An early-warning system for the political winds
Look to these 10 questions Tuesday night to see if the political winds are calm, or if they may blow Republicans out of office next year.
Many are looking to Tuesday’s odd-year election as a bellwether for the 2026 midterm elections, to determine if the electoral winds are calm, a gentle breeze, a gale, or a hurricane, as measured on meteorologists’ Beaufort Scale.
Too many analysts—including some who should know better—have put far too much emphasis on the pair of odd-year gubernatorial races. This pair of contests is a very small sample indeed.
So I have devised my own scale. Here are 10 questions. The number of “yes” answers will tell you, on a scale of one to 10, whether Democrats had a horrible night (three or fewer) or if they’ll be singing “happy days are here again” (eight or more):
Do Democrats hold onto the New Jersey governorship?
Democrats currently have 65 percent of the New Jersey state Assembly seats. Do they win more than that?
Do Democrats win the race for Virginia’s governor?
Do Democrats win the Virginia lieutenant governor’s seat?
Do they win the Virginia attorney general race?
Do they retain their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates?
Do Democrats win a governing trifecta in Virginia, by winning the governorship and the Assembly? (They already hold the state Senate, but that’s not up for reelection until 2027.)
Does the ballot initiative that allows California to redistrict for partisan gain pass?
Do the three Democratic Supreme Court judges in Pennsylvania win reelection?
Do Democrats win both special elections to the state Public Service Commission in Georgia?
I know what you’re thinking: The New York City mayoral race is not listed. That’s true—and it’s because no single mayor’s race, anywhere, anytime, has been instructive about what would happen in a national election a year later. There is a difference between something being interesting and, at least for national politics, important; this race is more the former than the latter.
Now let’s look at the states individually.
New Jersey
Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli face off for governor in a state that is definitely more blue than red. In the major-party vote, factoring out all votes for independent or third-party candidates, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris averaged 56.12 percent of the vote in the last three presidential elections, and Donald Trump received an average of 43.88.
Republicans have won the governorship eight out of the last 19 times, but each of those (Chris Christie being the last in 2013) occurred in a far less polarized time. The last Republican to win a U.S. Senate race in the state was Clifford Case in 1972, 53 years ago. The state’s Democratic tilt should give the party an edge, but one sobering statistic for Democrats is that the last time either party won the New Jersey governorship for a third consecutive term was in 1961.
Democrats are on the cusp of a super-majority in the state General Assembly, with 52 seats to Republicans’ 28.
Virginia
Virginia’s Democratic tilt is a bit less than New Jersey’s, where the party’s standard-bearers won an average of 53.64 percent of the major-party vote in the last three presidential elections, to 46.36 percent for Trump. Former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger has enjoyed a pretty consistent lead over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
Four years ago, when former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe was seeking a second, non-consecutive term, he came up short with 48.64 percent of the vote to Republican Glenn Youngkin’s 50.58 percent. No doubt, President Biden’s plummeting job approval rating over the previous four months put quite a drag on McAuliffe. This time, it’s Trump’s lagging approval that is more likely to be an external factor, to the detriment of Earle-Sears.
Neither nominee for lieutenant governor is a household name in Virginia: Democratic state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and Republican radio talk-show host John Reid are both fairly blank slates, making the race more likely to be more of a generic party fight, giving the Democrat an advantage. That would make a Democratic loss in this race more noteworthy.
The race for attorney general is the Democrats’ weak link, with a badly damaged former state House delegate, Jay Jones, fending off a variety of allegations, making a GOP win for Attorney General Jason Miyares more likely here.
The fight for control of the House of Delegates will come down to slightly more than a half-dozen seats. Democrats currently have 51 seats to 49 for Republicans. If Democrats win the governorship and hold the House of Delegates, that will give them a governing trifecta.
California
Readers of this column are almost certainly well-versed on the California ballot initiative to temporarily take redistricting away from the independent commission and allow Golden State Democrats to do to Republicans what the GOP is doing to Democrats in Texas and a few other places.
Initial polls showed that it might be close, that voters might not like the idea of ditching a good-government reform, even if only temporarily. But the vote has become an inevitable referendum on President Trump—not helpful in a state where he averaged just 38.3 percent of the major-party vote, while Hillary Clinton, Biden, and Harris averaged 63.81 percent. This should be a gimme putt for Democrats.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is a bit trickier. State Supreme Court races are not conventional elections; the justices run for another 10-year term, like a pass-fail test, and their party is not officially designated on the ballot. It has nonetheless become highly partisan; anyone likely to vote will know that these are three Democrats running, and both parties are spending heavily to influence the outcome.
Local observers say that while around a quarter to a third of voters automatically vote no, justices are rarely given a thumbs down. In the three-quarters of a century of these races, only one justice failed to win retention, a Democrat in 2005. But things are much more partisan now, and no state is more evenly divided than the Keystone State.
Georgia
Georgia is one of only 10 states with publicly elected Public Service Commissioners, which is now a key office because electric rates will be among the top issues for the next few elections. Artificial intelligence is driving up the demand for electricity and the need to build capacity, with everyone wanting someone else to pay the lion’s share. Another oddity is that the five-member Public Service Commission hasn’t held an election since 2020, after which Voting Rights Act litigation prevented an election from being held until it was settled.
A PSC race in Georgia is a statewide election, though the candidates must live in certain districts to run for that seat. Both incumbents are Republicans. In District 2, Tim Echols is seeking another term and is opposed by Democrat Alicia Johnson. In District 3, Fitz Johnson is the GOP incumbent and Peter Hubbard is the Democratic challenger.
Republicans are favored to win both; no Democrat has won a statewide constitutional office since 2006 (U.S. Senate seats are not state constitutional offices). But rising electric prices are becoming a populist issue, and there are some indications that these races have tightened up.
The tests above are certainly not of equal difficulty; yet either party that gets close to acing all of them will definitely be having a very good night.