Republicans lost gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday. Well, lost is quite an understatement. The Republican candidates got thumped. In Virginia, Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by nearly 15 points, and in New Jersey, Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 13 points.
Even Democratic Attorney General-elect Jay Jones, who in 2022 wrote about shooting then–Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert and fantasized about the death of Gilbert’s two young children, prevailed over Republican Jason Miyares.
2025 ELECTION TAKEAWAYS: REPUBLICANS LOST AND THEY KNOW IT
Sometimes, too much attention is given to the impact of nonfederal or special elections in terms of whether they serve as predictors of future events or as referendums on the current presidential administration. However, in this case, it’s not easy to separate the victory margins from the elephant in the room: President Donald Trump.
Naturally, Trump tried, blaming the losses in part on the continuing government shutdown and on the fact that he was not on the ballot to bring in more voters for Republicans to win. Still, the exit polls contained some surprising information about people who went to the polls this year.
In both states, when asked who they voted for in the 2024 presidential election, 7% of voters who picked the Democratic gubernatorial candidate said they voted for Trump. It doesn’t sound like much, and given the victory margins, it wouldn’t have changed the results. Still, it’s not an insignificant number. It shows that some voters are not wedded to a particular party or even to a movement. (In 2021, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) captured a smaller percentage of Biden voters, 5%, but given his narrower margin of victory, it was more significant to his win.)
More than two-thirds of voters in Virginia and New Jersey said they don’t identify as MAGA Republicans. Among them, 23–24% are Republicans who don’t see themselves as part of the MAGA coalition.
It’s easy (and somewhat lazy) to assume anyone who voted for Trump is a MAGA hat-wearing, right-wing extremist, and anyone who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris is a “Fighting Oligarchy,” far-left, socialist progressive. Even the winners make such assumptions, but with far sunnier rhetoric about those who voted for them.
Those assumptions give winners the permission structure to go full steam ahead with an agenda without any consideration that some of their voters might not support everything they do. Someone who voted for Trump because of inflation and higher prices may not sit there and enjoy watching the administration boast about Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids or sending illegal immigrants to countries not of their origin.
The more likely reason some Trump voters went for Democratic candidates boils down to the most basic issue voters think about when going to the polls: the state of the economy. Despite all of Trump’s bold promises, the economy has hardly improved from the time he began his second term. Voters are fickle, and we live in a culture of instant gratification. Trump promised to lower prices, but it didn’t happen. And some voters said, “Let me see what the Democrats can do in my state.”
DEMOCRATS WIN BIG AND SMALL RACES IN THE 2025 ELECTION
This becomes a real concern in states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. These states tend not to be strongly linked to a particular party based on election results from 2016 to 2024. When parties push forward with an aggressive agenda without considering that some voters cast ballots for specific reasons, there is a substantial risk of a lurch in the opposite direction.
If Republicans and their strategists don’t examine the numbers to see that the Trump administration’s overall agenda turns people off, it could result in a slew of losses next November — no matter how states try to rearrange congressional districts.
Jay Caruso is a writer and communications professional living in West Virginia.
