Since 1949, in New Jersey governor races, the White House party has only won 7 times out of 19 contests, or just 36.8 percent of the time: 1961, 1965, 1969, 1977, 1981, 1985 and 2021, according to an analysis of off-year gubernatorial elections.
And in Virginia governor races, since 1949, the White House party has won only 6 times out of 19 elections, or just 31.6 percent of the time: 1949, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1973 and 2013.
Now, they don’t always happen in the same years. Only 9 out of 19 times has the opposition party won both the New Jersey and Virginia governorship the same year since 1949. 11 times it was a split decision, or 57.8 percent.
So, with President Donald Trump in the White House, based on history, Democrats basically have a 2 out of 3 chance of winning one of the contests, and a 4 out of 10 chance of winning both of them.
If Abigail Spanberger wins an early victory in Virginia over Winsome Earle-Sears, then the odds of a Jack Ciattarelli victory in New Jersey over Mikie Sherrill increase slightly, although the relationship is hardly predictive.
As for the midterm elections, interestingly, a White House win in either of the governors’ races appears to have no predictive value whatsoever in the Congressional elections a year later.
The exceptions to the midterm tendency of the opposition to pick up seats in the House of Representatives were in 1934, 1998 and 2002.
In 1933, preceding the Democrats’ win in 1934 with Franklin Roosevelt in the White House, there was no New Jersey election (governors had three-year terms back then) and Virginia simply was not a competitive state.
As for 1997 (preceding the Democrats 1998’ win with Bill Clinton in the White House) and 2001 (preceding Republicans’ 2002 win with George W. Bush in the White House), each of those years, the opposition party won both the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. Go figure.
Meaning if there were no upsets in either New Jersey or Virginia, ironically, then it would be slightly more likely there could be an upset in favor of the White House party the following year in the midterms. But the only way to find out is the wait and see. Stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
