The outcome of the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races in 2025 were not surprising — the Democrats won in blue states that Democrats carried in the presidential elections of 2024, 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008. It’s not the fact that they won.
It’s the size of the leads that should capture the political punditry’s attention, particularly on the Republican side, with the 2026 Congressional midterms just one year away — that is if Republicans hope to hold onto the House and Senate.
It’s a loud reminder to Republicans that elections are always a referendum on the incumbents, and when you don’t believe it or hope it’s not true or maybe sometimes it’s not true, you get torched.
Democrats thought they could just ditch the incumbent in 2024 — nice try, by the way — and it didn’t work, just as it did not work when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson opted not to run in 1952 and 1968, respectively.
Democrats are running like Donald Trump is on the ballot, and Republicans are not.
In New Jersey, Republican Jack Ciattarelli at 1.38 million got more votes than not only any Republican in the history of New Jersey elections, but more votes than any governor in all New Jersey history, including Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy’s 1.34 million in 2021, but still lost easily as Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, now Governor-Elect, blew the barn doors off the hinges with massive off-year turnout of 1.79 million for her candidacy.
Since 2021, New Jersey’s resident population has only increased 2.5 percent. Democratic turnout increased 33 percent, with voter enthusiasm off the charts. Republican enthusiasm was up, too, with Republican turnout increasing 10 percent.
The Democrat won in New Jersey with 56 percent of the vote compared to the Republican’s 43 percent, a 13-point rout in a race that polls said was only separated by 3 points. In Virginia, Governor-Elect Abigail Spanberger similarly overperformed what the polls showed, delivering a 15-point rout instead of the projected 10-point win.
These are some of the biggest polling misses in recent memory. And, critically, they happened in both states. So, the odds are it’s happening everywhere else, too.
The polls are wrong.
Undoubtedly, the survey readings were thrown off by the swamp of turnout, which broke records in New Jersey, and should have Republicans rethinking what their own turnout is going to look like in just 12 months.
The same outfits doing Virginia and New Jersey are also charting “light” lead in the generic Congressional ballot. 3.6 points? There’s no way that is possibly true. If the midterms had happened yesterday, Republicans would have been annihilated.
One clearly defined aspect of this was early voting in New Jersey: 614,000 Democrats voted early compared to 347,000 Republicans and 235,000 independents. That was 267,000 difference between Democrats and Republicans, but Sherrill won Election Day turnout, too, adding to what became an insurmountable lead of 414,000 and counting.
To weigh the magnitude of this feat, in the previous two gubernatorial elections, in 2017, Murphy got 13.5 percent of the New Jersey resident population of then 8.8 million, and in 2021, he got 14.4 percent.
Sherrill netted 18.8 percent of the now 9.5 million New Jersey resident population. For an off-year election in recent memory, that is only topped by former Sen. Bob Menendez’ 19.2 percent of the resident population in the 2018 Congressional midterms.
Ciattarelli for his part went from 13.5 percent of the resident population to 14.5 percent. For an off-year election with a Republican in the White House, the GOP turnout was miraculous. Any other year, 2021, 2017, you name it, that would have been enough to win.
But nowhere near where it would have needed to be to beat the Democrats’ turnout machine that showed up on Nov. 4.
The 2018 midterms saw Democrats in New Jersey boost resident population turnout by almost 6 points from the 2017 governor race. That was aided by the Senate race. In 2026, Republicans are either fortunate or unfortunate depending on how you look at it (you’ll find out in 12 months) that 19 out of 20 of their seats up for grabs out of the 33 seats up are in states President Trump carried in 2024.
To keep those seats, Republicans will have raise the turnout bar significantly in 2026.
In other words, usually the national Congressional midterms are even heavier turnout than what is seen, but it depends heavily on competitive statewide races. In Virginia, the 2021 governor’s race saw more turnout than the 2022 Congressional midterms, but there was no Senate race in Virginia in 2022.
In midterm elections dating back to 1906 through 2022, the party that occupied the White House lost seats in the House 27 out of 30 times, or 90 percent of the time, and in years with losses those averaged 34 seats. It was only overcome in 1934, 1998 and 2002, with the Great Depression, Monica Lewinsky and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks acting as exigent events.
Another edge case is 1962, wherein Democrats only lost three seats, and came within weeks of the Cuban Missile Crisis being resolved.
In 2018, Republicans lost 41 House seats. The Senate is a little better, with losses only occurring 66 percent of the time, with losses averaging 6 seats. In 2018, Trump and the GOP picked up two Senate seats.
As for 2026, based on what is being seen right now, Republicans should assume even greater Democratic turnout in 2026 than in 2025 per capita.
When they run the numbers, it could be a much-needed wakeup call for President Trump and Republicans, who will need the President barnstorming through Senate race states with rallies whether the candidates like it or not, massive voter registration operations and matching Democratic early voting if they want to keep their majorities.
If Republicans are looking for some hope, here’s one glimmer: The two times in recent memory the midterm jinx was broken in 1998 and 2002 when the White House party actually picked up House seats, the opposition party had just swept the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ races. Just don’t bet on it.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
