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Election Day 2025 was a sweeping victory for Democrats, with major wins in two gubernatorial races and the New York City mayoral contest, along with California voters approving a ballot measure to redraw congressional districts, which could give Democrats an advantage in the House of Representatives starting in 2026. It could also be a learning experience for business owners. While political experts will be sifting through the results for days, trying to discern what this means for next year’s midterm elections and the overall state of the Democratic and Republican parties, there are also lessons to be found for entrepreneurs. Affordability is everything The economy was the driving force of the 2025 election. Exit polls found that in the New York City mayor race, both the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ races and the Proposition 50 battle in California, voters cited the economy as the most important issue. That likely doesn’t come as a shock to business owners. Plenty of holiday sales predictions have underlined it as well. (Deloitte, for example, forecasts U.S. consumers will spend 10% less than they did in 2024.) There’s a fine line between maintaining your company’s profitability and offering your customers a deal, but the electorate’s laser focus on their own financial situation underscores just how critical it is to thread that needle. It’s time to learn more about Democratic Socialism Despite opposition from big business and billionaires, Zohran Mamdani easily won the mayoral race in New York City, getting the most votes of any candidate since the 1960s. Mamdani is a democratic socialist, who made campaign promises that included free child care, free buses, and a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments. Featured Video An Inc.com Featured Presentation Bernie Sanders has been the face of democratic socialism until now, helping raise awareness of the party, but democratic socialists are still a small fraction of the overall voter population. As Tuesday showed, though, interest is growing fast. Voters are growing disenfranchised with their parties and looking for alternatives. Mamdani has emphasized more regulatory breaks for small businesses and fewer breaks for corporations, which could help him win over an even larger base. Small businesses that can figure out how to communicate with and interact with that audience could find a loyal customer base. As Mamdani demonstrated, the political movement isn’t afraid to do battle with corporate entities. There’s power in the youth market Mamdani’s victory was fueled by the youth vote. Two-thirds of people under the age of 45 supported his campaign, according to exit polls. Young voters were also driven to the polls in California to vote on Prop 50. It was, in many ways, the first election where Generation Z had a major influence on results. Smart business owners have had Gen Z on their radar for a while. The group makes up nearly one-fifth of the workforce and is expected to have a spending power of $12 trillion by 2030. The 2025 election underlines that they’re a market that needs to be taken seriously. While traditional polls didn’t blow it quite as bad as they did in the 2024 elections, several made some of the high-level races seem a lot closer than they turned out to be when voting ended. Prediction markets, however, didn’t miss. That will almost certainly boost their reputation as political predictors, but business owners who study them could also get advance looks at evolving trends and coming waves. That could give them time to adapt and be ready to ride new waves in everything from tech to culture to the economy over the months and years to come. Sometimes you have to throw out the playbook Even with Tuesday’s victories, the Democratic party is still in the midst of an identity crisis. Mamdani’s victory could signal a change in how voters want to approach things. And California governor Gavin Newsom’s win on Prop 50 came after weeks of social media posts meant to mock Trump’s style. Whether these approaches will work on a more national level remains to be seen, but both were different than what voters were used to seeing. Both politicians saw that the status quo wasn’t working and gambled on something new, a lesson that business owners can learn from. Just because you create a new playbook, it doesn’t mean you have to completely do away with what has worked before, however. New Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill took a more centrist approach in their campaigns and still scored victories.
