The New Jersey and Virginia 2025 gubernatorial elections provide a preview of the 2026 mid-term elections.
Virginia looks set to elect its first female governor, with both major parties having nominated a woman. Unfortunately for the GOP, their candidate Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, is an anemic fundraiser and isn’t getting much support from her party. Her status as the first woman of color elected statewide in Virginia seems to be a non-factor, or at least not an asset. Via Politico:
The convergence of paltry fundraising, weak polling and a candidate seen as incapable of fixing either has some in the (Republican Governor’s Association’s) orbit unenthused, I’m told, about giving much more than the $500,000 the group has already contributed to Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, the Republican standard-bearer in Virginia. By comparison, the group gave $10.7 million directly to the now-term limited Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s winning campaign four years ago.
Yet last week’s fundraising disclosures revealing that Democratic former Rep. Abigail Spanberger has more than three times the cash on hand as Sears — $15.2 million to $4.5 million — have Virginia and national Republicans convinced they’ll lose the governorship absent a dramatic and unexpected change in the race.
Making the problem worse, Sears is reluctant to make fundraising or even glaringly obvious political phone calls, according to multiple Republicans familiar with her campaign. She’s not reached out to some of the most reliable donors in Virginia or to top GOP figures such as the Virginia-based Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign co-manager. And while Sears and Trump met privately earlier this year in the White House, the president has yet to embrace her candidacy, a non-endorsement that stems from her criticism of him between his two terms.
Despite his Presidential aspirations, the sitting Republican governor Glenn Youngkin seems willing to abandon his hand-picked would-be successor:
Youngkin, a multi-millionaire, has yet to infuse the Virginia ticket with significant personal money or contributions from his political action committee.
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Youngkin already lost control of the Virginia House of Delegates and failed to flip the state senate two years ago. And he was unable to find a top-tier candidate to take on Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) last year and will almost certainly not run himself next year against Virginia’s senior senator, Mark Warner (D).That’s because the governor seems to be preparing for a future presidential bid. He courted business moguls earlier this month at Allen and Company’s annual retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho — where he appeared with Maryland’s Democratic Gov. Wes Moore in a discussion moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, I’m told. Last week, Youngkin attended a GOP fundraising dinner in first-in-the-nation Iowa, and next month he’ll travel to South Carolina, traditionally the first presidential primary in the South.
But he could leave behind a political mess for his own party in Virginia. Youngkin all but assured Sears’ nomination for governor, even though it was widely known she was a weak fundraiser and mercurial figure, and then attempted to torpedo the candidacy of her successor as lieutenant governor, John Reid, after it was alleged earlier this year that he had posted sexually explicit images online.
Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA agent, is rolling in cash:
Democratic U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger has raised $27 million and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has raised $12 million. Early fundraising places the contest on track to be one of the most expensive in Virginia history. Spanberger has raised more than any prior candidate by this point in the election cycle. And with partisan control of the state legislature at stake, other races may heat up. Unlike most states, Virginia does not limit the amount that donors can give to candidates, so many big donations go directly to them instead of super PACs. …
The largest contributions indicate energy is a key issue: Earle-Sears has secured big donations from the state’s energy industry, while at least one prominent industry critic has given to Spanberger.
Spanberger’s biggest donor by far is the Democratic Governors Association, which gave her campaign $2 million already and announced “an initial investment of $5 million” to support her. National liberal group VoteVets gave her almost $523,000, and Illinois health tech entrepreneur Glen Tullman gave $500,000. Another $465,000 came from the Clean Virginia Fund, an organization that opposes energy utility influence in the state and is funded by investor Michael Bills.
Earle-Sears’s biggest contribution so far is $500,000 from the Republican Governors Association. She also received $300,000 from billionaire investor Thomas Peterffy of Florida and $260,000 from Virginia utility company Dominion Energy. Elizabeth Uihlein, Illinois packing company owner and megadonor to conservative causes including election denial, gave $250,000 through Winsome PAC, which transferred all its money to the campaign. Virginia coal magnate Richard Baxter Gilliam gave Earle-Sears another $200,000.
Spanberger seems set to continue Virginia’s tradition of Democratic centrists, following in the footsteps of former Governors (and current U.S. Senators) Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.
In Congress, Spanberger belonged to both the “pro business” New Democrat Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.
First elected to Congress in 2018, she was all-in on efforts to impeach Trump for allegedly attempting to strongarm Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy into investigating the Bidens.
In the heady days of 2019, she briefly supported legislation for a $15/hour minimum wage, but her flirtation with progressive policy was limited.
