat. The engaged, high-end voters who dominate the two states would be able to sniff it out, even if the Democratic hopefuls — Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill — weren’t spending millions on TV ads reinforcing the message that their opponents won’t stand up to Trump….

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