President Trump is not on the 2025 ballot, but he remains top of mind among voters ahead of his first general election since winning a second term a year ago.
Will California support redistricting under Proposition 50?
Proposition 50 has sparked debate over California’s redistricting. It will play a key role in determining which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
Democratic gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia have made opposition to Donald Trump a central focus of their arguments. In California, an ad urges voters to “stick with Trump,” while New York City’s leading mayoral candidate says he will stand up to the president if he wins.
Trump’s name will not be on the 2025 ballot. He is a lame duck, with political retirement looming in three years. But the spotlight is on the 79-year-old Republican despite an off-year election that culminates on Nov. 4. As America prepares for its first general election since Trump won a second term nearly a year ago, his likeness is featured in ads and debates and remains in the minds of voters.
Democrats have reason to be optimistic. Key 2025 races in New Jersey, Virginia and California are largely fought on turf, where Trump is unpopular and has never won a statewide campaign. The president’s opponents hope they can capitalize on the anxiety felt by voters like Mary Ruhl, a 71-year-old Virginia resident who said she was thinking about the current White House occupant when she recently cast her vote at an early voting site.
“I want to get rid of Trump,” said Ruhl, a former Air Force officer and lifelong Democrat, adding, “He’s the worst president we’ve ever had.”
Republicans see things very differently. With Mr. Trump at the head of the party, they are leaning as much toward the president as possible, aiming to ignite the same forces that helped Republicans capture the White House and take full control of Congress in 2024.
Mr. Trump, largely absent from the campaign trail but spending much of the final week before Election Day traveling to Asia, has shown little bleakness about politics. He has frequently targeted New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani as Republicans seek to portray Democrats as far-left.. New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli told the USA TODAY Network that he speaks with Trump every few weeks, and the president reiterated his support in a recent social media post, reminding Garden State voters, “He will never let you down!”
The most obvious referendum on Mr. Trump is in California, where Democrats are asking voters to support Proposition 50, a redistricting plan in response to the president’s call for Republicans in Texas and other states around the country to redraw House maps in favor of Republicans. The campaign supporting Prop 50 revolves around a simple message: The idea is to thwart what appears to be a power grab by President Trump and keep the White House in check through the 2026 midterm elections that will determine who controls the House and Senate during the final two years of the Republican Party’s second term.
Opponents of brewing
Trump’s aggressive opening act for his second term has excited his supporters as he wields power in myriad ways. But there is also a backlash.
Trump took office in January with an approval rating of 51%. That percentage is now down to 45%, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.
On October 18, millions of people protested across the United States in “No Kings” demonstrations, the second large-scale nationwide anti-Trump rally since Trump took office in January. Democrats, meanwhile, have fared well this year, winning a state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin, flipping two Republican-held state Senate seats in Iowa and outperforming in dozens of other special elections from Florida to Arizona.
In 42 state races across 18 states and U.S. Congressional races in 2025, Democrats improved their margins between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris in the same districts last year by an average of more than 15 percentage points, according to data collected by political website Down Ballot.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin pointed to the results of the special election in a recent memo and argued that the party is in a “strong position” heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
President Trump is also looking ahead to the midterm elections, arguing that his record should ensure a strong showing for the Republican Party, but worrying about a history of seeing sitting presidents hurt the party when voters return to the polls two years after a White House campaign.
“The odds are slim,” President Trump said at a recent Rose Garden lunch with Senate Republicans, declaring: “We have to win the midterm elections. If we don’t, a lot of what we’ve done will be undone.”
Both parties hope to use November’s election as momentum for the more important 2026 election, where control of Congress and President Trump’s policies are at stake. If Democrats win a majority, they would be able to block the president from passing legislation and introduce active surveillance of the White House.
Hoping to avoid such a scenario, President Trump is pressuring red-state Republicans to offer more favorable midterm maps that would help the party maintain its trifecta in Washington. Texas and Missouri have already redrawn their House maps at President Trump’s request, and other red states, including Florida, North Carolina, Indiana and Kansas, are considering their own redistricting moves.
This means the California election could be especially consequential if Democrats succeed in blocking at least some of President Trump’s redistricting efforts.
Democrats play the trump card
In Virginia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger ended her only debate with Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earl Sears in an attempt to connect Trump with Trump.
