A year after the Democrats found themselves out of power and without a leader, the party is standing at a crossroads.
After months of downbeat introspection, three election races this week gave them a much-needed burst of momentum.
In New York, there was the unlikely victory of a 34-year-old democratic socialist as mayor of the nation's biggest city, while it was a former CIA agent who won in Virginia to become the state's first female governor.
And in New Jersey, a former Navy helicopter pilot who made opposing Donald Trump a focal point of her campaign delivered a decisive victory over a Republican candidate backed by the president.
These three candidates - New York state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, Virginia's law-and-order moderate Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey congresswoman Mikie Sherrill - each ran a different race.
