Democratic candidates notched wins in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday night, and in New York City’s high-profile mayoral contest, in the first major elections since Donald Trump regained the presidency.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger won Virginia’s election for governor, according to The Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News and Fox News.
Spanberger, 46, a former congresswoman and CIA officer, will be the first woman to serve as Virginia’s governor after easily defeating Republican Lt.-Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
In New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherrill had been was locked in what opinion polls suggested was a tight battle with Republican Jack Ciattarelli, but after polls closed The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN and NBC News declared Sherrill as the winner.
Across the river in New York City’s closely watched mayoral race, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old self-described democratic socialist, defeated 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat running as a more centrist Independent four years after resigning as the state’s governor.
The campaign served as an ideological and generational contest that could have national implications for the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, on the west coast, voters in California will decide whether to give Democratic lawmakers the power to redraw the state’s congressional map, expanding a national battle over redistricting that could determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives after next year’s midterm elections.
Polls close in California at 8 p.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) on Tuesday.
Democrats watching results closely
Democrats were watching Tuesday’s results carefully, with the party locked out of power in Washington and struggling to find consensus on the best way to oppose Trump and find a path out of the political wilderness.
Spanberger will succeed outgoing Republican Glenn Youngkin, who could not run for consecutive terms under state law. Her campaign combined an emphasis on lowering the high cost of living with plenty of criticisms of Trump, whose assault on the federal bureaucracy has had an outsized impact in Virginia, adjacent to Washington and home to many government workers.
In interviews at polling stations on Tuesday, some voters said Trump’s most contentious policies were on their minds, including his efforts to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally and impose costly tariffs on imports of foreign goods, the legality of which is being weighed by the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
Turnout appeared high across the board.
In New York City, more than two million ballots including early voting were cast, according to the board of elections, the most in a mayoral race since 1969. Early vote totals in Virginia and New Jersey also outpaced the previous elections in 2021.
Trump looms over ballot
Trump remained top of mind for many voters despite not appearing on the ballot.
In Virginia, Juan Benitez, a self-described Independent, was voting for the first time. The 25-year-old restaurant manager backed all of Virginia’s Democratic candidates because of his opposition to Trump’s immigration policies and the federal government shutdown, which he blamed on Trump.
Jennifer Manton, 47, said she had voted for Trump all three times he ran for president, and backed Republican candidates on Tuesday, citing Trump’s tariffs as a major issue.
Zohran Mamdani is shaking up New York’s mayoral race with a socialist platform that includes rent control and public transportation. The front-runner’s message is drawing both support and backlash from the city’s financial elite, including the U.S. president.
California’s ballot measure, Proposition 50, which would install a new Democratic-backed congressional map that aims to flip five Republican seats in response to a similar move by Texas, is widely expected to pass.
Midterm elections still a year away
While Tuesday’s results will offer some insight into the mood of American voters, the midterm elections are a year away, an eternity in politics.
“There’s nothing that’s going to happen in Virginia or New Jersey that’s going to tell us much about what will happen in a congressional district in Missouri or a Senate race in Maine,” said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist.
For Democrats, Tuesday’s candidates offer a chance to assess differing playbooks.
Spanberger and Sherrill, both moderate Democrats with backgrounds in national security, put Trump front and centre, seeking to harness anger at the president’s no-holds-barred agenda.
For Republicans, Tuesday’s elections were a test of whether the voters who powered Trump’s victory in 2024 will still show up when he is not on the ballot.
But Ciattarelli and Earle-Sears, each running in Democratic-leaning states, have faced a conundrum: criticizing Trump risks losing his supporters, but embracing him too closely could alienate moderate and independent voters who disapprove of his policies.