At an Oct. 9 event in Norfolk, Spanberger criticized President Trump’s tariffs and expressed concern about job cuts in Virginia, which has been hit hard by the Trump administration’s cuts to federal agencies. Additionally, the government shutdown has furloughed approximately 750,000 federal employees, many in Virginia, and thousands more are working without pay.
“I will always put Virginians first…My opponent did not do the same. He put his loyalty to Donald Trump first, no matter the cost,” Spanberger said.
Earl Sears retorted, “If I had been drinking,” every time Trump said, “I’m telling you, we’d be drunk by now,” Spanberger said.
New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill is also eager to highlight Trump’s efforts to energize the Democratic Party in the state, which the president narrowed to 6 percentage points last year after losing by 16 points in 2020. At the beginning of her first debate with Ciatarelli, Sherrill declared, “I’ll do whatever Trump says.”
Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said of Sherrill that “Democratic candidates are always doing their best to talk about Donald Trump” because focusing on Trump could help draw Democrats to the polls.
However, it comes with risks. Democrats have struggled in recent elections to focus too much on anti-Trump messages and not enough on solutions to pressing problems. At the same time, Trump gained support from core Democratic-leaning groups, including minorities and young voters.
“We can’t just reflexively run an anti-Trump campaign like we did in 2017 when President Trump was first elected,” said Alex Wilkes, a New Jersey Republican consultant.
Trump also shares his opinion
Earle-Sears’ campaign page lists numerous endorsements from Republican leaders. Trump is not among them.
The president recently attended the Navy’s 250th anniversary celebration in Norfolk, but did not mention Earl Sears.
President Trump was asked by reporters on Air Force One about his campaign in Virginia on his way back to the White House from Florida, and he said that Earl Sears was “great,” but noted that he was “not really involved in Virginia.”
But Trump is backing Virginia and the Republican attorney general’s race against a Democrat embroiled in a texting scandal.
With Earl Sears trailing far behind in the polls, President Trump has focused more attention on the New Jersey gubernatorial race, endorsing Ciatarelli and praising him in a recent social media post as “New Jersey’s winner!”
Ciatarelli respects Trump’s record and said in a recent debate that he would give the president an “A” even if he tried to shift the conversation to local issues. When asked if he was part of President Trump’s MAGA movement, Ciatarelli said he was “part of the New Jersey movement.” Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Ciatarelli in the primary and took part in a conference call declaring, “New Jersey is ready to get out of that blue horror show.”
In their appeal to voters, Ciatarelli and his allies blame New Jersey’s problems on Democrats, who control the governor’s mansion and the Legislature.
“This is one-party control. Democrats have been in control,” Wilkes said.
Every race is unique, and factors like fundraising, candidate strength and local issues all come into play. Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who supported Mr. Sherrill and turned independent, acknowledged Mr. Ciatarelli is a strong candidate and said he is familiar with local issues due to his long involvement in state politics.
“But it’s hard to get away from what he’s saying about Trump,” she says.
Trump or Newsom?
While Republican losses in New Jersey and Virginia could hurt the party’s enthusiasm heading into the midterm elections, a loss in California would be a more obvious setback for Mr. Trump. The contest was all about the president.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is leading efforts to persuade voters to approve a ballot measure that would allow Democrats to bypass independent redistricting commissions and draw congressional maps that increase Democratic-leaning seats.
President Trump not only risks setbacks in his power struggle over redistricting ahead of the midterm elections, but he also risks handing victory to his archrival and potential 2028 presidential candidate, Newsom.
Matt Rexrode, a California Republican Party consultant, said the referendum was a great opportunity for Newsom to raise his profile and raise money.
“California’s problems are not determined by redistricting,” Rexrode said. “Nobody knows anything about redistricting…The election will be decided by whether you support President Trump or Governor Newsom.”
Whatever happens on Election Day, the results will be closely analyzed for evidence of President Trump’s strengths and weaknesses heading into the midterm elections. Sure enough, the president said on November 5, the day after the election, that he may appear before the Supreme Court for oral arguments in a case involving his tariff policy. Whether he can survive a hard-fought election or perform well, it will be an impressive scene. Either way, he will turn heads.
Contributor: Carissa Wadick, Reuters
