Voters cast protest vote against Trump in Virginia and New Jersey

It was a clean sweep. The Democrats won in all the major elections held this Tuesday in the United States. Democratic candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill decisively triumphed in their races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively — the two states where gubernatorial contests were held on Tuesday. The elections were interpreted as an initial referendum on Donald Trump’s first 10 months in the White House, as well as a test to determine whether the Democrats have a chance of victory in next year’s midterm elections, when control of the U.S. Congress will be at stake.

With 85% of the votes counted in New Jersey, Sherrill was leading her rival, Jack Ciattarelli, 56% to 43%. In Virginia, where the polls had closed an hour earlier, Spanberger defeated her opponent Winsome Earle-Sears by 57.2% to 42.6%, with 94% of the votes counted, taking the first governorship of this electoral cycle away from the Republican Party.

The two winners shared a similar profile: moderate candidates who entered politics during the Democratic wave of opposition to Trump in the 2018 midterm elections and with professional backgrounds focused on national security. Spanberger was a CIA agent, and Sherrill a Navy helicopter pilot. Both had centered their campaigns on an anti-Trump message — though without naming him in most of their speeches — and on promises to address the daily problems facing families.

This approach was very different from the progressive platform offered by the winner of the New York mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani. Yet it proved equally effective on Tuesday in a political climate in which voters made clear their anger over the state of the economy, rising prices, and — especially in Virginia, where a large portion of the population works directly or indirectly in government — the consequences of the government shutdown, now officially the longest in history.

If the election day was meant to serve as a referendum on Trump, the president lost it decisively: the candidates he explicitly endorsed — Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey and even Andrew Cuomo in New York — suffered heavy defeats at the hands of voters. Four out of 10 voters in New Jersey and Virginia stated that they went to the polls to punish the president. In both states, nearly two-thirds of voters expressed dissatisfaction or anger with the country’s political direction, according to exit polls.

On the other hand, it was a big night for the Democrats, who will now try to capitalize on their success in Tuesday’s various elections to aim for similar results 12 months from now. In addition to the two governorships, they also retained the seats of three Democratic judges, allowing them to maintain control of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In Georgia, they captured two seats from the Republicans in a local election. In California, a resounding victory was secured for the Democratic-backed proposal to redraw electoral districts, enabling the party to secure more seats in the House of Representatives and counter a similar redistricting reform already implemented in Texas in favor of the Republicans.

“Tonight, we sent a message,” began an elated Spanberger in her victory speech in Richmond, the state capital. “We sent a message to every corner of the Commonwealth; a message to our neighbors and our fellow Americans across the country; we sent a message to the whole world — that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our Commonwealth over chaos,“ said the Democratic candidate, who made history as the first woman to lead a state that for decades was deeply conservative.

In New Jersey, her former roommate and close friend Sherrill also delivered a message of unity in her speech. “In this state, I am determined to build prosperity for all of our citizens,” said the former military pilot. “We’ve chosen liberty, the very foundation of democracy. And we’ve chosen prosperity, necessary to create opportunity for all.”

Buoyed in part by Spanberger’s victory, Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Ghazala Hashmi also won her race, defeating Republican John Reid. Hashmi will become Virginia’s first Muslim lieutenant governor.

Even the weakest of the Democratic trio in Virginia, attorney general candidate Jay Jones, won his contest against Republican incumbent Jason Miyares — albeit by a smaller margin of six percentage points.

Jones’s candidacy had been mired in controversy after a series of his text messages were revealed last month, during early voting, in which he expressed a wish that a Republican rival and his family be shot.

In addition, the Democrats increased their majority in the state House of Representatives: from controlling 51 of the 100 seats, they now hold 63.

Exit polls indicated that the economy and opposition to Trump were the main factors mobilizing voters in this state, which borders Washington, D.C., and has one of the highest proportions of residents employed by the federal government or working as contractors dependent on federal contracts. This segment of the population has been heavily affected by the Republican administration’s budget cuts and layoffs. Many expressed concern about the impact of the government shutdown on their household finances.

Only 12% of respondents surveyed by NBC said their families felt financially comfortable, while twice as many reported that they were struggling to make ends meet. Thirty-nine percent said federal cuts had moderately affected their household finances, and 20% said they had been severely impacted. Only 15% in the state said they went to the polls to send a message of support for the president. In neighboring New York, that percentage dropped to 13%.

However, in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the U.S. president rejected the idea that the election results had anything to do with him — or perhaps implied the opposite: that the defeats of his party were because he had not been directly involved. “‘TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,’ according to Pollsters,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

Democratic National Committee campaign chair Suzan DelBene, by contrast, stated in a press release: “Tonight’s results are as clear a sign as ever that Democrats are poised to take back the People’s House next year.”

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