(CNN) — Elections in multiple states on Tuesday are set to gauge how voters feel in the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency — and whether Democrats have improved their standing with the midterm elections just one year away.
Voters will choose new governors in Virginia, where the ongoing shutdown and Trump’s efforts to remake the government have affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and New Jersey, where increasing taxes and utility costs have placed affordability at the center of a competitive race.
In New York City, the Democratic primary winner, Zohran Mamdani, faces former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is attempting a political comeback as an independent, and Republican Curtis Silwa in a mayoral race with significant implications for the future of the city and the Democratic Party.
And in California, the race to redraw congressional district boundaries ahead of next year’s battle for majority control of the US House of Representatives faces a critical moment.
A special election in Texas caps an important set of odd-year elections. Here are the races and issues to watch Tuesday:
New York City mayor
Mamdani and Cuomo are facing off a second time in the New York City mayoral election, after Mamdani — a democratic socialist who has energized young voters and progressives with his go-anywhere, do-anything campaign tactics and a message centered on affordability — handily defeated the former governor in the Democratic primary.
The mayor’s race is a signal moment for a Democratic Party looking for its way out of the political wilderness. Similar dynamics — progressives against moderates and insiders against outsiders — could play out in primary elections next spring. Democrats can also draw lessons from how questions of support for Israel have played in the race, and from Mamdani’s approach to social media and publicity, including appearing on Fox News.
Some national Democrats — most notably the party’s top two figures in Washington, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York — have been slow to embrace Mamdani. Jeffries endorsed him only in late October, and Schumer has not said who he is supporting in the mayor’s race.
Before heading out to rallies in Virginia and New Jersey on Saturday, former President Barack Obama called Mamdani. He has not endorsed the nominee — aides attribute that to a policy of generally not getting involved in mayoral elections — and that did not change in the call. But according to a person familiar with the conversation, he called Mamdani’s campaign “impressive to watch,” and offered to be a “sounding board” going forward.
New Jersey governor
Across the Hudson River, voters in the traditionally blue state of New Jersey will choose their replacement for term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Amid tax hikes and soaring utility costs, affordability has taken center stage in the election. Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican who is endorsed by Trump and has praised the president’s performance in his second term, has sought to localize the race — pitching himself as the consummate “Jersey guy” and casting Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who moved to the state after a Navy career, as an outsider.
Sherrill and Democrats, meanwhile, have emphasized Ciattarelli’s links to Trump — a potentially decisive factor in a state with 800,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. One point of emphasis: Trump’s cancellation of funding for the Gateway Tunnel, a rail project linking New Jersey and New York City.
New Jersey has typically leaned blue, but Ciattarelli came close to winning in 2021, and the state shifted hard in Trump’s direction in 2024: He lost by just 6 percentage points, after a 16-point drubbing there in 2020.
Virginia governor
Four years after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won a major upset, tapping into parents’ anger over local school boards, his lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, is seeking to replace him with a campaign centered on transgender policies, particularly in schools.
But polls suggest her Democratic opponent, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, has a clear advantage headed into Election Day in a state that three times voted against Trump. Democrats have relentlessly tied Earle-Sears to Trump, and she has not sought to distance herself from the president.
At a rally with Obama in Norfolk on Saturday, Spanberger described the election as a chance for Democrats to send a signal to the nation. “Amid the recklessness and the heartlessness out of Washington, Virginia can and will flip statewide seats from red to blue,” she said.
None of the states holding elections on Tuesday are typically considered swing states in presidential elections. But Republicans were able to sweep statewide races four years ago. And with the Virginia’s proximity to Washington, it is home to hundreds of thousands of federal government workers who are affected by the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal workforce and the government shutdown. Its gubernatorial election might be the closest to a true test of Trump’s performance this year.
Polls have shown closer races down ballot in Virginia, where Republican John Reid and Democrat Ghazala Hashmi are facing off for lieutenant governor. In the contest for attorney general, Republicans have what could be their best chance to win Tuesday as GOP incumbent Jason Miyares faces Democrat Jay Jones, who has been dogged by controversy surrounding violent text messages he sent in 2022.
