Previewing the New Jersey and Virginia Governor Races: Part Three

Breaking down what I’ll be watching for in these contests and a couple of others.

Today, residents in states and municipalities around the country will cast votes for races up and down the ballot. Among the highest-profile contests whose results many will be watching are those for governor in New Jersey and Virginia and mayor in New York City. The TLP team will have much to say on these results tomorrow and in the days and weeks ahead, but for now I want to offer a list of things I’ll be keeping an eye on tonight—especially in the three aforementioned elections.

The Issue(s) That Will Loom Largest

Will the marquee gubernatorial races ultimately hinge on local issues or national politics? As we covered last week, candidates in New Jersey and Virginia have focused on both. One key theme in each state has been affordability, particularly in the Garden State, where both candidates have spotlighted Jersey’s high energy costs. However, President Trump has also predictably loomed large, as have cultural issues like transgender policies.

Polling nationally and in both states indicates that voters care foremost about the economy and cost of living. In Virginia, only one candidate, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, has really made these a focus of her campaign. But in New Jersey, both candidates are talking about these issues—and it’s not entirely clear who has the edge. A recent Rutgers-Eagleton poll showed that voters, including independents, trusted Republican Jack Ciattarelli over Democrat Mikie Sherrill to handle taxes (44 percent versus 37 percent, respectively) and the economy and jobs (46 percent versus 40 percent), a remarkable finding in a state with a Democratic lean. On affordability, voters were more evenly split, and importantly, Sherrill enjoyed a solid edge over Ciattarelli with independents (48 percent to 33 percent).

At the same time, a majority (52 percent) of Jersey voters said that Donald Trump’s presidency would be a “major factor” in their vote, including 56 percent of college degree holders and 42 percent of independents. As it is, the president’s party historically takes a hit in off-year elections. If Trump’s presence in these races has a major impact on turnout and vote choice, that is likely to bode well for the Democrats.

Further Realignment—or Reversion to the Mean

Many political analysts viewed the 2024 election as the culmination of demographic and geographic shifts that had been in motion since at least Trump’s arrival on the national political scene, and in some cases for even longer. If you’re a regular reader of TLP, you’ll be familiar with several of these developments. Among the most impactful have been the partisan realignment around class and geographic place as well as depolarization along racial lines.

Today’s contests will give us our first chance since last year’s election to see whether downballot Republicans can maintain Trump’s gains, especially now that his favorable ratings have sunk since he was inaugurated, including among many of the voters who swung to him. Here are a few things I’ll be monitoring for answers to this:

• Hispanics. No population in aggregate swung more toward Trump between 2020 and 2024 than Hispanic Americans. An average of several datasets found that Kamala Harris only won this traditionally Democratic cohort over Trump by seven points, 53 to 46, marking the smallest margin for a Democratic nominee on record. Moreover, this shift didn’t happen over night: Hispanics had voted more Republican in each presidential election since 2012. However, many of them have soured on Trump’s handling of the economy and immigration. For clues on how this might shape election outcomes moving forward, I’ll be watching places like Passaic County in New Jersey and Manassas Park in Virginia, both of which have significant Hispanic populations.

• Black Virginia voters. Another group with whom Trump made substantial inroads last year is black voters, and three years earlier, Virginia offered some early signs of possible erosion for Democrats. Terry McAuliffe’s struggles in the 2021 gubernatorial race there stemmed in part from the fact that black voters, long the backbone of the Democratic Party’s coalition, did not vote for him at the same rate as they had for other members of his party in the past. Post-election analysis indicated that some switched votes while others didn’t vote at all. This was especially noticeable in rural southern counties with large black populations. For Spanberger to win, she’ll likely need to rebound from that performance.

