Trump's shadow looms over U.S. elections as first polls close

Voters in New Jersey and Virginia cast ballots for governor on Tuesday in a pair of races that will serve as an early gauge of the American electorate's mood after President Donald Trump's norm-shattering nine months in office. Polls closed at 7 p.m. ET (0000 GMT on Wednesday) in Virginia, where Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former congresswoman and CIA officer, was vying with Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears to become the first woman to serve as the state's governor. Decision Desk HQ, a nonpartisan election forecaster, projected that Spanberger had won, though other news outlets had yet to name a winner.

Polls in New Jersey's governor's race will close at 8 p.m. ET (0100 GMT). In New York City's mayoral race, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, faced 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo, a moderate Democrat running as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the primary four years after resigning as New York state's governor in disgrace. The campaign has laid bare the Democratic Party's generational and ideological divides as it seeks to rehabilitate its damaged brand. And in California, voters will decide whether to give Democratic lawmakers the power to redraw the state's congressional map, expanding a national battle over redistricting that could determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives after next year's midterm elections.

Democrats were watching Tuesday's results carefully, with the party locked out of power in Washington and struggling to find consensus on the best way to oppose Trump, a Republican, and find a path out of the political wilderness. Former President Barack Obama, still the party's most popular figure, headlined 11th-hour rallies over the weekend in New Jersey and Virginia, exhorting voters to elect Democrats to counter what he branded Trump's lawlessness.

In interviews at polling stations on Tuesday, some voters said Trump's most contentious policies were on their minds, including his efforts to deport immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and to impose costly tariffs on imports of foreign goods, the legality of which is being weighed by the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

More than 3 million people voted early in Virginia, New York and New Jersey, in each case far exceeding the totals from four years ago. In New York City, there were 735,000 ballots cast, according to the city elections board, more than four times the number in 2021. The New Jersey race was the most hotly contested campaign, with opinion polls showing Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a congresswoman and former Navy pilot, holding a narrow lead over her Republican challenger, former state lawmaker and small-business owner Jack Ciattarelli.

A spate of hoax bomb threats sent by email briefly closed down New Jersey polling stations in seven counties in the morning, state officials said.

TRUMP STILL ON VOTERS' MINDS

Trump remained top of mind for many voters despite not appearing on the ballot.

In Virginia, Juan Benitez, a self-described independent, was voting for the first time. The 25-year-old restaurant manager backed all of Virginia's Democratic candidates because of his opposition to Trump's immigration policies and the federal government shutdown, for which he blamed Trump.

Jennifer Manton, 47, said she had voted for Trump all three times he ran for president, and backed Republican candidates on Tuesday, citing Trump's tariffs as a major issue.

In New York, Mamdani, who was a little-known lawmaker in New York's state legislature before his surprising rise, has led by double digits over Cuomo, with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, 71, a distant third in most opinion polls.

California's ballot measure, Proposition 50, which would install a new Democratic-backed congressional map that aims to flip five Republican seats in response to a similar move by Texas, was also widely expected to pass.

AFFORDABILITY, TRUMP WEIGH ON RACES

While Tuesday's results will offer some insight into the mood of American voters, the midterm elections are a year away, an eternity in politics.

"There's nothing that's going to happen in Virginia or New Jersey that's going to tell us much about what will happen in a congressional district in Missouri or a Senate race in Maine," said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist.

For Democrats, Tuesday's candidates offer a chance to assess differing playbooks.

Spanberger and Sherrill, both moderate Democrats with backgrounds in national security, put Trump front-and-center, seeking to harness anger at the president's no-holds-barred agenda.

In New York, Mamdani has proposed ambitious left-wing policies, including freezing rents for nearly a million apartments and making the city's buses free. A day after endorsing Cuomo, Trump said on Tuesday that any Jewish New Yorker who voted for Mamdani, a critic of the Israeli government who would be the city's first Muslim mayor, was a "stupid person."

It was the latest in a string of comments over the course of the U.S. president's career suggesting that Jewish Americans vote against their own interests. Mamdani, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, rejects Republican accusations of antisemitism.

For Republicans, Tuesday's elections will test whether the voters who powered Trump's victory in 2024 will still show up when he is not on the ballot.

But Ciattarelli and Earle-Sears, each running in Democratic-leaning states, have faced a conundrum: criticizing Trump risks losing his supporters, but embracing him too closely could alienate moderate and independent voters who disapprove of his policies.

Trump remains unpopular: 57% of Americans disapprove of his job performance, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. But Democrats are not gaining support as a result, with respondents evenly split on whether they would favor Democrats or Republicans in 2026.