Republicans feel optimistic heading into New Jersey, Virginia elections

Republicans are feeling optimistic heading into Virginia and New Jersey’s 2025 off-year elections, after the party improved their margins in the states in the presidential election. 

President-elect Trump lost the usual Democratic stronghold of New Jersey by about 6 points, dramatically narrowing the gap from 2020, when he lost it by about 16 points. And he improved by more than 4 points in the purple commonwealth in Virginia, which he also lost by about 6 points last week.

Both states are holding open gubernatorial races, while members of New Jersey’s General Assembly and Virginia’s House of Delegates are also up for election. 

The off-year races might not have the same turnout, but they could provide an early indicator of what to expect in the 2026 midterms and how voters are reacting to the Republican trifecta in Washington.

“We will see where the environment is,” said Zack Roday, a Virginia-based Republican strategist who formerly worked with GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC.

“It always has an outside impact because it’s right after — the first electoral test post-presidential races and it has a bearing, no doubt,” he continued. 

At the gubernatorial level, the races’ primaries vary in size. Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) are the favorites to face off in the general election in the commonwealth.

In New Jersey, on the other hand, both fields are getting crowded. On Monday, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) became the latest Democrat to jump into the primary, joining fellow Rep. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), state Senate President Steve Sweeney, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

On the GOP side, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, former state legislator Jack Ciattarelli, former state Sen. Ed Durr and radio host Bill Spadea have entered the primary. 

“I think it’s just going to be messy on both sides,” Laura Matos, partner at MAD Global Strategy Group and Democratic National Committee member, said of the New Jersey contest. 

Republicans argue the wind is at their back in the Garden State, pointing to Trump flipping Passaic and Morris counties in the northern part of the state, along with Atlantic, Cumberland and Gloucester counties in the south. The last time Atlantic and Cumberland counties went red was in 1988, while Passaic County had not been won by a Republican since 1992. President Biden had flipped Morris and Gloucester counties in 2020, but Trump put them back in the Republicans' column.

“We’re looking at counties that went red that hadn’t for any president since the ’90s,” said Jeanette Hoffman, a New Jersey Republican strategist. “I think that’s solely because of issues like the economy, inflation, affordability, opportunity. People are just fed up. They want change.” 

Matos acknowledged Democrats in and out of New Jersey need to reevaluate their own messaging on a number of issues, including the economy. 

“Looking nationally at how Democrats are talking to voters,” she said. “I think, as Democrats, we need to reevaluate that.” 

However, Matos added that calling New Jersey a purple state is not “reflective of the actual scenario.” 

Still, judging from the last gubernatorial race, there is a possibility New Jersey could be close again in the off year; Ciattarelli lost to incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy (D) by roughly 3 points in 2021.

A similar sense of optimism can also be felt farther south, in Virginia. Republicans attribute this not only to Trump narrowing the gap but to Republicans presenting a “unified” front under Youngkin, who endorsed Earle-Sears this week.

“In Virginia, we’re as united as we’ve ever been really since Glenn Youngkin took to the stage and secured the nomination in May of 2021,” Roday said.

While Trump improved on his margins in Virginia from 2020, an argument can also be made that the margins went back to 2016 levels; Trump lost the state to Hillary Clinton that year by just more than 5 points. Virginia Democrats also saw significant victories in elections when Trump was in the White House.

In 2017, Democrat Ralph Northam won the governorship, and two years later Democrats gained control of the state government’s trifecta, winning the House of Delegates and state Senate. During the 2018 midterm elections, Spanberger, along with Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D) and former Rep. Elaine Luria (D), ousted three incumbent Republicans in the state. 

“When he became president the first time, the result was the Democrats have their best four years of elections in a generation,” said Bob Holsworth, a veteran Virginia political analyst. 

“The real concern that the Republicans have to have is that if Trump, for example, starts relocating agencies out of the D.C. area, that’s an economic problem for Northern Virginia,” Holsworth said, referring to Trump’s calls to slim down the federal bureaucracy in Washington. 

Democrats also argue that in addition to winning the state’s Senate race handedly this month, Rep.-elect Eugene Vindman (D) won Spanberger’s competitive 7th Congressional District, which national Republicans invested in. However, that race, which includes swaths of northern and central Virginia, was tight — Vindman defeated his GOP opponent, Derrick Anderson, by 2 points. 

And at the presidential level, there were warning signs for Democrats in the suburbs and exurbs of D.C.

In Prince William and Loudoun counties, Trump improved his standing by nearly 5 points since 2020, while Vice President Harris underperformed 2020 Biden by more than 5 points. Even in deep-blue Fairfax County, Trump received a bump of more than 2 points, and Harris trailed Biden’s 2020 results by more than 4 points points.

“The question is whether that’s the start of a trend, or whether it’s just sort of a reversion to what happened in 2016,” Holsworth said.