• White working-class Jersey voters. As I wrote a few weeks back, one reason why New Jersey’s 2021 gubernatorial election was unexpectedly close is that three counties in South Jersey with sizable white, working-class populations swung hard against Democratic Governor Phil Murphy as he sought a second term. All three flipped to Ciattarelli—Republicans’ nominee that year as well—after they had voted for Biden one year earlier. Moreover: all three stayed Republican in the 2024 presidential election. Though these counties are smaller than those comprising the New York City suburbs, they could make the difference in a close race. Sherrill will have to at least maintain Murphy’s margins, if not gain back some lost ground, to shut the door on Ciattarelli. But if the Republican makes further inroads there, it could give him a chance.

Directional Shifts: The States

There are three possibilities for how each of these states will swing relative to 2024, and all three will be instructive in their own ways. The first is that they shift back to their 2020-era voting patterns and vote more Democratic. This would indicate that the Democrats’ off-year turnout advantage is still very real, their voters are fired up, and they will likely be going into next year’s midterms with a head full of steam.

The second possibility is that not much changes from last year. Both states broke for Harris by about six points, so a repeat performance would ensure Democrats win the two governor races this year, certainly a desirable outcome for them. However, this would also suggest that they struggled to rebound from Harris’s losing performance, even in what should be a much more favorable national environment.

The final possible outcome is that both states trend even more Republican. I don’t think that it’s hyperbole so say that this result—in the face of an unpopular president and in the type of cycle when the Democrats normally have a big turnout advantage—would constitute a five-alarm fire for the party. This scenario seems pretty unlikely, but in the event that Democrats lose both contests, they would be staring into an even deeper abyss than they were last November.

Directional Shifts: The Party

In addition to the two big races for governor, all eyes will be on New York City, which appears set to elect socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani as its next mayor. Given the near-certainty of his victory at this point, a lot is riding on the outcomes in Jersey and Virginia for moderate reformers in the Democratic Party. Should Sherrill, Spanberger, and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani all win tomorrow—and especially if either of the gubernatorial candidates win big—the debates between the moderates and the progressives will continue on.

However, in the event that either woman (or both) struggles to win their election, expect the progressive wing of the party to feel even more emboldened to take charge in charting a new direction. Of course, what works in deep-blue New York City can hardly be used as a model for running a campaign in swing states like Michigan or Wisconsin that lean to the right of the nation. And if Mamdani’s final vote share is roughly where he is currently polling (less than 50 percent), it would be a massive underperformance versus the last three Democratic nominees—all of whom won at least two-thirds of the vote. But that reasoning may not be enough to stop a leftward shift in the party if Spanberger or Sherrill lose.

The State of Polling

It’s no secret that public polls have had a rough time in recent years. But their biggest struggles have occurred when Trump has been on the ballot, including last year. So, many observers will be watching to see how they perform with him out of the picture again.

As I covered last week, the polls were extremely accurate in Virginia four years ago. The final RealClearPolitics average showed Republican Glenn Youngkin winning by 1.7 points, and he went on to win by 1.9. However, it was a very different story in Jersey, where the polls underestimated Ciattarelli by five points. With the latest averages showing Sherrill ahead by just 3.3 points, a five-point miss against Republicans this time would mean a Ciattarelli win.

But beyond the electoral stakes of the polls’ accuracy, it’s important for the industry to get back on track. Many Americans have been losing trust in pollsters lately, and at some point this could make it difficult to get voters to talk to them at all, making an already complicated scientific endeavor that much harder to produce.

As the results come in, I’ll be comparing them to two different polling averages: RealClearPolitics (a longtime resource for many political analysts that does not discriminate much on the polls it includes) and FiftyPlusOne (a new endeavor by the polling analyst Elliott Morris and others, which excludes some partisan polls). Their expected outcomes are far enough apart that we should get a good look at which one’s methodology produces more accurate results.

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In addition to the two governor races and New York City mayoral contest, there are several others whose results could have far-reaching ramifications as well. These include battles for the state legislature in both New Jersey and Virginia and a California ballot initiative to allow partisan gerrymandering. There are also elections for three seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and two seats on Georgia’s Public Service Commission—statewide races in a battleground states that could offer hints about next year’s midterms.

And while you await the first results, be sure to check out our other recent analyses on the historical and current context around the two marquee races for governor!