She opposed some of the pandemic stimulus and pushed back against Biden’s attempts at economic populism.
Her 2020 re-election bid got a lot of love from The Washington Post:
Spanberger, who spent much of her career with a gun on her hip, supported a bill to expand background checks and another to allow law enforcement to temporarily seize guns from people who pose an imminent threat to themselves or others, commonly known as a “red flag” law.
Spanberger responded to Democrats’ disappointing Congressional results in the 2020 election by saying, “We have to commit to not saying the words “defund the police” ever again,” she said. “We have to not use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again.”
Interestingly, Spanberger had opposed Trump’s response to the 2020 George Floyd protests from a national security angle tweeting that “as a former CIA officer” she “recognized this playbook,” joining other CIA vets who “expressed dismay at the similarity between events at home and the signs of decline or democratic regression they were trained to detect in other nations.”
National security scolding, good. Socialism, bad.
So far I haven’t seen Spanberger building on her congressional toughgal image in the Virginia Governor’s race, but I’m sure her consultants are working to generate some earned media along these lines before election day:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) August 18, 2025
The Democrats are also going centrist in the second of two 2025 Gubernatorial Elections.
Along with Elissa Slotkin, now a U.S. Senator from Michigan, Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, now the Democratic gubanatorial nominee in New Jersey comprised the “Mod Squad,” a Centrist alternative to the “Squad” of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib.
As Semafor wrote when the trio left the House of Representatives:
The fact that all three are considered top-tier candidates for statewide office may be a sign of staying power for their brand of Democratic politics.
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“Ruthless competence is something we’re all very attracted to,” Sherrill told Semafor. “And looking at ways in which we can be more effective, deliver better for people in our states, is also something that I think we’re constantly striving for.”
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Originally a crew of five, “the badasses” were in many ways a perfect symbol of the anti-Trump revolt by suburban women that helped power that year’s blue wave. Each of them won in longtime Republican districts while campaigning against the GOP’s attempt to repeal Obamacare. Their resumes in national security and armed services made for an especially pointed contrast with a president at war against the “deep state” over federal investigations into his relationship to Russia.
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The group bonded on the trail over their backgrounds as women in defense, offering support to one another over a long-running group chat.“You watch that speech in the Barbie movie about what’s expected of women, and I think that is true tenfold when you’re talking about women running for office because these are tough times,” Sherrill told Semafor.
Once in the House, they quickly made their presence felt. Spanberger, Slotkin, and Sherill declined to vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker. Less than a year later, the whole group found itself playing a pivotal role in the effort to impeach Donald Trump. Initially opposed to the push, they became supporters after it was revealed Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Biden family in return for releasing foreign aid.
With two other freshman colleagues, the five co-wrote a Washington Post op-ed calling for impeachment hearings that proved influential among Democrats, in large part because it came from vulnerable swing state members with impeccable national security credentials.
“We all made the decision that if we had to lose our seats and be one-term congressmen and women, it was worth doing it because you have to have some basic principles,” Slotkin told Semafor.
As CNN’s Dana Bash and Bridget Nolan put it at the time, the op-ed “changed the dynamic for House Democrats, and indeed — the course of history.”
I hope you can join me in a chuckle at Bash and Nolan’s hyperbole about the Mod Squad changing “the course of history.”
The 2025 Gubernatorial Elections are seeing Democratic centrists dominate the primaries in New Jersey as well as Virginia.
Unlike the spooky Spanberger, Sherrill got her “badass” credentials as a navy pilot, and her anti-Russian cred while working as a Russian policy officer assigned to the then-Headquarters, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe.
From the beginning of her political career Sherrill has been a prodigious fundraiser, raising $2.8 million in her first primary and breaking single quarter fundraising records for a congressional candidate in the general election.
Sherrill one-upped Spanberger in the impeachment stakes by personally convincing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to proceed with the 2019 effort.
She had more luck overthrowing President Joe Biden, joining calls for him to step aside in July of 2024.
Sherrill won a multi-candidate primary in June, beating Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th), New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller and Steve Sweeney, former president of the state Senate.
She ran strongest in the suburbs, losing only in urban Newark, Gottheimer’s district, and the southern most Philadelphia suburbs of the state.
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) August 18, 2025
Raising and spending big money continued to be a hallmark for Sherrill in the 2025 Gubernatorial Elections:
Sherrill’s rivals had tried to disrupt her momentum by disparaging her as the establishment candidate during a time when many Democrats are disillusioned by their party and looking for seismic change.
