Democrats and President Donald Trump agree — last week’s elections were not good for Republicans.

Unpacking what it means in the battle between progressive and moderate Democrats, especially here in Maine, is more complicated.

Moderates won statewide races in New Jersey and Virginia. A democratic socialist was elected mayor of New York City. And voters approved a redistricting proposal in California in response to Republican efforts to gain seats through gerrymandering in Texas and elsewhere.

Here in Maine, voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to adopt a Republican proposal for Voter ID and additional restrictions to absentee voting, while also approving a gun safety measure with more than 60% of the vote.

As attention turns to 2026 races, political parties and pundits are pondering what it all means for Maine’s most consequential election cycle in recent history, beginning with the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate that pits an upstart progressive against an experienced two-term governor.

But the results last Tuesday did little to settle the internal dispute in the party between progressives and moderates — a dynamic that will play out in Maine’s senate primary between Gov. Janet Mills and Graham Platner.

All of it comes with a big caveat, too. The marquee matchup between Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and whoever wins the Democratic primary is still a year away. A lot can happen in that time.

“(The election) couldn’t be summed up as anything other than a great day for Democrats,” said Mark Brewer, chair of political science at the University of Maine. “And it wasn’t a great day for any particular kind of Democrat. It was a great day for all kinds of Democrats.”

Progressives are pointing to Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist state representative who won a three-way race to become New York City’s mayor. Mamdani, a 2014 Bowdoin College graduate, triumphed over Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani and then ran as an independent.

Signs also point to Democrats being less inclined to hold candidates to purity tests as they have in the past. Voters in Virginia, for example, elected Jay Jones as the state’s attorney general, despite text messages he sent three years fantasizing about killing Republican opponents.

That could help Platner’s campaign, which has been shaken by a series of old racist, sexist and homophobic Reddit posts and a tattoo of Nazi imagery that has since been covered.

Platner has said those posts were made when he was struggling from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and don’t represent him or his political views. The former Marine also says he didn’t know his tattoo, which he got in 2007 while drunk on leave in Croatia, was a Nazi symbol until recently.

Moderates have a case to make as well, beginning in Virginia. Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected governor with 57% support — a larger margin than Jones, who got 52%. And in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, another moderate, was elected governor with 56% of the vote.

Mills celebrated those results by posting a photo of herself with Sherrill and Spanberger, congratulating “my good friends.”

The most surprising result in Maine last week was the overwhelming approval of a red flag law, which allows family and household members to petition a court to remove firearms access to people who are a threat.

In the past, voters have rejected gun safety measures and Question 2 was opposed by Mills, law enforcement and sportsmen. But it didn’t matter. The measure was approved with 63% support.

Jordan Wood, a 36-year-old Bristol resident who is running as a progressive in the U.S. Senate race, endorsed Question 2. The passage of Question 2 over Mills’ objection shows that “the governor was out of step with her electorate.”

Reading the national results, Wood believes voters were leaning toward younger candidates, though he conceded “Democratic voters are energized, engaged and showing up, and all of this, in spite of their anger at the Democratic Party.”

Neither Mills’ nor Platner’s campaigns responded to interview requests.

While the election may offer little guidance for the party’s identity crisis, Dan Shea, a political scientist at Colby College, said that exit polling shows major weaknesses for Republicans.

Shea said Trump voters proved they don’t show up unless his name is on the ballot and Democrats flipped voters who previously supported Trump.

That spells trouble for 72-year-old Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the only Republican running in a state won by Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris last year and who’s suffering from low approval ratings, Shea said. Collins’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

“Even though she’s been a little bit of a thorn on Trump’s side, she’s still part of the team,” Shea said. “She’s going to do the best she can to get out from under there, but there is some degree of guilt by association.”

Democrats thought they had Collins on the ropes in 2020 only to watch her win by 9 points over former state House Speaker Sara Gideon. But Trump was also on the ticket, boosting turnout of conservative voters that Shea said helped Collins, along with split-ticket voters.

Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2026 either.

“They’ve got to be really worried,” Shea said.