This time last year, I was writing to you from the road — or from the air, or from sports arenas with zero Wi-Fi — during the frenzied closing weeks of a presidential campaign that voters ultimately handed to Donald Trump.
Two weeks from tomorrow, we’ll get our best glimpse yet at just how much — or whether — the political upheaval that’s followed is resonating with voters across the nation.
Off-year elections are upon us. Are they as all-consuming as a presidential race? No. But the Nov. 4 contests in states like California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia could still tell us a lot.
They will serve as a pulse check for Democrats, who are desperate to show their supporters some momentum. Republicans will pore over the returns for signs of whether the 2024 gains they made with young and nonwhite voters stuck around.
And, crucially, voters in several states are going to make the rules — or choose the officials who will — for big-ticket contests in 2026 and beyond.
Here’s a simple guide to the big races from my colleagues across the newsroom who know them best.
The battle for California: The 2026 fight for control of the House starts on Election Day in California. There, voters will decide whether to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts to help Democrats flip as many as five seats next year.
The measure, Proposition 50, is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to President Trump’s pressure on red states to draw new districts that favor Republicans.
It asks voters to set aside, for the next three elections, the maps drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission and replace them with maps drawn by Democratic lawmakers. Its opponents, who include former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, call it a Democratic power grab. Its supporters, including former President Barack Obama and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, are framing it as part of a national effort to stop President Trump — which makes it a key test of blue-state voters’ appetite to take on the president.
— Laurel Rosenhall
The nail-biter in New Jersey: There are 850,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey, which has had only one Republican governor — Chris Christie — in 23 years.
And yet.
The governor’s race between Representative Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, and Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican, appears to be coming down to the wire. Three independent polls released last week showed that Sherrill’s lead had eroded slightly as negative advertising by both candidates floods voters’ TVs and social media feeds. That’s making Republicans increasingly hopeful that they just might be able to pull off a victory in a reliably blue state where Trump fared far better than expected last November.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has said that the stakes in New Jersey “couldn’t be higher,” and, despite New Jersey’s blue tilt, his party may well be working against history: It’s been more than 60 years since either party held onto the governor’s seat for three consecutive terms, and Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has had the job for two.
— Tracey Tully
Less suspense in Virginia: The contest for Virginia governor typically serves as a rejection of the party in the White House. So it is this year, with former Representative Abigail Spanberger holding a significant advantage over Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in public and private polling. Spanberger is aided by a two-to-one fund-raising advantage and a united Democratic Party behind her, while Earle-Sears secured a tepid endorsement from President Trump, who tends to keep his distance from struggling candidates, just this weekend.
Spanberger has ruthlessly sought to tie Earle-Sears to the president, whose slashing of federal government jobs and government contracts has affected Virginia as much as any other state. Earle-Sears has attacked Spanberger, who during three terms in Congress staked out a reputation as a moderate, as a tool of the party’s left wing. A win by Spanberger is likely to be held up by at least some Democrats as a road map for the midterms and beyond.
— Reid J. Epstein
A mayor’s race that isn’t like the others: While most mayoral races tend to focus on hyperlocal issues like schools, roads and bridges, New York City’s contest has been dominated almost entirely by national and global politics.
State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, 34, shook the Democratic establishment by handily beating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the primary, rocketing to the top of New York’s politics through his campaign’s promise to make the city affordable for its working-class residents. His candidacy has spooked some fellow Democrats, particularly those in the politically volatile New York City suburbs, who view his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America and past criticisms of Israel in its war with Hamas as unpopular outside of the deep-blue city. Cuomo, who is now running against Mamdani as an independent, has pointed to these issues and Mamdani’s young age as disqualifiers for office; President Trump, meanwhile, has vowed to punish the city if Mamdani wins.
— Maya King
A fight for Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court: The contests in Pennsylvania might seem quirky and under the radar. In three elections, called retention elections, voters will decide whether justices who were elected as Democrats to the state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania keep their seats for another 10-year term (or until they reach mandatory retirement age). It is a simple “yes” or “no” vote; if the judges are not retained, the governor can appoint a temporary replacement, and a full election will be held in the next odd year.
But the outcome will determine the tilt of the seven-member Pennsylvania State Supreme Court through the next presidential election. What’s at stake is nothing less than control of the highest court in the most important swing state in the country.
— Nick Corasaniti
Will Maine voters decide to make voting more difficult? A proposal before voters in Maine will test the power of President Trump’s complaints about mail voting. It would eliminate two days of early absentee voting, require photo identification in order to vote, ban prepaid return envelopes for absentee ballots and limit drop boxes, among other changes. A conservative outside group known as the Dinner Table is behind the initiative, but the fight has broken along party lines, with the Maine Democratic Party opposing the ballot measure and the Republican Party supporting it. In the 2024 election, about 160,000 Democrats cast their absentee ballots by mail, compared with about 105,000 Republicans, according to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
— Nick Corasaniti
by the numbers
Nearly 6.5 percent
That’s the share of subprime car loans that were 60 days or more past due in January, a high that shows how more lower-income Americans are struggling to make their monthly car-loan payments. Repossessions have soared.
This weakness in the auto market is one of the clearest indications that low- and middle-income families — the economy’s foundation — could be starting to buckle, even though the economy appears to be doing well on the surface. That could become a key issue in next year’s midterm elections.
ON THE MAP
Dial 1 for redistricting
President Trump’s hard push for mid-decade redistricting, the keystone of his strategy for the midterm elections, has met resistance in one of the country’s redder states: Indiana. Following two in-person visits by Vice President JD Vance, Trump himself called Republicans in the Indiana State Senate on Friday to press his case — and to remind them just how popular he is in the state.
At the end of the call, my colleagues Tyler Pager and Nick Corasaniti reported, lawmakers were told to press “1” if they supported redistricting, and “2” if they did not.
Was the poll a little hokey? Sure. But it was also a reminder to each and every one of them that the White House is closely tracking where they stand.
ONE LAST THING
The Mamdani impersonators are here
You know you’ve made it in politics when someone is making literal potty jokes about you.
My colleague Dionne Searcey has a humorous look at the emerging phenomenon of impersonators of Zohran Mamdani, the front-runner in the New York City mayor’s race. There’s a comedian who jokes about putting free-standing toilets by trees and stop signs (“Go anytime, anywhere”). And there are about a dozen guys who showed up for a Mamdani look-alike contest in Prospect Park.
The campaign has even asked a couple of them to help out during simultaneous events.
“I can’t be two places at once,” Mamdani said in a social media clip teasing the events. “Or can I?”
Taylor Robinson contributed to this newsletter.
Jess Bidgood is a managing correspondent for The Times and writes the On Politics newsletter, a guide to how President Trump is changing Washington, the country and its politics.
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