Democrats aim to keep their 2025 election momentum going: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Ben Kamisar previews tonight’s mayoral election in Miami. Plus, Steve Kornacki breaks down a new poll that has some warning signs for Republicans about their standing with young voters.

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— Adam Wollner

Miami has had Republican mayors for decades, but the office is up for grabs tonight

By Ben Kamisar

Voters in Miami are choosing their next mayor today as Democrats make their latest push to flip a Republican-held office.

The city hasn’t had a Democratic mayor since the late 1990s, and dramatic shifts among Hispanic voters, particularly in South Florida, have melted away Democrats’ edge in recent elections.

But Kamala Harris narrowly carried the city of Miami in the 2024 presidential race while losing Miami-Dade County. That means a Democratic flip is well within reach for former County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, who is running against Republican Emilio T. González, a businessman and former city manager endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Both candidates have pitched themselves as clean breaks from past city politics and promise to address affordability issues, which looms especially large in South Florida, as it has done across the country.

While the candidates’ solutions to those problems may be local, the race has been swept up into a national fight, as both parties jockey for political momentum ahead of next year’s midterm elections. In Miami, that means a technically nonpartisan election with clear partisan trappings.

Higgins and González advanced to a runoff after a blanket primary in November after no candidate won at least 50% of the vote. Higgins finished atop the 13-candidate field with 36% of the vote to González’s 19%, and the top two Democratic candidates combined for a majority of the vote.

Democrats come into today’s election energized by their relative overperformance in high-profile elections this year. That’s why the national party is jumping in to lend a hand, alongside a parade of Democratic politicians from across the country, including Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

But Republicans are fighting to keep their grip on the mayorship, which they’ve held since 2009 (an independent was mayor from 2001 to 2009). In addition to Trump, prominent Florida Republicans like Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. María Elvira Salazar have sought to boost González.

Read more from Ben before polls close at 7 p.m. ET →

After making inroads in 2024, Trump’s standing has slipped with young voters

Analysis by Steve Kornacki

President Donald Trump’s standing has ebbed over the course of 2025 with all voters — including a group that he made significant strides with last year.

The new Yale Youth Poll finds that about two-thirds of voters under 35 years old now disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

Young voters have long been a Democratic-friendly group, but in the 2024 election they shifted to the right, with 42% of those under 30 backing Trump, according to an average of the exit polls and several major post-election studies. Kamala Harris won 56% of these voters. That 14-point gap was down from the 26-point advantage that Joe Biden enjoyed over Trump in 2020 among those under 30. The new Yale data suggests that those gains have been largely wiped out this year.

The poll also measured the generic congressional ballot for 2026.

The deficits that Republicans face with these under-35 subgroups — between 15 and 20 points — are not massive. But the problem for the GOP is that its generic ballot support is running almost perfectly parallel to Trump’s approval rating. That could present a ceiling for Republicans as the voters who are currently undecided make up their minds.

While these new numbers represent a clear drop for Trump and his party, the silver lining for the GOP is that its standing with young voters is still better than it was during Trump’s first term. In the 2018 midterms, Republicans were crushed among voters under 30 by 49 points, 72% to 23%. That election produced a blue wave, with Democrats flipping 40 House seats and winning back the chamber.

At least for now, Trump and the GOP aren’t in that territory with young voters.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

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