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With five weeks to go until Election Day, polls indicate a very close contest in the battle for New Jersey governor.
New Jersey is just one of two states, along with Virginia, that hold statewide elections for governor this November. And the contests, which traditionally grab outsized national attention, are viewed as crucial early tests of President Donald Trump’s popularity and agenda, and key barometers ahead of next year’s midterm showdowns for the U.S. House and Senate.
Also in the political spotlight this November is the ballot box proposition over congressional redistricting in California, the three state Supreme Court contests in battleground Pennsylvania, and New York City’s high-profile mayoral election.
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Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, left, shakes hands with Democratic candidate for governor Mikie Sherrill, right, before a debate on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025, in Lawrenceville, N.J. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)
Democrats, who are aiming to exit the political wilderness following last year’s election setbacks when they lost control of the White House and Senate and failed to win back the House majority, are highlighting their success so far this year in special elections.
“There’s wind at our back,” Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Ken Martin recently touted. “We have overperformed in every single election that’s been on the ballot since Donald Trump was inaugurated.”
But Republicans point to the multitude of problems facing the Democratic Party.
“Sadly for the DNC, the truth is that Democrats’ approval rating is at a 30-year low as the party has hemorrhaged more than 2 million voters over the past four years,” Republican National Committee communications director Zach Parkinson told Fox News Digital recently.
BLUE STATE REPUBLICAN RIPS DEMOCRATIC RIVAL FOR BLAMING ‘EVERYTHING ON TRUMP’
Here’s a closer look at 2025’s top elections.
New Jersey
He’s not on the ballot, but Trump and his unprecedented second-term agenda weigh heavily on this year’s ballot box battle for governor of New Jersey.
And Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli, who enjoys the president’s support, says Democratic nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill is trying to use Trump as a cudgel.
“Listen, if you get a flat tire on the way home from work today, she’s going to blame it on the president. There isn’t anything she doesn’t blame on the president,” Ciattarelli argued, as he sat this week for an interview with Fox News Digital.
Sherrill, in a recent fundraising email to supporters, charged, “As Trump has inflicted all this damage on our country, Republican politicians like Jack Ciattarelli have cheered him on every step of the way.”
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey responds to questions during the first general election debate with Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli, on Sept. 21, 2025, in Lawrenceville, N.J. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)
And at their first debate a week and a half ago, she pointed to Ciattarelli and claimed that “he’ll do whatever Trump tells him to do.”
The combustible ballot box battle in New Jersey was rocked last week after a report revealed that the United States Naval Academy blocked her from taking part in her 1994 graduation amid a cheating scandal.
Ciattarelli and his campaign are calling on Sherrill, who went on to pilot helicopters during her military career after graduating from the Naval Academy, to release her military records to explain why she was blocked from attending her graduation ceremony.
“What we learned today is that she was part of it in some way, shape or form. Come clean, release the records. Tell us what’s in your disciplinary records. I think the people of New Jersey deserve that,” Ciattarelli said Thursday night in an interview on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
But a second report revealed that the National Personnel Records Center, which is a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, errantly released Sherrill’s improperly redacted military personnel files, which included private information including her social security number, to a Ciattarelli ally.
The news spurred calls by top Democrats across the country for an investigation.
“To have a guy I’m running against, it will stop at nothing, it will stop at nothing, who will illegally obtain records. It’s just beyond the pale,” Sherrill, who served as a federal prosecutor before winning election to Congress, charged Thursday night on the campaign trail in Plainfield, New Jersey.
The two candidates face off next week in the second and final debate in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Ciattarelli, who is making his third straight run for governor and who came close to upsetting Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago, discounted talk that Trump is the dominant issue in the race.
And Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and a certified public accountant who started a medical publishing company before getting into politics, charged that the Democrats are to blame, as he works overtime trying to link Sherrill to Murphy and the Democrats who’ve long controlled the state legislature in Trenton.
Virginia
Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is facing off against former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger in the race to succeed GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin is prevented from running for re-election, as Virginia’s constitution does not allow sitting governors to seek consecutive terms.
Earle-Sears was born in the Caribbean island nation of Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 6. She served in the Marines and is a former state lawmaker who made history four years ago when she won election as Virginia’s first female lieutenant governor.
Winsome Earle-Sears, Republican gubernatorial candidate for Virginia, center, during a campaign event at the Vienna Volunteer Fire Department in Vienna, Virginia, US, on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. Earle-Sears will face off with former Representative Abigail Spanberger this Nov., giving the state its first female governor. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Spanberger is a former intelligence officer in the CIA who won election to Congress in 2018 before securing re-election in 2020 and 2022.
The winner in November will make history as Virginia’s first female governor in the commonwealth’s four-century-long history. Additionally, if Earle-Sears comes out on top, she will become the nation’s first Black woman to win election as governor.
Trump and his policies are a major issue in the state’s gubernatorial showdown.
Abigail Spanberger, Virginia Democratic Party nominee for Governor addresses the crowd during an event in support of her run for office at the Eastern Henrico Recreation Center in Richmond, Virginia, on April 8, 2025. (Max Posner/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
The president’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been on a mission this year to chop government spending and cut the federal workforce.
The moves by DOGE, which was initially steered by Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, have been felt acutely in suburban Washington’s heavily populated northern Virginia, with its large federal workforce.
New York City
The mayoral election in the nation’s most populous city always grabs outsized attention, especially this year as New York City may elect its first Muslim and first millennial mayor.
Democratic socialist 33-year-old state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani’s victory in June’s Democratic Party mayoral primary sent political shock waves across the country. And he’s come under attack from Republicans and from his rivals on the ballot over his far-left proposals.
Mamdani is the clear frontrunner in the heavily blue city as he faces off against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who came in a distant second in the primary and is now running as an independent candidate. Cuomo is aiming for a political comeback after resigning as governor four years ago amid multiple scandals.
Democratic socialist state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani, left, is the Democratic Party’s mayoral nominee in New York City. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is running in the general election as an independent. (Getty Images)
Also running is two-time Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, a co-founder of the Guardian Angels, the non-profit, a volunteer-based community safety group.
Embattled Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who was running for re-election as an independent, dropped out of the race on Sunday, but his name remains on the ballot.
Trump, a native New Yorker, has continuously been in the spotlight in the race for months.
California Prop 50
Voters in heavily blue California will vote in November on whether to temporarily set aside their popular nonpartisan redistricting commission and allow the Democrat-dominated legislature to determine congressional redistricting for the next three election cycles.
The vote will be the culmination of an effort by Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats to create up to five left-leaning congressional seats in the Golden State to counter the new maps that conservative Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law last week, which will create up to five more right-leaning U.S. House districts in the red state of Texas.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California speaks during a congressional redistricting event, on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli )
The redistricting in Texas, which came after Trump’s urging, is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to pad their razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Democrats currently hold a 5-2 majority on Pennsylvania’s highest court.
But three Democrat-leaning justices on the state Supreme Court, following the completion of their 10-year terms, are running to keep their seats in “Yes” or “No” retention elections.
The election could upend the court’s composition for the next decade, heavily influence whether Democrats or Republicans have an advantage in the state’s congressional delegation and legislature, and impact crucial cases including voting rights and reproductive rights.
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While state Supreme Court elections typically don’t grab much national attention, contests where the balance of a court in a key battleground state is up for grabs have attracted tons of outside money.
The state Supreme Court showdown this spring in Wisconsin, where the 4-3 liberal majority was maintained, drew nearly $100 million in outside money as both parties poured resources into the election.
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