The Democratic candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia are making opposition to Donald Trump central to their pitches. In California, an ad urges voters to “stick it to Trump,” while New York City’s frontrunner for mayor says he’ll “stand up” to the president of the United States if he wins.
Trump’s name is not on the ballot in 2025. He’s a lame duck whose political retirement looms in three years. But the off-year races culminating on Nov. 4 have nonetheless put a spotlight onto the 79-year-old Republican – his likeness featured in ads, debates and on the minds of voters as America braces for its first general election since Trump won his second term nearly a year ago.
Democrats have reasons for optimism. The major 2025 races in New Jersey, Virginia and California are largely being fought on turf where Trump is both unpopular and never won his own statewide campaign. The president’s opponents are hoping they can tap into the angst felt by voters such as Mary Ruehl, a 71-year-old Virginia resident who said she’d been thinking of the current White House occupant as she recently cast a ballot at an early polling location.
“I want to try to get Trump out,” said Ruehl, a retired Air Force officer and lifelong Democrat, adding: “He’s the worst president we’ve ever had.”
Republicans see things much differently. Trump is the party leader, and they’re leaning into the president as much as possible with an eye on igniting the same forces that helped the GOP in 2024 to capture the White House and take full control of Congress.
While Trump has largely stayed off the campaign trail – he’s spending much of the final week before Election Day on a trip to Asia – he’s hardly gone dark on politics. He’s made New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a frequent target as Republicans try to portray Democrats as too far left. New Jersey GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli told the USA TODAY Network that he speaks to Trump every couple of weeks, and the president reupped his endorsement in a recent social media post reminding Garden State voters: “HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”
The clearest thing to a referendum on Trump is in California, where Democrats are pushing voters to back the Proposition 50 redistricting ballot measure in response to the president’s demands that Republicans in Texas and elsewhere in the country redraw their own House maps in favor of the GOP. The pro-Prop 50 campaign revolves around a simple message: Stopping Trump’s perceived power grab and putting a check on the White House via the 2026 midterm elections that will determine who controls the House and Senate during the final two years of the Republican’s second term.
Brewing opposition
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The aggressive opening act of Trump’s second term has thrilled his supporters, as the president flexes his power in myriad ways. But backlash has also been brewing.
Trump took office in January with a 51% approval rating. That’s now down to 45%, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.
Millions of people protested on Oct. 18 for “No Kings” demonstrations across the country, the second big coast-to-coast anti-Trump rally since his inauguration in January. Democrats, meanwhile, have been performing well this year, winning a state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin, flipping two GOP-held state Senate seats in Iowa and over-performing in dozens of other special elections from Florida to Arizona.
In 42 state legislative and U.S. congressional races across 18 states in 2025, Democrats have improved their margins by an average of more than 15% over the gap between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris in the same districts last year, according to data collected by the political website The Downballot.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin pointed to the special election results in a recent memo to argue the party is in a “strong position” heading into the 2026 midterms.
Trump also has been looking ahead to the midterms, arguing his record should ensure a good performance for the GOP while simultaneously fretting about the history of incumbent presidents seeing their party pummeled when voters go back to the polls two years after a White House race.
“The odds are like tremendously against,” Trump said at a recent lunch in the Rose Garden with Senate Republicans, before declaring that “We have to win the midterms, otherwise all the things that we’ve done, so many of them, are going to be taken away.”
Both parties are hoping to come out of the November election with momentum for the more consequential 2026 contests, where control of Congress hangs in the balance, and with it Trump’s agenda. A Democratic majority would block the president from passing legislation and usher in aggressive oversight of the White House.
Hoping to avoid that scenario, Trump is pushing red-state Republicans to give him a more favorable midterm map that helps the GOP maintain its trifecta control of Washington. Texas and Missouri have already redrawn their House maps at Trump’s urging and other red states such as Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, and Kansas are contemplating their own redistricting moves.
That means the California election could be especially consequential if Democrats succeed in checking at least part of Trump’s redistricting efforts.
Democrats play Trump card
In Virginia, Democratic candidate for governor Abigail Spanberger closed out her only debate with Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by trying to tie her to Trump.
