How To Watch Tonight’s Election Results Like A Pro

The first major electoral test of President Donald Trump’s second term is here, and the results will shape both parties’ strategies heading into a competitive midterm.

The stakes are particularly high for Democrats looking to rebound from their electoral wipeout last year. The party is watching gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey for signs it can win back voters who have drifted toward Trump.

In New York City — where a 34-year-old democratic socialist appears poised to defeat a 67-year-old, scandal-plagued former Democratic governor for mayor — the contest is stress testing the party’s tolerance of its far-left flank and its appetite for younger leaders as it contends with an ongoing identity crisis.

And in California, a redistricting ballot measure heavily promoted by Gov. Gavin Newsom is giving Democrats their best chance at countering Trump’s aggressive gerrymandering campaign and turbocharging similar efforts in other blue states.

Polls favor Democrats in these contests, leaving them bullish that “we are writing our party’s comeback story,” as Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said on a recent Democratic organizing call.

Short of winning, Republicans are hoping to shrink the opposition’s margins as they look to avoid a repeat of the backlash to Trump that propelled Democrats to strong victories during his first term. Even if Republicans lose, they’re planning to spin any whiff of a Democratic underperformance into a win for themselves.

Here are five key trendlines we’re watching this Election Day that will inform the midterms:

It’s all in the margins

The big test isn’t whether Democratic gubernatorial candidates Rep. Mikie Sherrill and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger win — it’s whether they can exceed Kamala Harris’ 2024 margins of victory in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively.

Both states swung hard toward Trump last year, even as they stayed blue. In New Jersey, Trump came within 6 points of toppling Harris after a 16-point loss four years prior. And he halved his margin in Virginia, losing by 5 points in 2024 after trailing by 10 points in 2020.

Most polling shows Spanberger leading by more than 5 points. New Jersey surveys suggest a tighter race between Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli — recent polls show Sherrill with a lead ranging from 1 to 10 points — though polling drastically underestimated Ciattarelli’s performance in 2021, when he came within 3 points of unseating Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

Sherrill’s margin will help both parties evaluate whether Republicans’ gains in the Garden State have staying power beyond Trump as they shift focus to a pair of battleground House races next year.

The spin wars have already begun. Democrats say they’ll be happy with a win regardless of the percentage. But if Sherrill fails to at least match Harris, Republicans are prepared to declare it a sign of Democrats’ struggles — even if Ciattarelli loses.

“The polls are looking really good. They're just about even. And they say even for us is a win,” Trump said on a tele-rally for Ciattarelli Monday night.

Democrats push to win back Black and Latino voters

Keep an eye on areas with large Black and Latino populations to see whether Democrats’ revamped economic messaging is winning back those traditionally blue voters who swung toward Trump last year.

National Democrats have invested millions across New Jersey and Virginia to reengage with Black and Latino voters.

In New Jersey, watch for how the vote breaks down in major urban areas like Newark, where more than 80 percent of residents are Black or Latino and where former President Barack Obama campaigned over the weekend. Trump made gains there — and in other urban areas — last year. Also look to Passaic County, the plurality-Latino county that Trump flipped in 2024.

In Virginia, keep tabs on Hampton Roads, where Obama rallied with Spanberger, as well as Northern Virginia and Richmond and its suburbs. Trump peeled voters away from Democrats in all three vote-rich regions last year. A Virginia State University flash poll of Black voters ahead of the election zeroed in on the politically diverse Hampton Roads region as a “key battleground.”

The Trump factor

Trump has taken a largely hands-off approach to New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial contests, endorsing Ciattarelli but never even naming Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and limiting his engagement to tele-rallies. But he still looms, as Democrats look for signs that Trump will once again be a drag on the GOP — and Republicans try to replicate his coalition when he’s not atop the ballot.

History isn’t on Republicans’ side. Voters in New Jersey have elected a governor from the same party as the president just once in 40 years. In Virginia, it’s happened only once in 48 years. During Trump’s first term, as his approval rating slid below 40 percent, Democrats stormed to victory in both states. His approval rating is only slightly higher now, averaging in the mid 40s.

What to watch: A GOP win in either race wouldn’t just be an upset; it could upend how the parties approach a midterm cycle that’s historically bad for the party in power. Republicans lost 41 House seats in 2018 as anti-Trump sentiment fueled a blue wave. If Trump proves not to be a drag in New Jersey and Virginia, it could be an early indicator that the coming midterms won’t fit the mold.

Widespread Republican losses in Virginia, meanwhile, could dim the political prospects for one of Trump’s potential successors: Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the one-time GOP rising star who’s barred by state law from seeking a consecutive term. Youngkin all but cleared the field for Earle-Sears, who many Republicans considered a weak candidate, and she is running as an extension of his administration. If she loses, it’ll be a blow to his legacy — and any potential presidential aspirations.

Dems look to California to turbocharge their redistricting counteroffensive

Democrats are betting on a big win in California as a way to supercharge redistricting efforts that have been sputtering in other blue states.

Harris’ 2024 margin again serves as the benchmark here; she defeated Trump by 21 points in her home state, with nearly 59 percent of the vote. Some public polling shows Proposition 50 with over 60-percent support.

Exceeding that threshold could spur skittish Democrats in Illinois and Maryland to get on board with their party’s efforts to counter Trump’s push to protect Republicans’ House majority. And it could help propel a constitutional amendment in Virginia that would pave the way for a mid-decade redraw.

Democrats need these states to get with the program. Even with a new map in California that could net the party five seats — offsetting the five Republicans drew for their party to pick up in Texas — that’s only a fraction of the up to 19 seats the GOP is looking to gain across the country.

A small margin of victory — or a surprise loss — for Prop 50 could give Trump and his team ammunition to force reticent Republicans in Indiana, Nebraska and New Hampshire to take up new maps. That’s even as California Republicans have all but abandoned their opposition effort to the ballot measure.

Proposition 50 also stands as a significant test of Newsom’s leadership in California and beyond as he mulls a 2028 presidential bid. A win could help cement Newsom as his party’s preeminent opposition leader to Trump ahead of contests that will serve as referendums on the Republican’s second term.

The down-ballot wildcard that could split some tickets

Do scandals still matter to voters? Virginia’s attorney general race will put that to the test.

The surfacing of years-old texts in which Democratic nominee Jay Jones mused about violence against political opponents turned the contest into the state’s only true tossup.

Republicans seized on the texts, demanding the Democratic ticket disavow Jones despite him repeatedly apologizing for the remarks. GOP incumbent Jason Miyares has spotlighted the messages in his ads, and is using the scandal to encourage voters casting ballots for Spanberger to split their ticket in the attorney general race. Check the vote tallies to see if they do.

Early voting was underway by the time the scandal broke, leaving Democrats with no way to replace Jones on the ballot. Jones even appeared at an Obama-headlined campaign rally, getting a warm response from the crowd.

Democrats are hoping voters will look past Jones’ transgressions — including a reckless-driving scandal.

And despite the cloud of scandal shrouding his opponent, Miyares has had trouble getting above roughly 46 percent in most polls, suggesting he — and Republicans broadly — has a ceiling in a year expected to be difficult for his party.

Melanie Mason contributed to this report.