Off-year elections don’t predict what will happen in the midterms, but results favoring one party or the other can create momentum that could have an impact on subsequent contests.

This year, two off-year gubernatorial contests, in Virginia and New Jersey, give Democrats an opportunity to create momentum if they can win both elections.

New Jersey

The race for governor of the Garden State pits Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill against former GOP Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli. 

Sherrill graduated from the Naval Academy and spent almost a decade on active duty as a helicopter pilot. She holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from Georgetown. She subsequently served as an assistant U.S. attorney.

Sherrill won a U.S. House seat in 2018 and was elected three more times before deciding to run for governor.

The congresswoman was one of a half-dozen serious Democratic contenders for governor, including another member of Congress, two high-profile mayors and the former president of the New Jersey Senate.

Sherrill has an independent streak. She was the seventh member of the House to call for President Joe Biden to exit from the 2024 presidential contest, and on two occasions she didn’t vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker. 

Ciattarelli, a graduate of Seton Hall University, is a businessman who was elected to the Somerset County Freeholder Board and to the State Assembly. In 2021, he ran a very competitive but unsuccessful race for governor, losing by just 3 points to incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, 51 percent to 48 percent. 

The Garden State Matchup

Ciattarelli never stopped running after his 2021 loss, and he deserves to be taken seriously, notwithstanding the mid-June Rutgers/Eagleton poll that showed the Democrat with a clear advantage.

As New Jersey columnist Tom Martello wrote recently:

“Mikie Sherrill by a landslide? Nobody believes that will be the result of New Jersey’s piping hot governor’s race come November. Not the Republicans. Not the Democrats. Not the campaigns. And not the Rutgers-Eagleton pollster who last week released a survey that says Sherrill has an early 20-point lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli. No, this puppy isn’t over before it started.”

In another column, Martello wrote, “Eight years of rule by one party almost invariably follows eight years of rule by the other,” and that gives Republicans a shot of optimism.

But if some political trends favor the Republican nominee, other dynamics favor Sherrill. She could benefit from the electorate’s dissatisfaction with Trump.

“President Donald Trump looms large over the race: 52% of voters say he is a ‘major factor’ in their vote for governor and another 18% say he is a ‘minor’ one, while 30% say he isn’t a factor at all,” Ashley Konig, the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said of the June poll.

Ciattarelli’s current campaign website does not mention Donald Trump or MAGA, but the president will be a liability for Republicans in the fall election, if only because the White House has polarized the country and Trump could impact Republican turnout in the fall.

Sherrill is a personable, smart contender whose record is likely to appeal to Democratic and swing voters, and Trump’s agenda and language likely won’t help Ciattarelli.

Virginia

The race for Virginia governor pits the state’s GOP lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, against former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger. 

Earle-Sears won her current office four years ago, when Republican Glenn Youngkin was elected governor and the GOP swept all three statewide races. Youngkin is prohibited from serving consecutive terms.

A businesswoman who served in the Marines, Earle-Sears served a single term in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2002 to 2004 but was less successful in 2004 (when she lost a bid for Congress) and 2018 (when she got clobbered as a write-in Senate hopeful).  

Earle-Sears supported Trump in 2020 and 2024, and in 2020 she was national chairwoman of “Black Americans to Re-elect the President.”

Spanberger graduated from the University of Virginia, earned an MBA from Purdue and joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 2006. She was first elected to Congress in 2018 and had tight contests in all her House races.  

The congresswoman did not vote for Nancy Pelosi for speaker in 2019, and she is more of a moderate than a passionate progressive.

The Bottom Lines

Biden carried Virginia by 10 points in 2020, while Kamala Harris carried it by 5 points in 2024. Hillary Clinton also won Virginia in 2016.

The state is competitive, but Democrats have a narrow advantage because of the growth of the Washington, D.C., suburbs. 

New Jersey is less competitive. Harris carried New Jersey by 6 points in 2024, while Biden carried it by 16 points in 2020 and Clinton carried it by 14 points in 2016.

Republicans will try to “localize” both states, thereby minimizing the influence of Trump. But that will be difficult to do, considering the president’s personality and his increasingly poor job performance numbers among political independents.

Both races merit watching, but the national dynamics give advantages to Sherrill and Spanberger.