Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill joined members of the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday evening for a virtual get-out-the-vote effort as the party seeks to keep both elections within Democratic control.
Spanberger is polling comfortably ahead of her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, in the Old Dominion, but recent polls show Sherrill’s race against Republican Jack Ciattarelli has grown closer.
An Emerson College poll in September showed the race in a dead heat at 43%.
“We are in a tough race in New Jersey,” Sherrill said on Wednesday, acknowledging that the race won’t be a slam dunk for her. “And we are seeing great results, thanks in large part to all of the support from so many people across the country, both the donations that have come in to help us with our paid communications, as well as all the phone banking, text banking, and the final get out the vote.”
Sherrill sought to cast Ciattarelli as a Trump acolyte in her bid to keep New Jersey’s governor’s mansion blue for a third straight election.
“What people have been responding to is just the sense that I’m going to have their back, I’m going to fight for them, and that everything Trump and my opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, plan to do is going to raise their costs,” she said.
Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) narrowly won a second term in office in 2021 by defeating Ciattarelli in a race that polls showed Murphy comfortably leading in. Sherrill has the herculean task of convincing New Jersey voters to keep Democrats in power.
“We have a history of turning over the governors, so we usually, after eight years of a Democrat, have a Republican. That pattern has not been broken since the 1960s, I believe,” Sherrill said. “So we have a lot of headwinds here, but we have developed the biggest field program that New Jersey has ever seen.”
In contrast, Spanberger, who is currently on a bus tour of Virginia, hopes to flip the commonwealth’s mansion back into Democratic control. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) is term-limited but has backed Earle-Sears.
Spanberger has largely stuck to attacking Republicans over the economy and President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash the federal workforce, which has a sizable effect on Virginia’s economy.
“Virginia is home to more than 320,000 federal employees, and since the earliest days of the Trump administration, we have seen attacks on Virginia’s Federal workforce,” Spanberger said. “We have seen the impacts and the beginnings of the impacts of the so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill. Already, we’ve had three rural health clinics announce their closure and giving the reason for their closure, the One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Several Democrats nationwide joined the two gubernatorial candidates, including Sens. Andy Kim (D-NJ), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), and Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), among other Democrats.
WINSOME EARLE-SEARS FORCED OFF CAMPAIGN TRAIL DUE TO VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING BATTLE
The DNC has also spent at least $3.2 million in New Jersey and Virginia, the most it has invested in an off-year election, as the party seeks to rebuild after Trump’s victory in 2024.
The DNC also previously announced a $500,000 investment in both states and Pennsylvania, which is holding state Supreme Court retention elections.