But the “machine politician” insult failed to stick, likely because she has been in politics for less time than any of her campaign rivals aside from Sean Spiller.
Still, she and rival Steve Fulop, Jersey City’s mayor, led the race in spending, with both shelling out almost $9 million in what has become New Jersey’s most expensive primary in state history. Sherrill also got a nearly $4 million boost in spending by independent expenditure groups.
In New Jersey, the 2025 Gubernatorial Elections are set to be the most expensive in state history.
The Brennan Center doesn’t approve:
The contest is the latest example of elections being increasingly taken over by groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts, a system created by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision and the equally misguided theory that if the candidate doesn’t get the money directly, there’s no risk of corruption. Citizens United has led to runaway spending by wealthy interests in federal elections, and now state races are following suit.
Super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited sums because they are legally independent of campaigns, which faced $5,800 limits on contributions in this primary. But candidates try to guide supportive outside groups. It’s common for campaigns to publish photos and videos for super PACs to use in ads, and they put out strategy memos that signal how super PACs could help, as Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill and others’ campaigns did.
Sherrill was boosted by $3.8 million from One Giant Leap PAC. Its biggest donations include $900,000 from a PAC funded by the Laborers International Union, $250,000 from DoorDash, and $200,000 from tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, a resident of Washington State.
Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli benefited from $1.3 million in spending by Kitchen Table Conservatives, which garnered $500,000 from a group funded by Uber Technologies, $100,000 from investor Alan Fournier, and $90,000 from Garden State Success, an education advocacy group with major funding from an Oregon dark money group, Campaign for Great Public Schools. (Garden State Success also gave $160,000 to One Giant Leap.)
Jack Ciattarelli, the GOP nominee in the New Jersey 2025 Gubernatorial Elections, is a multi-term veteran of the N.J. General Assembly and was the 2021 nominee, over-performing in a losing effort against Phil Murphy.
Ciattarelli coasted to the nomination, benefitting from an endorsement from President Trump.
New Jersey political commentator Tom Martello called the New Jersey 2025 Gubernatorial elections for Ciattarelli way back in April, based on the notion that N.J. voters like to ping-pong from one party to the next in Governor’s races:
The only time New Jersey gave a political party the governor’s office for more than two consecutive, four-year terms was way back in 1961, the year Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s single season home run record. Richard Hughes’ improbable victory that year and his re-election gave Democrats 16 consecutive years in the Statehouse.
Since then, it’s ping-ponged from party to party: Democrats have won seven elections and Republicans have won seven. Eight years of rule by one party almost invariably follows eight years of rule by the other.
My theory is that Jersey voters eventually suffer from a syndrome — let’s call it DGISOTG, or Dear God I’m Sick of This Gov — caused by problems that just won’t go away.
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(In the 2025 Gubernatorial elections), the voter fatigue is aimed at the term-limited Phil Murphy. And this time around the fatigue runs bone-deep. Democrats tell me they feel a palpable anger aimed at their party on everything from property taxes (they never go down) to the sticker shock over electric bill hikes coming this summer, right before voters begin focusing on the governor’s race. And Murphy isn’t doing his fellow Dems any favors by calling for tax increases in an election year.
But Martello caveats because Trump:
Ciattarelli also has an early edge because many know who he is. He’s earned his high name recognition the old-fashioned way: by losing Jersey elections. It’s worked before. Christie Whitman, Jim McGreevey and Jim Florio all lost close ones before being elected. Even Tom Kean Sr., still considered the state’s most popular gov, was a two-time loser. Jack’s early momentum comes from his I-almost-toppled-Phil-Murphy-in-a-blue-state election four years ago.
While Republicans need crossover votes to win, there’s no question the state is less blue — and a bit more conservative — than when Ciattarelli came close in the last governor’s race. Four years ago, there were 1 million more registered Democrats than Republicans. It’s now down to 829,000, and the gap gets smaller each month.
So the trends favor Ciattarelli. But as they say when you put money into your 401k (sorry, I know that’s a sore subject these days): Past performance does not guarantee future results.
And future results depend on Trump. As Democrats worry about anger, so do Republicans who are wondering if all the vitriol currently aimed at the president will blow the race for Jack.
In 2021, Ciattarelli didn’t seek Trump’s endorsement a year after the then-sitting president lost by 16 points in New Jersey. While he pivoted to the right on state issues he felt could hurt Murphy, he was not a full-on Trump candidate.
After Trump lost New Jersey by only six points last year, the Republican thinking coming into this year was: the closer you stick with him, the better your chances.