Spanberger at the Oct. 9 event in Norfolk criticized Trump’s tariffs and raised concerns about cuts to Virginia’s workforce, which has been hit hard by the Trump administration’s slashing of federal agencies. Additionally, the government shutdown has furloughed roughly 750,000 federal workers, many of them in Virginia, and left thousands more working without pay.
“I will always put Virginians first… my opponent has not done the same, putting her allegiance to Donald Trump first, no matter the cost,” Spanberger said.
Earle-Sears shot back: “If I were taking a drink” for every Trump comment Spanberger made “I tell you we would be drunk by now.”
New Jersey’s Democratic candidate for governor, Mikie Sherrill, also has been eager to highlight Trump as she works to energize Democrats in a state where the president narrowed his losing margin to six percentage points last year, after he lost by 16 points in 2020. Sherrill opened her first debate with Ciattarelli by declaring “he’ll do whatever Trump tells him to do.”
Focusing on Trump could help get Democrats to the polls, so “the Democratic candidate is doing everything she can to talk about Donald Trump all the time,” Fairleigh Dickinson University political science professor Dan Cassino said of Sherrill.
That comes with risks, though. Democrats have struggled in recent elections when they focused too much on an anti-Trump message and not enough on solutions to pressing issues. At the same time, Trump has made gains with core Democratic-leaning groups, such as minorities and younger voters.
“They can’t just run this reflexively anti-Trump campaign the way they did in 2017 when president Trump was first elected,” said New Jersey GOP consultant Alex Wilkes.
Trump weighs in
The campaign page for Earle-Sears lists dozens of endorsements from GOP leaders. Trump isn’t among them.
The president didn’t mention Earle-Sears during a recent appearance in Norfolk for the Navy’s 250th anniversary, which she attended.
Asked by reporters aboard Air Force One about the Virginia race on Oct. 19 as he was traveling back to the White House from Florida, Trump said Earle-Sears is “excellent” while noting he hasn’t “been too much involved in Virginia.”
Trump has endorsed in Virginia, though, backing the GOP attorney general in his race against a Democrat embroiled in a text messaging scandal.
With Earle-Sears trailing significantly in polling, Trump has focused more on the New Jersey governor’s race, endorsing Ciattarelli and praising him in a recent social media post as “A WINNER FOR NEW JERSEY!”
Ciattarelli has embraced Trump’s record, saying in a recent debate that he would give the president an “A” grade even as he tried to steer the conversation to local issues. When asked if he is part of Trump’s MAGA movement, Ciattarelli said he’s “part of a New Jersey movement.” Trump campaigned for Ciattarelli in the primary, calling into a telephone rally to declare “New Jersey is ready to pop out of that blue horror show.”
In their appeal to voters, Ciattarelli and his allies are blaming Democrats, who control the governor’s mansion and the Legislature, for New Jersey’s problems.
“This has been one party rule. Democrats have run the show,” Wilkes said.
Every race is unique, and factors such as fundraising, candidate strength and local issues all come into play. Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican turned independent who has endorsed Sherrill, acknowledged that Ciattarelli is a strong candidate, saying he is well-versed on local issues after years of involvement in state politics.
“But it’s hard to get away from the statements that he’s made about Trump,” she said.
Trump or Newsom?
While GOP losses in New Jersey and Virginia could hurt party enthusiasm heading into the midterms, a loss in California would be a more tangible setback for Trump. The contest has been all about the president.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is leading an effort to convince voters to approve a ballot measure that would allow Democrats to bypass an independent redistricting commission and draw a congressional map with more Democratic-leaning seats.
Trump risks not just a setback to his redistricting power play ahead of the midterms, but delivering a victory to Newsom, his nemesis and a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
California GOP consultant Matt Rexroad said the referendum has been a golden opportunity for Newsom to boost his profile and raise money.
“The question in California won’t be decided on redistricting,” Rexroad said. “Nobody knows anything about redistricting… the election’s going to be decided upon do you support President Trump or do you support Gov. Newsom.”
Whatever happens on Election Day, the results will be closely dissected for evidence of Trump’s strength or weakness heading into the midterms. Sure enough, the president has said he may attend Supreme Court oral arguments on a case involving his tariff policies Nov. 5, the day after the election. It would be a striking scene, whether he endures an electoral thumping or is able to crow about a strong showing. He’ll command attention either way.
Contributing: Karissa Waddick, Reuters
