One thing is clear: If either Mikie Sherrill or Abigail Spanberger loses her bid to become governor in November, the Democratic Party is in trouble heading into the 2026 congressional elections. Both Democratic nominees would appear to be ideally suited to capture majorities in the centrist electorates of New Jersey and Virginia.
Sherrill and Spanberger, both elected to Congress in 2018, are moderates, even if they don’t always appear to be on the campaign trail. Together with their fellow Democrats Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Elaine Luria of Virginia, the four were known in the House of Representatives as the mod squad, in contrast to the group of very progressive members of Congress aligned with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez known simply as the squad. Other nicknames for the mod squad included the badasses caucus and, in more formal recognition of their military, security and C.I.A. backgrounds, task force sentry.
Sherrill and Spanberger have relatively unusual résumés for contemporary Democrats: Sherrill as a Naval Academy graduate, helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor; Spanberger as a postal inspector and C.I.A. officer.
Recent polls show Sherrill leading her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, a former member of the New Jersey General Assembly who lost a bid for governor in 2021, by a cumulative average of four percentage points, with the race tightening recently. Spanberger is ahead of Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee and Virginia’s lieutenant governor, by 6.2 points.
While both Democrats are ahead, Republicans have been making gains in New Jersey and Virginia, and each candidate faces what would ordinarily seem to be majority electorates whose commitment to the party has frayed since the 2024 election.
“Both gubernatorial contests are tests of the brand that Democrats believe is best suited for their comeback,” Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia and editor in chief of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, wrote by email:
The brand Democrats are selling this year is moderate-liberal, national security-experienced politicians who are known more for policy preferences than fiery rhetoric. No Mamdani-like nominee in either state. If this centrist brand can’t sell well in two modestly Democratic states when a G.O.P. polarizer like Trump is in the White House, then Democrats will have to move on to some other brand for 2026.
Given an unsteady, probably declining economy and Trump’s divisiveness, with strong Democratic distaste for almost everything associated with this administration, the Democratic nominees ought to be elected handily. To me a solid victory is upper single digits or low double digits (though the latter may be expecting too much).
In addition to testing voters’ perception of the Democratic Party, which remains deeply negative despite growing disapproval of President Trump, the two contests for governor will test the enthusiasm of the MAGA electorate. White working-class voters turned out in strength in both states in the 2021 governors’ races and in the 2024 presidential contest, sending a wave of anxiety through the ranks of party leaders and strategists.
In a look last week at the New Jersey and Virginia races, Michael Baharaeen, chief political analyst at The Liberal Patriot, a newsletter that tilts toward Democratic centrism, wrote that four years ago,
in both states, Republicans in 2021 had a notable turnout advantage. In Virginia, average turnout versus 2017 was up 132 percent in Trump counties compared to 117 percent in Biden counties.
Most of the state outside its three major population centers — Northern Virginia, Richmond and the Tidewater region — is disproportionately home to white voters without a college degree. Exit polls indicate that these voters broke heavily for Republican Glenn Youngkin, as he won them over Democrat Terry McAuliffe by a massive 52-point margin (76-24 percent), more than double the 24-point margin by which Trump won them over Biden there (62-38 percent).
There was no exit polling in New Jersey in 2021, but, Baharaeen noted,
it experienced similar county-level trends in the 2021 governor’s race. In South Jersey, home to a disproportionate share of white, working-class voters, three counties Democrats had won (in the three previous elections), Atlantic, Cumberland and Gloucester, all flipped to the Republican candidate.
Although both New Jersey and Virginia are blue, presidentially speaking, Baharaeen cited election results and exit poll data showing weakening support for the Democratic Party in both states. The numbers may seem dry, but they are, for Democrats, brutal.
From 2020 to 2024, the Democratic vote for president in Virginia fell to 51.8 percent from 54.1 percent, and in New Jersey to 51.8 from 57.1. Among the largest demographic gains for Republicans in Virginia were among voters aged 18 to 29, by 19 points, among white non-college voters, by six points, among Hispanics, by 30 points, and by independents, by 10 points. Republican demographic gains were similar in Virginia.
While local issues are central to both contests, transgender rights continue to be a nagging problem for the Democratic nominees. Both Spanberger and Sherrill have struggled with the issue of who can use which school bathrooms and in particular with the participation of transgender students on sports teams.
