The Republican Party has had better days.

In Tuesday’s off-year elections, the GOP lost every major race by a mile. Democratic candidates won the Virginia governor’s race by around 15 points, the New Jersey gubernatorial election by 13, and Georgia’s statewide public commissioner elections by more than 25 points. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Supreme Court justices retained their seats in a landslide.

All these results represent huge improvements on the Democratic Party’s showing just one year ago. Kamala Harris won Virginia and New Jersey by just 6 points, while losing Pennsylvania and Georgia by about 2.

Polls had anticipated Democratic victories in Tuesday’s major gubernatorial races. But they drastically underestimated the scale of the Democrats’ success. The party appears to have both engineered exceptionally high turnout among its base for off-year elections — and won a significant number of swing voters. Indeed, Tuesday’s blue tide rose high enough to lift even the Democrats’ leakiest boats: In Virginia, Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones managed to secure a comfortable victory, despite having wished for the death of Republican children in leaked text messages.

Tuesday’s results will directly undermine the Republican Party’s broader political project in various ways. For example, Virginia Democrats are now likely to draw a new congressional map that’s less favorable to GOP candidates.

But to many Republicans, this year’s elections are most alarming for what they may tell us about their........

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