The Democrats could be heading for their first good news in a year, with a betting website suggesting the party is heavily favored to win a sweep in Tuesday’s elections.
Gamblers are betting on big wins for the Democratic Party in the New York Mayor’s race as well as the gubernatorial ballots in Virginia and New Jersey.
Millions of Americans are heading to the polls for what is the first major set of contests since President Donald Trump was elected one year ago.
After nearly ten months out in the cold, Democrats are looking for victories to inject new hope into their party’s future across multiple states as they gear up for next year’s midterms.
While off-year elections do not always serve as a bellwether—and betting forecasts can be notoriously unpredictable— the results on Tuesday night are expected to provide new insights into how the country is feeling about the Republican president.
Trump, 79, is facing record-low approval ratings for his second term, nearly 11 months in, as the government shutdown hits Day 34, matching the most extended shutdown ever, also set under Trump in late 2018.
A series of recent polls has shown some Democrats with a slight edge in key races while the party’s candidates hold whopping double-digit leads in others.
The Polymarket betting site also has the odds heavily favoring the Democrats at the top of the ticket in a series of races, despite Trump’s frantic series of social media posts over the past 24 hours urging Republicans to get out and vote.
On Tuesday, Polymarket gave Democrat Zohran Mamdani a 92 percent advantage over his closest rival, Andrew Cuomo in New York, Abigail Spanberger a 98 percent chance of victory over Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia, and in New Jersey, the other most closely watched state, Mickie Sherrill had an 83 percent lead with the bookies over Jack Ciattarelli.
The site gave the Democratic Party an 80 percent chance of a sweep.
Here are the major contests taking place across the country:
Virginia
Polls close at 7 pm ET in Virginia where voters will be electing their next governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and a series of down ballot officials in the swing state.
Recent polls have shown Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger leading by as much as double-digits in the governor’s race against Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears. Whoever wins will be the first woman governor elected by the commonwealth.
Spanberger is a former House member who represented Virginia’s seventh congressional district until earlier this year. She previously served as a U.S. intelligence officer.
Earle-Sears is the state’s lieutenant governor serving alongside Republican Glenn Youngkin since she was elected in 2021. She is a businesswoman, Marine Corps vet and the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor as well as the first woman of color elected statewide.
The race has largely focused on the economy as well as Trump’s policies as Virginia serves as the backyard to Washington, D.C.
On the eve of the election, the president held a tele-rally to boost Virginia turnout, but it was not attended by Earle-Sears or other GOP candidates. However, the Republican nominee has leaned in heavily on culture war issues and embraced MAGA.
Spanberger has seized on affordability, health care, and the political turmoil coming out of the nation’s Capitol.
While some see the top of the ticket in Virginia as a referendum on Trump, voters will also have to elect the state’s next attorney general.
Democratic nominee Jay Jones, a former member of the state assembly, came under fire last month following the release of a text conversation in 2022 he had with a fellow Virginia delegate in which he advocated violence against the then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his family.
Republicans have used the messages to attack Democrats across the ticket for not distancing themselves enough from the nominee, who apologized for the messages but refused to exit the race despite calls from his opponent and others. He is up against Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, who has been serving in the position since 2022.
New Jersey
Voters in New Jersey have also been casting ballots in the off-year election. They will decide who should replace term-limited Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, as well as vote in a series of down-ballot races.
Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill is up against Republican Jack Ciattarelli. Sherrill has been representing New Jersey’s 11th congressional district since 2019. She is also a former naval officer and federal prosecutor.
Ciattarelli is a businessman and former member of the New Jersey General Assembly. This marks his third race for governor after he lost the GOP primary in 2017 before running a close race against Murphy in 2021.
Recent polls have shown Sherrill with a slight edge in the largely blue state, but the race has tightened. Former President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail with her over the weekend, while Trump held a tele-rally for Ciattarelli on Monday.
Sherrill has worked to tie her opponent to Trump, having won her congressional seat as part of the anti-Trump wave in 2018. She has also zeroed in on affordability in the increasingly expensive state.
Ciattarelli has not campaigned with Trump in person, but he has praised the president’s tax bill passed over the summer and leaned on MAGA anti-immigration messaging.
In an unusual twist, New Jersey will also be electing its first male lieutenant governor. The office of lieutenant governor was only established in 2010, and every person elected to the post to date has been a woman. Spanberger’s running mate is Centenary University President Dale Caldwell while Ciattarelli tapped Morris County Sheriff James Gannon as his.
New York City
New Yorkers are casting ballots for the next leader of America’s largest city and the race has been unpredictable from the start.
Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old assemblyman representing part of Queens, shocked the country when he won the Democratic primary in rank choice voting over the state’s former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Comptroller Brad Lander. Mayor Eric Adams did not run in the primary.
Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, came to the U.S. at the age of seven and became a naturalized citizen in 2018, is a member of the Democratic Socialists and ran an upstate campaign that relied heavily on viral social media videos and young voters at first, before gaining broader traction.
His proposals, including free buses, child care, and city-run grocery stores, have been criticized by opponents, including Cuomo, as unrealistic. Trump and Republicans in Washington have attacked him as a “communist.”
After Cuomo lost the primary, he jumped into the general election running as an Independent while working to win over moderate Democrats and Republicans.
If Mamdani wins, he would be the first Muslim elected mayor of New York City and the youngest elected in over a century.
Trump has already threatened to withhold federal funding from New York. He repeatedly argued that electing Mamdani would be a disaster and ended up endorsing his former nemesis Cuomo in the race over Republican Curtis Sliwa in a last-ditch effort to tip the scales.
California Prop 50
Millions of Californians are voting on whether the state should redraw its congressional map to give Democrats up to five additional seats in next year’s midterm election.
State Democrats led by Governor Gavin Newsom rapidly moved forward with the measure, Proposition 50, in response to Republicans in Texas who gerrymandered their maps over the summer to give Republicans a greater advantage in next year’s midterms at the request of Trump.
Other GOP-led states like Missouri and North Carolina have also moved forward with redrawing maps in an effort to keep the House under GOP control in the second half of Trump’s term.
The California ballot measure asks voters whether the state should suspend its independent process and temporarily adopt a new congressional map more favorable to Democrats starting next year.
Under the proposal, the redrawing of House districts would last for the next three election cycles and then restore the state’s independent redistricting process in 2031 after the 2030 census.
Newsom has argued that Prop 50 is the best way to stop Trump and Republicans’ agenda, as some red states look to lock up the House. Republicans in the state have opposed the effort, with some also coming out against the gerrymandering in other Republican-controlled states, as well.
Recent polling suggests the measure is likely to pass.
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