The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia has published a report looking at where the only two gubernatorial races in the nation stand as May dawns and the summer campaign season is on the horizon. The report comes to a surprising determination, given recent history.
Virginia and New Jersey hold their state elections the year after the U.S. presidency is contested, and with only two big races in the entire nation at that time and both seen as barometers for public opinion on how the president is doing, media attention is often substantial.
In many cases, these “off-year” elections have seen the party that lost the presidency put extra effort into “sending a message” to the public at large that the presidential victory is not some mandate for his party’s agenda over theirs and to their voter base that the party has not been dispatched into irrelevance.
For example, in 2021, the year after Joe Biden became president, not only did Republican Glenn Youngkin win the governor’s mansion in Virginia, the GOP was within three points of upsetting incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy in New Jersey, a decidedly blue state.
The first “Sabato’s Crystal Ball” report of the 2025 campaign season has been issued, and it shows that both states, which were carried by Kamala Harris by six points in 2024, are “leaning Democrat.”
