Trump looms large over key Election Day 2025 contests despite not being on ballot

Nearly ten months into President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, voters in contests from coast-to-coast head to the polls on Tuesday in statewide and local elections.

And the key showdowns, including gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, are viewed, in part, as the first major ballot box test of Trump’s unprecedented and explosive second-term agenda.

“FAILING TO VOTE TOMORROW IS THE SAME AS VOTING FOR A DEMOCRAT,” the president charged in a social media post on Election Eve as he urged Republicans to head to the polls.

Grabbing top billing are New Jersey and Virginia, the only two states to hold contests for governor in the year after a presidential election. Their gubernatorial races typically receive outsized national attention and are seen as a key barometer ahead of next year’s midterms when the GOP will be defending its slim House and Senate majorities.

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Also in the political spotlight on Election Day 2025 is New York City’s high-profile mayoral showdown, where 34-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is on the verge of making history, the blockbuster ballot box proposition over congressional redistricting in California, the nation’s most populous state and three state Supreme Court contests in battleground Pennsylvania.

Here’s what’s at stake.

New Jersey

Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who’s making his third straight run for Garden State governor and who nearly upset Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago, is optimistic he can pull off a victory in blue-leaning New Jersey.

In a state where registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans despite a GOP surge in registration this decade, Ciattarelli appeared to be closing the gap in recent weeks with Democratic rival Rep. Mikie Sherrill.

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While Democrats have long dominated federal and state legislative elections in New Jersey, Republicans are very competitive in gubernatorial contests, winning five out of the past 10 elections.

And Trump made major gains in New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, losing the state by only six percentage points, a major improvement over his 16-point deficit four years earlier.

The president, whose poll numbers are underwater among New Jersey voters, headlined two tele-rallies for Ciattarelli in the final stretch of the campaign in hopes of energizing MAGA supporters, many of whom are low propensity voters who often skip casting ballots in non-presidential election years.

“We appreciate what the president is doing to get the base excited, and remind them that they got to vote, as do all New Jerseyans. The future of our state hangs in the balance. Get out and vote,” Ciattarelli told Fox News Digital on Monday after a campaign stop in this northern New Jersey borough.

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But in a state where Trump’s poll numbers are underwater, Sherrill has regularly linked Ciattarelli to the president, charging that her GOP rival “has really gone in lockstep with the president, giving him an A.”

The race in New Jersey was rocked earlier this autumn by a report that the National Personnel Records Center, which is a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, mistakenly released Sherrill’s improperly redacted military personnel files, which included private information like her Social Security number, to a Ciattarelli ally.

But Sherrill’s military records indicated that the United States Naval Academy blocked her from taking part in her 1994 graduation amid a cheating scandal.

Sherrill, who was never accused of cheating in the scandal, went on to serve nearly a decade in the Navy.

The showdown was jolted again during last month’s final debate after Sherrill’s allegations that Ciattarelli was “complicit” with pharmaceutical companies in the opioid deaths of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans, as she pointed to the medical publishing company he owned that pushed content promoting the use of opioids as a low-risk treatment for chronic pain.

Virginia

Explosive revelations in Virginia’s attorney general race that the GOP aimed to leverage up and down the ballot recently shook up the state’s race for governor, forcing Democratic Party nominee, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, back on defense in a campaign where she was seen as the frontrunner against Republican rival Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

Virginia attorney general Democratic nominee Jay Jones was in crisis mode after controversial texts were first reported earlier this fall by the National Review.

Jones acknowledged and apologized for texts he sent in 2022, when he compared then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert to mass murderers Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot, adding that if he was given two bullets, he would use both against the GOP lawmaker to shoot him in the head.

But he faced a chorus of calls from Republicans to drop out of the race. 

Earle-Sears didn’t waste an opportunity to link Spanberger to Jones. And during last month’s chaotic and only gubernatorial debate, where Earle-Sears repeatedly interrupted Spanberger, the GOP gubernatorial nominee called on her Democratic rival to tell Jones to end his attorney general bid.

FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE VIRGINIA SHOWDOWN, HEAD HERE 

“The comments that Jay Jones made are absolutely abhorrent,” Spanberger said at the debate. But she neither affirmed nor pulled back her support of Jones.

The winner will succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

New York City

The mayoral election in the nation’s most populous city always grabs outsized attention, especially this year as New York City may elect its first Muslim and first millennial mayor.

Mamdani’s victory in June’s Democratic Party mayoral primary in the deep blue city sent political shock waves across the country. And he’s come under attack from Republicans and from his rivals on the ballot over his far-left proposals.

Mamdani is facing off against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who came in a distant second in the primary and is now running as an independent candidate. Cuomo is aiming for a political comeback after resigning as governor four years ago amid multiple scandals.

THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL ELECTION IS RIGHT HERE 

Also running is two-time Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, a co-founder of the Guardian Angels, the non-profit, volunteer-based community safety group.

Embattled Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who was running for re-election as an independent, dropped out of the race last month. He recently backed Cuomo, but his name remains on the ballot.

California

Voters in heavily blue California will vote in November on whether to set aside their popular nonpartisan redistricting commission for the rest of the decade and allow the Democrat-dominated legislature to determine congressional redistricting for the next three election cycles.

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE 2025 ELECTIONS

The vote will be the culmination of an effort by Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats to create up to five left-leaning congressional seats in the Golden State to counter the new maps that conservative Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a couple of months ago, which will create up to five more right-leaning U.S. House districts in the red state of Texas.

The redistricting in Texas, which came after Trump’s urging, is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to pad their razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats. 

Trump is aiming to avoid a repeat of the 2018 midterms, during his first term in office, when Republicans lost control of the House.

Pennsylvania

Democrats currently hold a 5-2 majority on the Supreme Court in the northeastern battleground of Pennsylvania.

But three Democrat-leaning justices on the state Supreme Court, following the completion of their 10-year terms, are running this year to keep their seats in “Yes” or “No” retention elections.

The election could upend the court’s composition for the next decade, heavily influence whether Democrats or Republicans have an advantage in the state’s congressional delegation and legislature, and impact crucial cases including voting rights and reproductive rights.

While state Supreme Court elections typically don’t grab much national attention, contests where the balance of a court in a key battleground state is up for grabs have attracted tons of outside money.

The state Supreme Court showdown this spring in Wisconsin, where the 4-3 liberal majority was maintained, drew nearly $100 million in outside money as both parties poured resources into the election.