Off-year elections are the tea leaves of American politics, and just as reliable.
With votes being counted in Virginia’s June 17 primary, the competitors are set for the commonwealth’s gubernatorial race: Former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger will face Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
A week earlier, in New Jersey, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli won their parties’ nominations for the only other governorship on the ballot in November.
It’s a long stretch to Election Days that matter more − including next year’s midterms when control of the House and the Senate at stake, not to mention the presidential race in 2028.
But this season’s handful of contests do provide early clues about the mood of the voters and the direction of the nation’s politics.
Some primary lessons learned so far:
1. Democrats are revved up.
Virginia Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger greets some of the horses at a rescue stables in Burkeville, Virginia, U.S. October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
In Virginia, Democratic turnout was rising even without much of a reason to vote.
That was true earlier this spring, when Democrats turned out in two special House elections in Florida, slashing in half the GOP’s margin in solidly red districts.
Spanberger was unopposed for the nomination in the marquee gubernatorial race, yet in the run up to the primary more than 196,500 people had cast early ballots as of June 16. That’s nearly 60% more than those who voted during the comparable period four years ago, when the race was fierce.
(The Democratic nominations for lieutenant governor and attorney general were contested this year.)
No state has been more affected by President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut the federal government than Virginia, home to more federal workers than any state except California. The firestorm over those firings creates a hurdle for Republicans.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears attend the Drivers Meeting prior to the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway on March 30, 2025 in Martinsville, Virginia.
So does history. In 11 of the last 12 elections, the candidate who won the Virginia governorship was from the opposition party of the president who had been elected to the White House a year earlier.
The purple-state contest is often seen as a way to send a message to the new president about how he’s doing.
In New York, turnout has also surged in the city’s mayoral primary. More than 30,000 voters cast ballots on the first day of voting June 14, nearly double the number who went to the polls on the first day they could four years ago.
The overwhelmingly Democratic city holds its primary on June 24.
2. Trump’s hold on the GOP is unshaken.
New Jersey Republican primary winner Jack Ciattarelli speaks to supporters gathered at Bell Works in Holmdel Tuesday night, June 10, 2025.
In New Jersey’s primary on June 10, President Trump wasn’t on the ballot, but he was on the minds of GOP voters.
That posed a problem for Ciattarelli, viewed as a moderate Republican when he served in the state Assembly. Before his first bid for the gubernatorial nomination in 2017, he called Trump a “charlatan” who was unfit to be president. In his second bid in 2021, he kept his distance.
Not this time. Ciattarelli went to Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, to woo him, then bragged about it. “Tonight, my great honor and pleasure to share time with @POTUS,” he posted on social media. with a photo.
His courtship worked. “Jack, who after getting to know and understand MAGA, has gone ALL IN, and is now 100% (PLUS!), Trump said in his endorsement on Truth Social. “HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN.”
New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli poses with Artist Victor Victori in front of Victori’s painting of Donald Trump as he participates in a campaign event at the artist’s home on October 27, 2021 in Rutherford, New Jersey. Ciattarelli, who is running against Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy, has promised to reduce taxes and a streamline the state budget if elected.
That embrace sealed his landslide in the state’s GOP primary over conservative radio host Bill Spadea, who had earned Trump’s ire by backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in last year’s Republican presidential primary.
Ciattarelli sailed to victory, winning 68% of the Republican vote. Spadea got 22%. State Senator Jon Bramnick, a moderate who had criticized Trump, claimed just 6%.
Today’s asset could be tomorrow’s problem, of course. Trump lost the Democratic-leaning state to Kamala Harris in 2024 by 6 points, though that was considerably closer than his 16-point loss to Joe Biden in 2020.
The morning after this month’s primary, Ciattarelli was ready to pivot to appeal to independents and Democrats. “This race is all about New Jersey,” he told NBC, though he acknowledged, “My opponent is going to want to talk about Donald Trump every day of the week.”
3. Nobody has a hold on the Democratic Party.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill gives a speech after she is announced the winner of the New Jersey gubernatorial Democratic primary in the Westin Governor Morris, Morristown, N.J., June 10, 2025.
Don’t look for that kind of coherence among Democrats. In New Jersey, the primary results showed a fractured party.
Sherrill prevailed with 34% of the vote after a campaign that promised competence and spotlighted her resume as a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor.
But the two most progressive candidates in the primary, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, got a combined total of more votes, at 37%.
And the two most moderate contenders, Rep. Josh Gottheimer and former state Senate president Stephen Sweeney, got a fair share, too, at a combined 19%.
None of them were touting their ties to Harris or Biden or, for that matter, the national party in general. The debate nationwide over how to rebound from last year’s electoral thumping isn’t close to being settled yet.
New York’s mayor’s race also illustrates the Democrats’ divide, with a centrist frontrunner trying to fight back a leftist challenger.
4. NY, NY? It’s a hell of a town.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams leaves the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, on Feb. 19, 2025.
Start with this: New York’s Democratic mayor is running for a second term, but not as a Democrat. Eric Adams is running as an independent after convincing the Trump Justice Department to drop federal charges of corruption.
Now leading in the Democratic contest is Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid allegations of sexual harassment. He denies the accusations and now says he shouldn’t have left office.
His top challenger is Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, who if elected would be the first Muslim to serve as mayor of America’s biggest city. He’s been endorsed by two progressive icons, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The messy melee that is New York politics − including an 11-candidate race and a ranked-choice voting system − may be so specific to the city that it provides few lessons for the rest of the country’s politics.
Except, perhaps, that during the Trump era it may be more possible to stage a comeback in politics after scandal, as evidenced by the campaigns of Cuomo and Adams.
The definition of who can hold electoral office may also be expanding. Mamdani’s election would break new ground.
So will the race in Virginia, now poised to elect its first woman as governor.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Primary lessons: Trump rules, Dems are pumped. NYC’s melee is next.