How close is Ciattarelli sticking? Well, he had a gig in Atlantic City last month, and, according to reporting by NJ Advance Media’s Brent Johnson, hired a helicopter to avoid traffic so he could meet with Trump at Bedminster and then share photos of the two on social media. He and Bill Spadea, who also met with Trump, are in a death struggle for the president’s affection, knowing an endorsement will put them over the top in the Republican primary.
While New Jersey’s race is seen as a referendum on all that is Trump, one Democratic insider told me the pocketbook issues generally rule in battles for governor. And that’s where it really gets tricky. Trump could be poison in Jersey if his tariffs plunge us into a recession and residents are facing big inflation and job losses come October. Democrats are counting on it.
But we’re a long way from the fall. If the most dire predictions don’t come true, history could repeat itself and we’re back to Jack. It’ll be his (and maybe Trump’s) to lose.
Rutgers University’s polling shows Sherrill with an early lead:
Fifty-one percent say they would vote for Sherrill if the election were being held today, while 31% say they would vote for Ciattarelli; 5% say neither or someone else and 13% are unsure. When leaners are included, 56% go for Sherrill, 35% for Ciattarelli, 3% say neither or someone else and 6% are uncertain.
“Early polling on the governor’s race should serve as a baseline or a barometer of how voters are feeling in the moment – not as some crystal ball predicting the future four months from now,” said Ashley Koning, an assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “A lot can happen between now and November, and we know this gap will very likely narrow in the next several months. We only need to look back to 2021 to see how much a race can change throughout a cycle. Add to this an intense national political landscape that will, once again, surely play a role in the governor’s race here at home. Come November, what will matter is who actually turns out to vote.”
Sherrill’s base has more quickly coalesced around her than Ciattarelli’s: 89% of Democrats (95% with leaners) say they will vote for their party’s nominee, versus 74% of Republicans (79% with leaners) who say the same about theirs. Twice as many Republicans as Democrats are unsure (14% to 7%, respectively). Independents are about one-and-a-half times more likely to go for Sherrill over Ciattarelli right now – 45% to 28% (51% to 34% with leaners), though 20% are undecided at this point (10% with leaners).
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. Those likely in Sherrill’s camp are much more prone to say Trump is a “major factor” for them (69% of Democrats, 75% of 2025 Sherrill supporters, 74% of 2024 Kamala Harris voters, and 71% of 2021 Murphy voters) than those who are likely in Ciattarelli’s camp (35% of Republicans, 27% of 2025 Ciattarelli supporters, 31% of 2024 Trump voters, and 23% of 2021 Ciattarelli voters). Nearly half of independents (48%) say Trump is a “major factor” for them, 20% a “minor” one and 32% not a factor at all.
“Trump’s influence appears to be more of a benefit to Sherrill right now, given key groups more likely to support her are also more likely to claim the president is a factor in their vote choice, while those more supportive of Ciattarelli do not,” Koning said. “While Trump’s endorsement may have helped in the primaries, these numbers are an early sign that the endorsement may play differently when it comes to the general.”
Whether or not the 2025 gubernatorial elections will prove to be a bellweather for the 2026 midterms, much less the 2028 presidential contest remains to be seen.
The Democrats are fielding two “badass” female centrists where the Republicans seems to be conceding in Virginia and hoping local concerns can overcome national political dynamics in New Jersey.
Democratic centrist. The jokes just make themselves.
And here I was expecting some good old fashioned “Cloth Coat Republicans.”
Alas, we don’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore. In 2025, Checkers would be a lynchpin of the badass girl boss CIA centrist caucus without a doubt.
Today, Checkers would be a bomb sniffing dog, defending the Homeland, (Heimat,) from adversaries both Foreign and Domestic.
Curiously, though I was little at the time, we lived in Pasadena when Nixon gave his infamous “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore” television quip. I was told that the family watched this bit of political theatre live on local television. Dad much later remarked about that performance that no politician in his right mind would alienate the press that way.
Then, in 1968, the Democrat Party self-destructed and handed the election to Nixon. (And George Wallace won the Deep South as an Independant.) Yet, Nixon beat Humphreys by less than a million votes in the popular vote. The Democrat Party does seem to go all in on snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I can see in my mind’s eye the motto above the entrance to the Democrat Party headquarters: “Abandon scruples, morals, principles, all ye who enter here.”
Nixon’s comeback in 1968 was remarkable, I used to be baffled by that then I read up on George Romney’s epic fail of a campaign and his “brainwashing” remarks about Vietnam. Seems like the pro war MSM took out another one on behalf of the deep state that year.