Opinion: After the Trump comeback, looking ahead to 2025

“It's tough to make predictions – especially about the future.”

– Yogi Berra

For those Democrats looking for a silver lining in last week’s election results, here’s the best news I can offer: There won’t be another Jan. 6 insurrection in 2025 and there will be a peaceful transition of power in Washington, D.C.

Once again, the pendulum of American presidential and congressional politics has swung back to the red column. Since the 1940s, neither political party has had more than three consecutive terms in power and there have been very few phases where one party controlled all three branches of government.

We are about to enter one of those rare periods and everyone is bracing for dramatic change and disruption. That is what more than 74 million Americans voted for and they are about to get their wishes fulfilled.

But in less than two years, the whole equation can change if Democrats can flip either the House or Senate. This would slow down the Trump administration’s free hand in making fast-paced change and cementing policies unpopular with liberals.

What impact will all this have on New York? It looks like the Trump victory will accelerate certain public policies and infrastructure projects, alter the winds of mayoral politics in New York City – at least in the short term – and generally give Republicans hope that the Empire State is getting redder than it’s been in years.

Congestion pricing, the political football that was punted down the field till after the election by Gov. Kathy Hochul, looks like it’s back in play and should be implemented in the next few months – albeit in a revised form that’ll lead to 40% less revenue than originally planned. Hochul seems to be racing against the presidential inauguration clock so that the new Trump administration won’t kill this vital transportation project.

If the $1 billion annual projection from congestion pricing goes down to approximately $600 million because the toll pricing is slashed (from $15 to $9 per ride), then the governor and the MTA will need to find revenue to make up that shortfall.

Will that be beefed up fare enforcement on subways and buses (where almost 50% of riders neglect to pay, according to recent studies)? Will the state implement higher fines for those serial fare beaters who are caught skirting the law?

Or will the state work with the city to monetize free parking spots and/or work on residential parking permit programs, two other potential revenue generators to close the funding gap? Maybe sell naming rights to subway stations and bus stops (“Next Stop…Google 14th Street”)?

Another domino that might fall because of Trump’s victory: the long-awaited overhaul of the eyesore that is called Penn Station. Reports of Hochul’s first phone call with the president-elect indicate that they found common ground on moving ahead with the Penn Station makeover. Trump, although now a Florida resident, is a native New Yorker and he must still want to improve some of the once grand structures in his hometown. Federal funding would sure help accelerate that long-overdue overhaul.

On the mayoral front, Eric Adams may have been thrown a lifeline with Trump’s resounding victory. Like his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, Adams has been in the crosshairs of the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District (now Damian Williams, was Preet Bharara back in 2017). But Trump fired Preet seven years ago and it’s likely Williams will be replaced before Adams’ scheduled trial in April 2025. Does his successor drop the case (like Joon Kim declined to prosecute de Blasio after Preet's exit), especially since it’s scheduled just two months before the Democratic primary?

Trump seemed pretty sympathetic and chummy towards the mayor at the Al Smith dinner last month. It is likely that Trump instructs the new U.S. attorney to stop the “lawfare” directed at Adams and he survives to fill out his term by the end of 2025.

But, but, but…even Trump (especially Trump?!) can’t help the mayor’s sub-basement approval ratings with New York voters. The ever growing field of mayoral challengers will likely grow in the next two months – with a certain former governor looming over everything.

Andrew Cuomo is likely watching Trump’s Phoenix-like political resurrection and salivating at a chance to return to power on Jan. 1, 2026 by taking the oath of office for mayor of the largest city in America.

Can Cuomo win? I wrote about this a few months ago (“What will Andrew Cuomo do next?”) and since then Cuomo’s chances have likely improved a bit. Many of the mayor’s top administration officials have fled the burning building, the public’s dim views of his performance and ethics have calcified, and the field of left-leaning mayoral challengers has ballooned – in an environment where voters in the five boroughs voted in much greater numbers, than in the past, for the Red team in last week’s election.

Moderates like Cuomo and former City Comptroller Scott Stringer would seem to benefit from the voter backlash against progressive Democrats locally and nationally. And now there’s a new outsider candidate, an attorney named Jim Walden, in the Democratic primary mix, along with a far-left Democratic socialist, Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani.

State GOP Chair Ed Cox and billionaire supermarket magnate-radio station mogul John Catsimatidis sense an opening for a moderate Republican in 2025 and although it’s still a longshot for a Republican to win the mayoralty, we are only 12 years removed from a two-decade run of Republican mayors ruling the city (Giuliani 1993-2001; Bloomberg 2002-2014).

So, the crystal ball is still reverberating from last week’s political earthquake but some likely trends are coming into view. Predictions, like the pixels they’re written on, are ephemeral and fluid, but that’s the view from here, just seven days after the MAGA comeback caused millions of Democrats throughout the country to wake up with PTSD from an election shock that began just eight short years ago.

Enjoy the holiday season, buckle your seatbelts and renew your Washington Post subscription (but buy less from Amazon!) – the circus is coming back to D.C. and the view from the Big Apple is slowly coming into focus.