India, Nov. 9 -- Tuesday was a stunning night for the Democrats in America. Their candidates swept key elections across the country, delivering a rebuke to Donald Trump's second term so far and boosting the party's hopes ahead of the midterms next year. Republican leaders were shocked. "A disaster", said the Republican Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. "It was a shellacking", said Thomas Massic, the Representative from Kentucky. The Democrats tried to make the election a referendum on Trump and they clearly succeeded, winning in New Jersey and California, while sweeping the board in Virginia, traditionally a bell-weather state in the year after a presidential election.

But the most stunning victory of all went to New York's Zohran Mamdani, a...