At an Oct. 9 debate, for example, Spanberger was asked, “Should transgender girls who are biological males be allowed to use girls’ bathrooms and play on girls’ sports teams?
Her answer is agonizing and not exactly clear:
I’m a mother of three daughters in Virginia public schools, and nothing is more important to me than their safety and their experience in schools. I’m also a former federal agent, and I worked crimes against children, and so nothing is more important to me than the safety of all of our children, and that work, in part, has earned me the endorsement of Virginia’s Police Benevolent Association.
On issues related to what’s happening in our schools and each individual community, I think it’s important that we have parents and teachers and administrators making decisions about their individual schools, not politicians.
The moderator then pressed Spanberger: “The question was, should transgender girls who are biological males be allowed to use girls’ bathrooms and play on girls’ sports teams in K through 12?”
She replied, “I think it’s incumbent upon parents and educators and administrators in each local community to make decisions locally.”
The moderator tried again, asking Spanberger if she would retain a “Youngkin administration policy requiring boys and girls to use bathrooms aligning with their biological sex.”
Spanberger:
My priority would be to ensure that local communities, importantly, parents and teachers, that’s educators, are able to work together to meet the unique needs of each school and each community. I say that as a mother of three daughters in Virginia public schools and as someone who used to investigate crimes against children, the way that we keep our children safe is by ensuring they are safe in schools, which includes funding law enforcement and public safety.
During a Feb. 2 Democratic primary debate, Sherrill and the other candidates were asked: “In New Jersey K through 12 schools, do you think that transgender kids should be allowed to play on sports teams that match their gender identity, rather than their sex at birth?”
Sherrill’s answer:
As Democrats, we have to come up with a plan, and then we have to focus on that, and we have to stop falling for the bait. In fact, I have a friend of Congress, the first trans woman, who is constantly targeted by the press and some of these trans votes, and when she was asked about sports and trans people, she said, I guess I don’t understand how this is lowering costs for people in Delaware.
We have to do better. We have to pass our legislation on supporting families, on making sure we’re protecting vulnerable people, on making sure all of the things that are being threatened here in New Jersey, like, as I’ve heard, having you know, some Moms for Liberty type person go out on soccer fields and try to check seventh-grade girls’ soccer teams for trans people, this is ridiculous. It’s not our state. It’s targeting vulnerable people and, quite frankly, it’s bullshit. And we have to do better at protecting vulnerable people, but we can’t fall into these traps because we’re losing, and we need to win on this issue.
Like Spanberger, Sherrill has run an exceptionally cautious campaign, prompting Charlie Stiles, a New Jersey political columnist, to nickname her Milquetoast Mikie.
On Sept. 19, for example, Sherrill voted for a House resolution in honor of Charlie Kirk, potentially angering the progressive wing of her party. To mute that threat, Sherrill simultaneously issued a statement that read in part:
I take my oath to the Constitution seriously. I believe in free speech. And that the First Amendment wouldn’t be necessary if it were only meant to cover language we agreed with. It is meant to protect people like Charlie Kirk who present vile dissenting views. But it is also meant to protect teachers, doctors, and TV comedians who may express views the president doesn’t like.
Charlie Kirk was advocating for a Christian nationalist government and to roll back the rights of women and Black people — this flies in the face of every value I hold dear and that I fight for. But the Constitution protects free speech, even for those I vehemently oppose.
Meanwhile, President Trump has and continues to define hypocrisy at every turn. On one hand, he denounced Kirk’s politically motivated killing, while on the other hand, is instigating a witch hunt worthy of Joseph McCarthy to shut down the free speech rights of anyone who disagrees with Kirk’s racist, anti-American views.
In the most recent debate, however, Sherrill threw caution to the wind. She accused Ciattarelli, through his former ownership of Galen Publishing, of printing material downplaying the dangers of opioids.
Here is part of their exchange:
Sherrill: And here are the facts, because I think our kids deserve better. I think the people you got addicted and died deserve better than you; and I’ll tell you — —
Ciattarelli: Addicted and died?
Sherrill: Yeah, tens of thousands as you published misinformation, as you got more people addicted, as you work to develop — got paid to develop an app so that more people could get more opioids and die.
And:
Sherrill: And I’m so glad that you went on to kill tens of thousands of people in New Jersey, including children ——
Ciattarelli: I never broke the law.
Sherrill: — as they got — you just broke the law! In fact, your campaign, right now, is under federal investigation for how you illegally got access to my records!
