AP News
In 2025, the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey will serve as a bellwether for how voters view the administration, as current Trump approval polls are unreliable, varying by up to 28 points. Early results suggest Democrats are on track to win in these states by larger margins than in 2024, a sign of broader trouble for Republicans heading into 2026.
In Virginia, the latest polls from Co/efficient and Roanoke College have former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger up 5 and 7 points, respectively, over her opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Unless something drastic happens before Election Day, the Virginia governor’s race is likely to go the way of the party not in the White House, as it has during every cycle in Virginia since 1978, except in 2013 when voters elected Democrat Terry McAuliffe during the Obama presidency.
Similarly, in New Jersey, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill leads former New Jersey state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli in the latest slate of polls. In one from Rutgers-Eagleton, Sherrill led by 10 points, and another from Fairleigh Dickinson showed Sherrill up 9. New Jersey has a more liberal bent than Virginia, having elected Democrat Phil Murphy in 2021 with a 2.8-point margin and 13.3 points in 2017.
However, there is precedent for the state to elect Republicans in a gubernatorial election after voting Democratic the year before in the presidential election. Most recently, during the Obama presidency, the state favored Obama in 2012 by 17.8 points but elected Chris Christie by a healthy margin of 22.1 points, constituting a nearly 40-point shift in the state over just one year.
With just over two months until Election Day, coming back from deficits of 5-10 points is relatively difficult. In the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, there were similarly dire polls for Republicans, with Democrat Terry McAuliffe up 8 or 9 points in mid-August. But other polls had him up by just 1-3 points over a similar period, a much smaller margin to overcome during the two months leading to Election Day, when Glenn Youngkin ended up winning the state by 1.9 points. In Virginia and New Jersey this year, however, there are no similar polls showing the race being within a few points.
The national political situation is also likely to have affected the 2021 elections and could do so again in 2025. On Aug. 1, 2021, Biden had +7 net approval, riding the positive wave at the start of his presidency. However, during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, when 13 service members were killed, his approval dropped into the negatives and fell to around -9 net approval by November 2021. The growing disapproval of Biden mirrored Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s fall in the polls over the August to November period.
For Republicans to win Virginia or New Jersey, they would likely need a confluence of factors, including a surge in Trump’s popularity, up from his current -6.3 net approval rating in the RCP Average.
Betting markets agree with the polls, seeing the elections as very grim for Republicans. On the betting platform Polymarket, Sherrill has a 90% chance of winning in New Jersey, and Spanberger has a 94% chance to win in Virginia.