The gubernatorial election could show the influence Trump has, nine months into his second term.
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Candidates for governors in New Jersey and Virginia and mayor of New York are racing toward the finish line on Nov. 4 to see who wins in off-year elections that are seen as a signal for the outcome of the 2026 race.
Voters in California will help determine whether Democrats or Republicans win the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections and who will take control after the last two years of President Donald Trump.
As Election Day 2025 approaches, President Trump plans to call Monday night to voters in two gubernatorial races that will test his influence nine months into his second term.
Whoever wins the race between former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle Sears, Virginia will have its first female governor.
The New Jersey election is between Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican businessman and former state lawmaker Jack Ciattarelli.
Zoran Mamdani, the poll-leading candidate for New York mayor, laughed off President Trump’s criticism even as he struggled to win votes. Mamdani is running a campaign against former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Republican anti-crime group Guardian Angels.
Here’s the latest on last-minute campaign activity before the Nov. 4 election.
Former President Barack Obama didn’t mince words during a weekend campaign for Democratic gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill in Virginia and New Jersey about his thoughts on the first 10 months of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
President Obama on Saturday praised Spanberger’s candidacy and past experience in law enforcement and the CIA in Norfolk, Virginia, but said the country was in a “pretty bleak place.”
“It’s hard to know where to start, because every day this White House brings new lawlessness and recklessness and meanness and just plain insanity,” Obama said to cheers and boos. “So every day is like Halloween, except there’s all the tricks and no treats.”
Mr. Obama then listed a litany of things President Trump has done since taking office, including antagonizing the Justice Department against his political opponents, replacing career prosecutors with allies, firing decorated police officers because they might be more loyal to the Constitution than him, and deploying the National Guard to primarily Democratic-led cities to stem a nonexistent crime wave.
“It’s not like we didn’t see this happening,” President Obama told the audience, somewhat sarcastically. “I admit it’s worse than I expected…but I warned you all! I warned you!”
Hours later, President Obama issued a similar message at a Sherrill anti-vote rally in Newark. He said a vote for Sherrill will not only put New Jersey on the path to a brighter future, but will also set a “shining example” for the nation.
When President Obama went on and on about the Trump administration’s “recklessness and meanness” in a speech in Newark, he was met with boos. The former president retorted. “Please don’t boo,” President Obama said. “Vote!”
– Terry Collins
Supporters of Proposition 50, California’s redistricting plan backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, are far outnumbered by opponents in political advertising as the campaign around the initiative winds down.
More than $129 million was spent on the Proposition 50 campaign, 72% of which went to ads supporting the effort, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.
Mr. Newsom is pushing ahead with efforts to temporarily bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission and redraw California’s House map to increase Democratic-leaning seats, in response to President Trump’s push to expand Republican-leaning House seats in Texas and other red states.
– zach anderson
Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for New Jersey governor, got a surprise from his “biggest supporter” while campaigning at Murph’s Saloon in Totowa on Monday.
The candidate’s son, Army Capt. Jake Ciattarelli, returned from a tour of duty in Kuwait.
As his son, dressed in camouflage, approached for a hug, Ciattarelli slapped him in front of him with his right hand. The crowd chanted “USA, USA.”
“Oh!” Elder Ciattarelli said. “He was so busy protecting our country that he probably forgot to fill out his mail-in ballot. He came here to vote.”
– bert jansen
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin expressed cautious optimism about his party’s chances of winning key gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday despite tightening polls.
A poll released Saturday revealed that Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciatarelli are in a dead heat in the race for the New Jersey governor’s mansion. But Martin said he was confident in Sherrill’s momentum in the race after a whirlwind weekend of campaigning with Democratic heavyweights, including former President Barack Obama.
“We always expected the race to be close,” he said. “But everything I’ve seen from being there the past three days shows record enthusiasm and excitement.”
Martin said Tuesday’s victory “will show that this idea that the Democratic Party is dead and can’t be revived is greatly exaggerated.”
– Carissa Wadick
Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, sat with a bloody nose during the Knicks’ home game victory at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. More than a week ago, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, left the final mayoral debate and later sat courtside at the Knicks’ home opener with Mayor Eric Adams, who supported Mr. Cuomo. The Knicks won this time too.
Mayoral candidates in America’s largest city are campaigning in their wards ahead of Tuesday’s general election.
In the city that never sleeps, Mamdani, a 34-year-old front-runner, ate biryani with taxi drivers in the ever-diverse Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens after midnight. After visiting clubs and bars in Brooklyn, he headed to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in Harlem on Sunday morning. At sunrise Monday after the Knicks game, Mamdani said he and his supporters marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall, marking the start of a new day.
