Experts have informed SBS News that while his rising popularity might provide a boost for the Democrats in the polls, significant efforts are needed to improve their national image.

“I doubt the election of a mayor in Sydney would garner such global attention,” one expert remarked.

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“He spoke to those issues and made that the central point of his campaign.”

“They wanted somebody who was seen as an outsider, somebody who didn’t have any elongated political past. They wanted somebody who spoke about change and brought about something different,” she said.

Democrats win in other states

Both candidates had sought to tie their opponents to Trump in an effort to harness frustration among Democratic and independent voters over his chaotic tenure.

Perhaps the biggest practical boost to Democrats on Tuesday came out of California, where voters gave Democratic politicians the power to redraw the state’s congressional map, expanding a national battle over redistricting that will shape the race for the US House of Representatives.

Donald Trump reacts to Mamdani win

In a post on his Truth Social network, he cited anonymous “pollsters” suggesting the Republican defeats were due to the government shutdown and the fact that his own name wasn’t on the ballots.

“We need to focus on the home front,” he wrote on X. “We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond.”

Democrats seen as ‘out of touch’

“You’ve got the problem for the Democrats as a whole of trying to knit together a message for the midterms next year, where they have to appeal to constituencies across America,” he said.

“Right now, far too many Americans are feeling as though this country has left them behind.”