Donald Trump’s strength in solid blue states was one of the most surprising stories of the election.

Trump came within about 5 percentage points of winning New Jersey — a state that hasn’t supported a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, according to unofficial results obtained by The Associated Press.

In New York, which President Joe Biden won by 23 percentage points in 2020, Trump trailed Vice President Kamala Harris by about 12 percentage points.

Trump trailed Harris in Virginia by about 5 percentage points, according to unofficial results. That’s a marked improvement over his 2020 performance, when he lost the Commonwealth to Biden by a margin twice as large.

The outcome was similar in New Mexico, where Trump was on track to lose by less than 6 percentage points, according to unofficial results. In 2020, he lost New Mexico by more than 10 percentage points.

The 2024 Democratic ticket even underperformed compared to Biden in Minnesota, home of the party’s vice presidential candidate, Gov. Tim Walz, and in Harris’ own political base, California.

Trump is still unlikely to win any of these solidly blue states, many of which have not supported any Republican Party presidential candidate since they backed George HW Bush nearly three decades ago.

But with so much attention focused on the Electoral College swing states — the crucial “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, the southern battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgia, and Arizona and Nevada in the Southwest — Trump remains under the radar performance in presidential non-battleground states contributed to his popular vote lead.

Alarms are going off

And his unexpectedly strong showing in Democratic strongholds has raised Republicans’ hopes in the blue state — and raised alarms for Democrats.

“New York is a blue state, but it’s not a progressive blue, it’s not a woke blue, it’s working-class blue, working-class blue,” David Laska, spokesman for the New York State Republican Party, said in an interview Wednesday. . “And these are voters who care about inflation, the economy, who in some cases have to live paycheck to paycheck, and their paychecks can’t buy as much as they used to.”

Laska said the results could signal a larger political realignment focused on economic issues that cut across racial, ethnic and gender lines. Trump was able to portray himself as an agent of change who would disrupt the status quo, a powerful message in blue states where Democrats hold most of the political power.

“There is no doubt that President Trump has realigned working-class voters toward the Republican Party. You also see huge numbers for Hispanics,” Laska said. “Because if you care about hard work, the American dream and the rule of law, then you are now a Republican.”

In the final days of the campaign, Trump’s campaign trips took him to several states considered solidly Democratic; he held rallies in Southern California, New York City, New Mexico and southwestern Virginia.

“I am here today (in) this incredible Commonwealth for one very simple reason: because I believe we can win Virginia, and that would be incredible,” Trump said during a swing through Salem, Virginia.

Democrats point out that no place is a monolith and that several of the country’s most Democratic states, such as Vermont and Massachusetts, have had popular Republican governors.

But in the Trump era, the shift to the right has accelerated. The New York Times reports that Harris won New York City by a 37-point margin, a steep drop from Biden’s 53-point margin of victory. In 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by nearly 63 points in the city.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, where Harris defeated Trump 2-to-1 in one of her largest margins of victory, is putting the blame for Tuesday’s loss on the Democratic Party.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party that has failed the working class finds that the working class has failed them,” Sanders said in a statement. “First it was the white working class, and now it’s also Latino and black workers. While Democratic leaders defend the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they are right.”

But Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, suggested that the party’s progressive wing has alienated working-class voters by embracing “absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’ ” Torres wrote of

The strategy gave Trump advantages in places where he wasn’t expected to be competitive, said Bob Hugin, chairman of the New Jersey Republican Party.

“The Democrats have left the bottom of the labor spectrum. They are the party of the elitists,” Hugin said. “The party realignment is accelerating, and President Trump is helping to accelerate that realignment,” especially among union workers.

And yet. . .

Trump’s stronger-than-expected numbers in blue states likely provided a boost for some candidates moving down, but it wasn’t enough to move them all up. For example, despite Trump’s improved performance in New York, Democrats were still able to flip at least two of the state’s Republican House seats, those of Brandon Williams and Marc Molinaro, according to the AP, calling they emerged victorious in a third. race against Anthony D’Esposito, although that race had not yet been called by the AP at the time of writing.

In Virginia’s open 7th District, Democrat Eugene Vindman, a lawyer, Ukrainian refugee and Army veteran who – along with his twin brother Alexander – was a whistleblower in Trump’s first impeachment trial, claimed victory over fellow Army veteran Derrick Anderson on Tuesday at 11 p.m. The Associated Press had yet to call the race at the time of writing.

Shortly after Vindman gave his speech Tuesday night, Anderson warned against claiming victory. “More than ten thousand votes – including Election Day voting, early voting and mail-in voting – have yet to be reported,” he wrote on X. “This race and its voters deserve more time.”

Democrat Abigail Spanberger flipped the seat from the Republican Party in 2018, but she is leaving Congress to run for governor. The race between Vindman and Anderson was hard-fought and expensive, with Vindman raising over $6.5 million while Anderson raised over $1.1 million.

And in New Jersey, Republicans were unable to flip Democratic seats or prevent Sen.-elect Andy Kim from cruising to an easy victory to fill the open seat vacated by former Sen. Bob Menendez.