Mr. Cuomo also went out at different times. On Friday, he visited a cafe in Russian-speaking Brooklyn with a Republican lawmaker who supported him over Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. The next day, Mr. Cuomo met with voters in majority-black neighborhoods in Brooklyn. On Sunday, Mr. Cuomo visited a black church in the Bronx. On Monday, Mr. Cuomo’s public schedule showed he would tour all five boroughs for voting, including heavily Latino areas such as the Bronx and Washington Heights in Manhattan.
Early voting tallies are already showing historic turnout for off-year elections.
– Eduardo Cuevas
The latest CNN/SSRS poll shows President Trump’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level in his second term.
A poll released Monday showed the president’s approval rating at 37%. This is the lowest second-term approval rating found in the CNN poll, and only 1 percentage point higher than the 36% approval rating at this point in Trump’s first term.
The president’s 63% disapproval rating in the poll is also a notable change in numbers dating back to January 2025. Numerically, he has the highest disapproval rate of any term in a CNN poll, one point higher than the all-time high of 62% for President Trump, who leaves office in January 2021.
The dire numbers come as the country races toward the 35th day of an ongoing government shutdown on Tuesday, which would tie the record for the longest government shutdown during President Trump’s first term in 2019, but on the eve of an off-year election, many are focused on a possible referendum on Republicans.
– Kathryn Palmer
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that he hopes a majority of Democrats will be able to vote with Republicans to reopen the government once the Nov. 4 election is over.
House Republicans approved an underfunded bill to reopen the government through Nov. 21, but most Senate Democrats blocked the bill, arguing for expanded health care spending.
“I hope tomorrow’s election will change all of this, and it will be a big change,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday. “I hope that after people vote and go into their rooms, they calculate, ‘Well, maybe we don’t have to toe that line anymore. Maybe they won’t punish us. Maybe it won’t affect turnout in our state in this election.'”
– Bert Jansen
Virginia Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl Sears promoted public safety and tax cuts in his final message of the gubernatorial campaign, calling for an end to the state’s car tax.
“Not a single Virginian likes a car tax,” she posted on social media Monday, along with a clip of her debate with Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger. “Now is the time to end it once and for all.”
Spanberger also said he would abolish the car tax. But Earl Sears said Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin included the proposal in his budget, and state Democratic lawmakers removed it.
– Bert Jansen
Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger focused on abortion, arguing that “reproductive freedom” is on the ballot in Virginia’s gubernatorial race against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earl Sears.
“My opponents want to ban abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest,” Spanberger said in a social media post Monday. “Virginia, please know that I will always protect a woman’s right to choose.”
– Bert Jansen
Jack Ciatarelli, a Republican candidate for New Jersey governor, posted a video of support for former Gov. Tom Keene, calling him “compassionate, respectful and hard-working.”
“This year is different,” Keene, who has long distanced himself from partisan politics, said in a video posted Nov. 3. “New Jersey needs change, and it needs big change.”
– Bert Jansen
President Trump is scheduled to hold a conference call for gubernatorial candidates on November 3rd.
He is scheduled to call Virginia supporters from the Oval Office at 7 p.m. ET. He will then call supporters in New Jersey at 7:30 p.m.
President Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday that voting Republican in either seat would lead to lower energy prices. He has championed oil and gas development, in contrast to many Democrats who promote renewable fuels to curb climate change.
Zoran Mamdani, a leading candidate for New York City mayor, was asked what he thought about Trump and laughed when he said he was the better-looking of the two.
“My focus is on the cost of living crisis, brother,” Mamdani told reporters.
Mamdani is campaigning as a democratic socialist. But President Trump has accused Mamdani of being a communist and warned that if Mamdani wins, he won’t support federal funding for New York.
In an interview on “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, Norah O’Donnell asked President Trump’s reaction to the comparison that both politicians are charismatic and break the rules.
“Well, I think I’m a much better-looking person than he is,” Trump said.
Mamdani walked across the Brooklyn Bridge early Monday morning with state Attorney General Letitia James and others before holding a press conference in front of City Hall in Manhattan.
Californians are set to vote on a ballot measure to redraw Congressional maps for the 2026 midterm elections.
Governor Gavin Newsom has pushed ahead with reforms aimed at shifting five Republican seats to Democrats in order to counter redistricting in Texas that favors Republicans among the five seats currently held by Democrats.
Redistricting is done every 10 years based on the census, and President Trump has encouraged Republican-led states to redraw their maps to maintain a majority in the House, where Republicans hold a 219-213 lead.
