[CliffFletcher]

A reminder that persuasion and appealing to swing voters is still important in politics. As polarized as the U.S. is, the electorate aren’t all committed Dem vs Reps partisans.

In the Trump era, Democrats have seemed to excel among the highly engaged, highly educated voters who predominate in low-turnout, off-year elections, only to struggle when more irregular and less educated voters flock to the polls in presidential years.

But on Tuesday, when Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races by wide margins, it wasn’t simply because more Democratic-leaning voters showed up to the polls while more Republican-leaning voters sat out. The Democratic candidates also succeeded at winning over a modest but meaningful sliver of President Trump’s supporters, based on exit polls and authoritative voter file records.

… the two Democrats won so decisively because they also flipped a crucial sliver of voters who said they supported Mr. Trump in 2024. Ms. Sherrill and Ms. Spanberger both won 7 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters, according to the exit polls.

It may not seem like much to flip 7 percent of Mr. Trump’s backers, but consider: When a voter flips, it adds one voter to one party and also deducts one from the other, making it twice as significant as turning out a new voter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...hispanics.html