Donald Trump emerged battered by an election night that was disastrous for his party, after failing to deliver on the promise that secured his second White House term: lowering the cost of living for Americans.Tuesday’s vote was “not expected to be a victory,” Trump told Republican senators a day after elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York handily won by the Democratic opposition.”I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” he added.Steve Bannon, one of the leading architects of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, had foreshadowed the Democratic success: “The warning signs are flashing.””It was a very, very bad night for Donald Trump,” said Robert Rowland, a professor of communication at the University of Kansas.Democratic wins on Tuesday night shared “a common theme: the cost of living,” said Thomas Kahn, a professor of political science at American University in Washington.- Life of a baron -Billionaire Trump, 79, proclaimed Wednesday that the US has “the hottest economy we’ve ever had.”But that sentiment clashes with “the reality that people experience when they go to the grocery store,” Rowland said.Trump has also repeatedly claimed that gas prices are at $2 per gallon ($0.52 per liter), including in a Fox News interview Wednesday, while a tracker by AAA showed the national average at $3.08 — around the same price as a year ago.Polls show Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the cost of living, along with rising concern over the impact of Trump’s global tariff war.Instead of hammering home messages about rising costs and kitchen-table issues, Trump’s gone “completely off script,” Kahn said.Recent gold-and-marble renovations at the White House and an opulent Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate show a US leader out of touch with ordinary citizens, he said.”The American people are suffering…facing these high prices and struggling, they watch Donald Trump live the life of a baron,” Kahn said.Trump also blamed Tuesday’s Republican losses on the federal government shutdown — now the longest ever at 36 days.It has led to hits on social welfare programs, unpaid leave for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and pared back public services.- ‘Kamikaze’ -Far from signaling a willingness to compromise, Trump slammed “kamikaze” Democratic lawmakers and has urged Senate Republicans to force through a budget bill by abandoning a longstanding 60-vote threshold for most legislation.Without the so-called filibuster, Trump and his party would be able to unilaterally pass reforms, including a voter ID law he believes would favor Republicans ahead of next year’s midterm elections.Republican candidates are wary, after seeing voters who supported Trump in 2024 turn to Democratic candidates on Tuesday.Conservatives “have really tied themselves to Trump, but Trump is now underwater,” said Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University.Republicans now face the problem of “how do they uncouple from Trump,” she said. “What these elections showed is that they’re on the wrong side of these issues, according to a lot of voters.”However, Republican candidates are reluctant to directly oppose Trump for fear of being sidelined by more radical candidates, Rowland said.Trump’s comeback abilities are also unparalleled, considering his White House reelection after a criminal conviction and the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.”Anybody in the past who’s ever counted out Donald Trump loses the bet,” Kahn said.His return to power wasn’t solely due to the unwavering support of his base, but because he was able to attract undecided voters concerned about making ends meet.”He can survive anything except bad economic news,” Rowland said.

In a victory speech capping his meteoric rise, New York’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani quoted at length from the famous “Tryst with Destiny” address by independent India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. As he left the stage to a cheering cross-section of the metropolis, the song on the speaker was not one of the many well-worn tunes about New York but the beats from a Bollywood blockbuster, “Dhoom.”Mamdani, winning a mandate with a left-wing agenda focused on making New York more affordable, has made history in many ways — as the first Muslim and first South Asian to lead America’s largest city, and, at 34, its youngest mayor in a century.But Mamdani’s victory is a watershed not just for his identity but how he embraces it — fully.”I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older, I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist and — most damning of all — I refuse to apologize for any of this,” Mamdani told supporters inside a Brooklyn music venue.South Asians constitute one of the fastest-growing communities in the United States, totalling more than five million people, and have made major inroads into politics — notably former vice president Kamala Harris, whose mother was from India.But candidates have handled their identity in sharply different ways. Two once-prominent Indian Americans, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal, both Republican governors of conservative Southern states, took pains to describe how they had become Christians.”The comfort level expressing and embracing outwardly your identity has varied from candidate to candidate over the years,” said Kishan Putta, an elected commissioner in Washington DC who serves on a Democratic Party advisory committee on Asian Americans.Putta, who has followed South Asian candidates for years, also pointed to the victory in Virginia of Ghazala Hashimi as lieutenant governor, noting that the very first line on her website’s online biography is how she was the first Muslim and first South Asian American to serve in the Virginia Senate.”So it’s not just candidates in cities or places with huge South Asian and immigrant communities,” Putta added. “Candidates are getting much more comfortable in talking about their identity.”- ‘Symbolic moment of acceptance’ -For Mamdani, like many South Asians, that identity is not always concise to explain. He was born in Uganda to two prominent Indian-born parents — the academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair, who is Hindu.Mamdani has spoken passionately about Islamophobia following the September 11, 2001 attacks, counts a kebab counter in diverse Jackson Heights as his favorite restaurant and days before the election campaigned car to car at LaGuardia Airport among taxi drivers, who are often South Asian.Mamdani’s openness on his background “certainly is a break from what we have seen in the past,” said Sara Sadhwani, a political scientist at Pomona College who has studied South Asian Americans.”But that very much goes along with Mamdani’s brand of authenticity and embracing difference — fully accepting the nuance of those differences,” she said.”Even if all Indian Americans don’t completely embrace his politics, it is nonetheless a symbolic moment of acceptance of Indian Americans.”- Trump base attacks -President Donald Trump has furiously attacked Mamdani but has earlier courted Indian Americans, making gains in last year’s election in a community that has historically voted Democratic and by some measures has the highest household income in the United States.Trump’s stance is not shared by all his base, with online far-right campaigners in recent months writing hateful comments against Indian Americans.Trump in September yanked up the fee for a visa used by Indian tech workers as part of a broader crackdown on immigration.Vice President JD Vance is married to an Indian American, Usha Vance, but recently raised eyebrows by saying he would be happy if she converts from Hinduism to Christianity. Vance accused critics of anti-Christian bias.Vivek Ramaswamy, the pro-Trump Indian American tech entrepreneur running for governor of Ohio, said one lesson from Tuesday’s losses was: “Cut out the identity politics. It doesn’t suit Republicans.”Dinesh D’Souza, a longtime Republican militant born in India, wrote on X: “A very loud group on the Right said, ‘Indians go home,’ and so many of them did — to the Democratic Party.”