Issue to watch: Utility costs
The economy is a perennial campaign issue, with voters often expressing concerns about prices at the grocery store or at gas pumps. This year’s pocketbook metric is one less often discussed: utility costs.
Electricity prices across the country, which have sharply increased since 2020, have jumped over the last year, introducing a new financial strain for voters in places like New Jersey and Virginia. Candidates in both states have featured energy costs in their television ads and campaign speeches.
Utility costs have become a particularly salient issue in New Jersey, where residential electricity prices have jumped nearly 21% over the past year compared with a 6% increase nationwide, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Ciattarelli has said Democrats’ push for clean energy is to blame, while Sherrill has said she will fix the issue by freezing utility rates, a proposal that has drawn skepticism from Murphy, the outgoing Democratic governor.
Even Trump appears to be aware of the political potency of the issue. In a tele-rally for Ciattarelli last month, the president repeatedly turned to talking about energy costs — an indication the issue could be front and center in next year’s midterm elections.
California’s redistricting battle
California’s vote on a measure known as Proposition 50 will set the stage for next year’s midterm battle for control of the US House of Representatives.
Voters will decide whether to green-light the Democratic plan spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom to set aside the congressional districts drawn by the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission in favor of a gerrymandered map aimed at improving Democrats’ chances of winning five GOP-held seats.
It’s a response to Texas, where the legislature approved and Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law new maps intended to help Republicans win five more seats — improving the party’s odds of retaining its House majority.
Newsom, widely viewed as a 2028 presidential contender, sought an answer that would neutralize those Texas gains. But unlike in Texas, California voters have to sign off on the plan to replace the nonpartisan commission’s maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections — before switching back to new, commission-drawn maps in the next decade, after the 2030 census.
A “yes” vote would be a big win for Democrats, who have fewer avenues to respond after Republicans also redrew Missouri’s maps to add one more seat, with Indiana convening a special legislative session on Monday to potentially add one or two more GOP seats and North Carolina moving to add one more Republican-leaning district. It would also be a milestone for Newsom, as he and a slew of other Democratic governors seek to position themselves as Trump’s strongest opponents ahead of potential presidential runs.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention
In Pennsylvania, voters must determine whether to keep three Democratic members of the state Supreme Court — a decision with potentially significant ramifications in the coming months and years in the crucial presidential battleground.
Democrats have a 5-2 majority on the state’s high court. The three incumbents on Tuesday’s ballot face yes-or-no questions of whether they’ll be retained for new 10-year terms. If they aren’t, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro would appoint interim replacements until elections for new justices were held in 2027.
A change in party control of the state Supreme Court could have far-reaching implications for the 2028 presidential race, upcoming midterms and future redistricting. Ahead of the 2020 and 2024 elections, the Democratic majority sided with Democrats on key cases related to mail-in deadlines, provisional ballots and signature matching.
Texas House special election
The largely Democratic, Houston-area 18th Congressional District in Texas has been without representation in Washington for most of the last 16 months.
In July 2024, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee died. Her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, won the special election to fill the vacancy. But that special election was held the same day as the 2024 general election, which was won by former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner — who hadn’t been on the ballot in the special election.
Turner died in early March. Abbott, a Republican, scheduled the special election for eight months later — a move that gave the House GOP more breathing room as it moved toward passage of Trump’s landmark tax and domestic policy bill.
This special election, a jungle primary that will go to a runoff featuring the top two finishers unless one tops 50% of the vote on Tuesday, has drawn several high-profile candidates. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, who has technically resigned to run for Congress but continues to serve, is among the Democrats, as are state Rep. Jolanda Jones and Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member who lost in the 2024 primary to Jackson Lee. Republican Carmen Montiel, a Venezuelan American real estate agent and former TV journalist, is the highest-profile member of her party in the race.
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