Ciattarelli: No, you’ve broken the law!
Sherrill: So to say that right now, and I think you’re trying to divert from the fact that you killed tens of thousands of people by printing ——
Ciattarelli: You’ve broken the law!
Sherrill: — your misinformation, your propaganda, and then getting paid to develop an app so that people could more easily get the opioids once they were addicted. Families across the state deserve to know more about that.
This time around, Stile wrote: “Milquetoast Mikie No More. Sherrill Hurls a Punch at Ciattarelli. Did It Land?” Ciattarelli, in turn, has threatened to sue Sherrill.
With the Nov. 4 elections just 14 days away, one key question is not just whether Spanberger or Sherrill wins or loses, but how the campaign strategies, the candidates’ policies and forthrightness and all the charges and countercharges affect turnout.
Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report, wrote by email:
One thing I am looking for in New Jersey and Virginia is turnout. How well did each candidate do at getting Harris/Trump voters out to vote in an off-year election? In the last two cycles (2017 and 2021), the winning candidate was also the candidate that had the highest share of returning presidential voters.
Take a look at the 2021 numbers for Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey. In New Jersey, the total number of votes cast for Gov. Phil Murphy was just about half of the total Biden vote in the state in 2020, while Jack Ciattarelli’s vote total was 66 percent of what Donald Trump had racked up a year earlier. In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe managed to get 66 percent of Biden’s 2020 total, while the total number of votes cast for Glenn Youngkin was 85 percent of what Trump had gotten in the state a year prior.
Paul Begala, a Democratic political strategist, argued in an email that
it is almost as if President Trump is trying to undermine his party in both states. Virginia has 147,000 federal civilian employees. Only California, which has 40 million residents, has more — and only 3,000 more. DOGE layoffs, the current shutdown, ongoing and threatened firing of federal servants, combined with the ongoing cost of living crisis is killing the G.O.P. brand in Virginia more than perceived liberalism is hurting the Democrats. Similarly, with one in 10 New Jerseyans commuting to New York City each day, Trump canceling a new commuter tunnel can’t help.
To be sure, both Sherrill and Spanberger have occasionally stumbled when discussing L.G.B.T.Q.+ issues, and their opponents are trying to focus the race on those issues.
Begala is leading in the competition for the most hyped-up sentence in this political year: “There is still some juice in that rancid orange, but I don’t think it’s enough to make a victory cocktail.”
Virtually all analysts agree that both Spanberger and Sherrill are favored to win on Nov. 4, but there is another question for the prospects of the Democratic Party in 2026 and 2028: the Democratic brand.
At the moment, the brand is in dire straits and has been since Trump won and Republicans took control of the House and Senate nearly a year ago. The Gallup Poll has tracked the party’s favorability/unfavorability ratings for the past 33 years, up through a July 7-21 survey, six months into Trump’s second term. “The Democratic Party’s 34 percent favorable rating is the lowest Gallup has measured for the group in its trend dating back to 1992,” the firm found.
An Economist/YouGov survey conducted Sept. 12-15 showed similar numbers: Democratic Party favorability at 33 percent, and unfavorability at 60. The party’s ratings were negative among both men and women, among whites and Hispanics and among every age and income group.
The weakness of the Democratic brand extends to issues.
A Sept. 26 Ipsos survey found that despite a 62 percent majority of respondents agreeing that Trump has “gone beyond his authority” since taking office and that, by 53 to 42, Americans would prefer to see Democratic control of Congress to “act as a check on Trump” rather than controlled by Republicans “to support Trump’s agenda,” voters still preferred Republicans on crucial issues:
On a set of key issues, the G.O.P. holds an edge over the Democratic Party. On the economy, 39 percent trust Republicans to do a better job compared to 32 percent who trust Democrats more. On immigration, Republicans hold a 42 percent to 29 percent edge. The issue gap is widest on crime, where 44 percent say they trust Republicans compared to 22 percent who say they trust Democrats.
Americans clearly love winners and shy away from losers. The question for Democrats, then, is whether a couple of victories in Virginia and New Jersey will be enough to kick-start a restoration of the public image of the Democratic Party. Or is the public’s negative assessment of the party now so deeply entrenched that more — much more — is needed for it to climb out of the dumps?
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Tuesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post.
The post Can These Two Women Turn It Around for Democrats? appeared first on New York Times.
