Sizing Up the 2025 Gubernatorial Races at the Community Level

There are not a lot of big elections that come the year after a presidential race, but political watchers often want to read a lot into the results. And so it is with Virginia and New Jersey in 2025, the two states with gubernatorial contests on November 4.

Polls currently show Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill ahead by about 5 percentage points in New Jersey, giving Republicans some hope there.

While in Virginia, polls suggest Democrat Abigail Spanberger leads by closer to 10 points.

But the American Communities Project sees the races a little differently. A look at the two states and communities that define them suggests Democrats hold a fairly solid position in both for two reasons: First, the political divisions at the community level have largely calcified in recent years, and second, the issue landscape has not changed much in the last year.

Then and Now

For two decades, from 1989 to 2009, the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races followed a pattern. The votes looked like direct responses to the presidential race the year before — that is the opposite party won.

It’s not that simple of course — those results weren’t only a response to whoever was in the White House. Candidates matter. Campaigns matter. Individual state issues matter.

But for the most part, New Jersey and Virginia were states where the partisan splits were close enough that the prevailing political winds could make a very big difference. And often the honeymoon is over for presidents by the November after their election win.

In the past few elections, the pattern has changed a bit. In 2013, Virginia voted (narrowly) for Democrat Terry McAuliffe a year after Democrat Barack Obama won reelection. And in 2021, New Jersey reelected Democrat Phil Murphy the year after Democrat Joe Biden won the White House.

The one year that the opposite year/opposite party pattern held was 2017, when both states elected Democratic governors the year after Republican Donald Trump won.

Those results indicate that the Democratic edge in New Jersey and Virginia is getting harder for the GOP to overcome without the right candidate. Why? The ACP data suggests it has something to do with the growing Democratic tilt of the college-educated, densely populated, and increasingly diverse Urban Suburbs.

The Power of the Urban Suburbs

A lot of people live in the Urban Suburbs in the United States, more than 70 million, and since the 2008 presidential race, their vote has turned a deep blue.

In 2000, those 112 counties voted for Democrat Al Gore in the presidential race by about 8 percentage points. In 2004, they voted for Democrat John Kerry by about 5 percentage points.

But since 2008, the Urban Suburbs have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate by no fewer than 13 percentage points. That’s the amount Democrat Kamala Harris won these places by in 2024.

And the Urban Suburbs hold the largest share of voters in both New Jersey, where they are home to a whopping 79% of the state’s population, and Virginia, where they hold 39% of all residents. (In Virginia, the African American South and College Towns, two other Democratic-leaning community types, hold another 21% of the population. That brings the blue-leaning communities to 60% of the population overall.)

When you look at those numbers, you see how Republicans start out at a real disadvantage in the gubernatorial races this November.

2025 Issues and Voters

The issue environment is also likely a Democratic strength in 2025, in that it is largely being driven by President Donald Trump.

Some commentators and analysts have taken issue with Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia focusing on the White House. But the sitting president has often been what these off-year races have been about and, realistically speaking, Trump is dominating the issue landscape — from the administration’s moves on immigration and tariffs to its perceived responsibility for what is now seen as a slightly shaky economy. And there have been the layoffs of tens of thousands of federal workers, which may carry a particularly heavy weight in Virginia.

If Trump is the main topic around the election, that’s an edge for Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia. Kamala Harris won both states by more than 5 percentage points in the 2024 election.

Does that mean that Democrats are assured to win these races? Of course not. Local issues may emerge in either or both states.

President Trump has tried to make an issue of rising electricity costs in the states, although electricity prices are rising around the country and seem mostly due to an aging electricity infrastructure and increased demands for power that have come with growth in AI data centers.

And there is a special challenge for Democrats in New Jersey, where Mikie Sherrill is trying to win the governor’s mansion for a third consecutive term for her party. In an era when voters seem especially hungry for change, that’s no easy task.

But Democrats will go into November with one big edge: an advantage at the community level that Republicans are going to have to work hard to overcome.