Republicans are bracing for Tuesday’s off-year gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia to be a rebuke of President Donald Trump before next year’s midterm contests.
But Tuesday’s New York City mayoral race will likely provide Trump and Republicans with political fodder as the GOP prepares to defend its congressional majorities in 2026.
Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger is poised to win on Tuesday over her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. One day before their election, the former congresswoman was polling ahead of her GOP counterpart by an average of almost 9 percentage points.
Republicans are also concerned Earle-Sears could undermine Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares’s reelection against former Democratic state Rep. Jay Jones despite text messages he sent in 2022 about shooting then-Virginia GOP House Speaker Todd Gilbert emerging last month.
Meanwhile, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) is in a more competitive race against former New Jersey Republican state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli, though, has an average 3-point edge in the polls. Only last year, Trump became the closest GOP presidential nominee to win the state since 1992, when he kept then-Vice President Kamala Harris to a single-digit margin of victory — the first time that has happened to a Democrat since 2004.
Spanberger, a former CIA operative, and Sherrill, a one-time lieutenant naval aviator and federal prosecutor, have both campaigned against Trump and on the cost of living as centrists, as most respondents tell pollsters they consider the country to be on the wrong track.
At the same time, Republicans are hoping that Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani being elected the next mayor of New York City will present the GOP with the opportunity to portray Democrats as far-Left communists again, particularly animating political rhetoric for the party.
Although Trump is not on the ballot on Tuesday and turnout is expected to be down because of that, the elections will likely capture the mood of the country before next year’s midterm elections. Republicans relinquishing control of one or both chambers of Congress in 2026 will render the president a lame duck for the remainder of his second term, and Democrats have an early 4-point advantage on generic congressional ballot polling. However, a lot can change in 12 months.
Democratic strategist Christopher Hahn is most interested in how the Republican nominees will perform among Latinos and black men after Trump won last year, partly because of an increase in support from those demographics.
“Trump made major gains with them in 2024, so the question is do those voters stick with the GOP[?]” Hahn told the Washington Examiner. “Watching Passaic County in NJ particularly. Latinos are a huge percentage of the vote there and Trump flipped that county in 2024.”
Republican strategist John Feehery is also interested in how the Republican nominees will perform among white men, in addition to Latino and black men.
“The general expectation is Republicans are going to lose both governorships just because of history and the history of these particular states, so if either Ciattarelli or Earle-Sears get within 5 points, it’s a pretty big victory for the president,” Feehery told the Washington Examiner. “If you look at presidents’ second term, you know those are almost always a disaster for the party in power, so if Trump could somehow build on the success of last year and then get within 3 to 5 points, I mean, it’s a pretty big victory for the Republicans. If, on the other hand, it’s more than 5 points, it shows us that the Republicans are kind of backtracking a little bit.”
But for Feehery, Tuesday’s elections could be “strange” because of the historically long federal government shutdown and the number of voters who live in northern Virginia who may have been furloughed, as well as Earle-Sears’s general weaknesses as a candidate.
“In New York, if Mamdani does win, he will become a very good foil for Republicans,” he said. “He’ll become the new [Democratic California Rep.] Nancy Pelosi, and that might be good for Republicans.”
Simultaneously, Republican strategist Lanhee Chen advised against placing too much importance on what the off-year elections mean for the 2026 midterm contests, especially because “how uncertain the overall map still looks with ongoing redistricting fights in several states.”
“But I do think that President Trump and Republicans will need to continue to emphasize cost-of-living issues and the progress made on those if they are to be successful next year,” Chen told the Washington Examiner.
Feehery, the other Republican strategist, agreed that “obviously your pocketbook issues are always, always the thing.” He acknowledged gas prices have decreased under Trump, but not grocery prices.
“I don’t think that the economy today is necessarily the economy of next year,” he added.
Before taking part in telerallies for the New Jersey and Virginia races on Monday night, Trump made his closing argument to voters on social media, writing, “A REPUBLICAN VOTE MEANS A DRASTIC DROP IN ENERGY PRICES AND ENERGY COSTS.”
“VOTE REPUBLICAN for massive Energy Cost reductions, large scale Tax Cuts, and basic Common Sense!” he wrote. “All you’ll get from voting Democrat is unrelentingly High Crime, Energy prices through the roof, men playing in women’s sports, and HEARTACHE!”
Of Mamdani, Trump, a New Yorker by birth but no longer by residence, has repeatedly undercut his own political interests by first reportedly pressuring outgoing NYC Mayor Eric Adams to suspend his campaign amid rumors he could become the president’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to help former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an Independent.
Adams had earlier been indicted with, among other charges that have since been dropped by Trump’s Justice Department, accepting illegal gifts worth more than $100,000 from Turkish citizens and at least one government official. Trump and Adams have both endorsed Cuomo, who has himself been accused of sexual misconduct.
But more recently, Trump has criticized Mamdani as “not socialist,” but a “communist,” reiterating, “he’s worse than a socialist.”
“It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there,” Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes over the weekend.
To that end, the House Republican campaign organization, the National Republican Congressional Committee, last week published a memo called “Republicans’ Battle Plan to Weaponize Mayor Mamdani in Battleground Districts.”
“House Republicans will make Zohran Mamdani famous in battleground races next November, running against his unpopular agenda, which is the new face of the Democratic Party,” the NRSC wrote.
Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin, who is interested in Democratic turnout on Tuesday and is himself a centrist, downplayed concerns regarding Republicans “weaponizing” Mamdani against his party before next year’s midterm elections. Nevertheless, he is mindful of some of Mamdani’s comments regarding Israel.
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“I wouldn’t say that, ‘Oh Democrats need to run across the country like Mamdani,’” Hankin told the Washington Examiner. “But look, you just have a very good candidate running against a God-awful, damaged, ridiculous candidate. The candidates who are doing well are typically the candidates who are talking about the struggle and the pain that people are feeling, and Donald Trump is not.”
Polls close in Virginia at 7 p.m., New Jersey at 8 p.m., and in New York at 9 p.m.
