Here are some takeaways from election night:
Tacking to the middle
Abigail Spanberger’s decisive victory in the Virginia governor’s race showed there may be a reward for Democrats who position themselves at the moderate centre, while illustrating the limits of Trump’s MAGA movement.
Spanberger’s opponent, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the state’s lieutenant governor, has been a strong supporter of Trump’s agenda, including the move to slash thousands of federal jobs, Trump’s support for the federal government shutdown and his imposition of heavy tariffs on imports. In TV ads and public remarks, Spanberger tried to tie Earle-Sears to Trump at every turn.
Spanberger, meanwhile, portrayed herself as a problem-solver who was focused on affordability, while her former career as a CIA officer gave her credibility on crime and safety.
She was buoyed by running in a state that is highly dependent on federal jobs and at a time when voters nationwide cited the cost of living as their number one concern, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said.
Democrats were performing well in Virginia. With votes still being counted, Spanberger was outperforming former vice president Kamala Harris’ 2024 showing in 101 of the state’s 133 counties and independent cities.
In Waynesboro, a city of just over 20,000 in central Virginia that Trump won by 6 percentage points, Spanberger was leading her Republican opponent by 5 points. In Chesterfield County, just south of the state capital of Richmond, Spanberger was leading by 17 points, 8 points higher than Harris’ performance in the county.
“Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Spanberger told supporters after she was declared the winner. As if to back up her words, she sported a red suit jacket, the color most closely associated with Republicans, rather than Democratic blue.
The Trump factor
Though he wasn’t on the ballot, Trump’s influence was inescapable on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s elections took place as the president’s approval rating dipped to the lowest point so far during his second term, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, with voters zeroing in on affordability concerns.
In the Virginia governor’s race, of the 36% of voters who said opposing Trump was a factor in their vote, 98% came out for Spanberger, according to the SSRS Voter Poll, conducted for a consortium of US networks and the Associated Press. It was a similar story in the contest for New Jersey governor, where 39% of voters said opposing Trump played a role in their vote. They overwhelmingly voted for Democrat Mikie Sherrill.
Both Spanberger and Sherrill – along with New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani – made standing up to Trump a central theme of their campaigns. In September, Sherrill said of her Republican rival Jack Ciattarelli: “He’ll do whatever Trump tells him to do,” while she pledged she would “fight anybody to work for you.”
Throughout his political career, Trump has shown a limited ability to transfer his popularity to other Republican candidates.