After a chaotic 2024 presidential election cycle, political attention will turn to the off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey, two states that will likely set the tone for midterm elections and act as a barometer for voters’ concerns.

Both gubernatorial races could offer a warning sign for President-elect Donald Trump’s first nine months during his second term or a signal that voters are pleased with his handling of the federal government. 

Trump’s decision to tap House members as Cabinet nominees means there will be at least three special elections in Florida and New York next year.

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Here are the top races to watch in 2025. 

Virginia bellwether race, a referendum on Trump 

The Old Dominion’s governor race has historically been seen as a bellwether for the president’s political party. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) defeat of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in 2021 was an early warning sign that Trump would go on to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris three years later. 

With Youngkin term-limited, the 2025 race is likely shaping up between GOP Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), meaning that Virginia will elect its first woman governor next November. If Earle-Sears were to win the race, she would also become the nation’s first black woman governor. 

“​​It’s not unprecedented,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, about a possible two-woman race. “And I want to just say that it doesn’t make gender not part of the narrative just because they’re two women running against each other. Gender still comes up.” 

In 2024, Joyce Craig, a Democrat, unsuccessfully battled Republican Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire’s gubernatorial race in one example.

Only 49 women have served as governors in the nation’s history in 32 states, with a record of 12 women serving in the governor’s mansion simultaneously in 2023, according to CAWP.

Earle-Sears nearly faced a primary challenge from state Attorney General Jason Miyares, but he opted to run for reelection while a possible Spanberger primary challenger, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, ended his bid.

“After careful consideration with my family, I believe that the best way to ensure that all Virginia families do get the change they deserve is for our party to come together, avoid a costly and damaging primary, and for me to run instead for Lieutenant Governor,” Stoney said in a statement at the time. 

Spanberger could still face a challenge from Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), a veteran black congressman who could set up a bitter primary. “I haven’t ruled it out,” he told Punchbowl News.

As Democrats itch to retake the governor’s mansion from the GOP, Brian Kirwin, a Republican strategist in Virginia, pushed back on Virginia’s history of choosing governors of the president’s opposing party in an interview with the Washington Examiner. 

“I think Youngkin kind of reset the deck,” Kirwin said. “And I think running somebody with a D.C. voting record is going to make it very hard for the Democrats to say we’re a reaction to what’s going on in D.C. because their candidate will be D.C.” 

Youngkin endorsed Earle-Sears after Miyares decided to run again for attorney general. 

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Spanberger, a former CIA officer, flipped Virginia’s 7th Congressional District from Republican Rep. Dave Brat, a Tea Party member. She later narrowly won reelection in 2020 and after redistricting in 2022, Spanberger survived a tough reelection against Republican Yesli Vega. 

She has also remained a proud centrist who refused to back Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) bid for the speakership after the 2018 midterm elections. 

Earle-Sears, a Marine Corps veteran, became the first woman of color elected to a statewide position in Virginia in 2021 when she and Youngkin defeated their Democratic counterparts. Before that, she served in the state’s House of Delegates before losing a race for the 3rd District, challenging Scott in 2004 and losing a Senate bid in 2018. 

She could build on the inroads Trump made with minority voters during November’s elections, but as a black Republican running against a white woman Democrat, Earle–Sears will have to work hard to win over black voters in Virginia who have historically voted for Democrats. 

Both women were tied at 39% each, according to a University of Mary Washington poll about the governor’s race, with 22% undecided. 

Could Republicans flip New Jersey’s governor mansion? 

In 2021, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) narrowly won reelection in a race that caused Democrats some heartburn. Murphy defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli, 51.2% to 48%, a roughly 3-point margin that secured a second term. 

Three years later, Trump would lose Jersey to Vice President Kamala Harris, 51.8% to 45.9%, in the election. But in 2020, President Joe Biden won the state by a larger margin against Trump, 57.1% to 41.3%, making the 2024 results another indication that New Jersey had moved rightward. 

With Murphy term-limited, GOP candidates are lining up for their chance to flip the governor’s mansion after Trump’s win, and the GOP control of the House and Senate, with Ciattarelli hoping for another chance to win. 

He faces primary challenges from New Jersey state Sen. Jon Bramnick, a Trump critic, former state Sen. Edward Durr, and conservative radio host Bill Spadea. 

“When Jack got in the race last time in 2020, he was unknown. Certainly did not have the fundraising network he has now. All those things have changed,” said Chris Russell, a Republican strategist working on Ciattarelli’s campaign. “We’ve proven that we are a vote-getter, and he’s been vetted. So all those things that I think you look for in a candidate raising money, good name ID, and a vetted candidate who’s been tested statewide before, he checks all those boxes.” 

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Ciattarelli’s most important task will be to retain Trump’s supporters and moderate voters if he wants to survive the primary and move on to the general election.  

But there’s also a wide field of Democrats hoping to keep the state in their party’s hands. In total, at least 10 candidates are seeking the governor’s mansion. 

The candidates include Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller, and former state Sen. Stephen Sweeney, who was the state Senate’s longest-serving president. 

Sherrill is the only major woman candidate in the race, which Walsh said puts her in a “unique spot.”

“She’s going to have to show that she can handle Trenton,” Walsh said of the state capitol. “I think one of the lessons that Democrats are learning out of this last election is sort of listening to and hearing the needs of where folks are and what are the issues that really matter to them? … We have really high property taxes in the state, and every governor comes in saying they’re going to handle it, and it doesn’t really get handled.” 

Although there are 900,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, that number is a decrease of nearly 58,000 from the year before, which could aid Republicans to flip the state. 

“There’s an opportunity, and I think if you look at where Ciattarelli did well and where Trump did well, if you meld those two paths together, it’s a winning formula,” Russell said. “And I think that’s really what  Republicans in the state need to look at next year.”

Trump won 12 out of New Jersey’s 21 counties in 2024, which could be the path forward for a Republican gubernatorial candidate. 

The 2025 election will take place with new guidelines for the state’s primary election ballots that were championed by Sen.-elect Andy Kim (D-NJ). Now, party officials are no longer allowed to give their preferred candidate a preferential spot on the ballot. 

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Special elections in Florida and New York 

Florida voters in the 1st and 6th Congressional Districts will vote on April 1, 2025, to replace former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress for a failed bid as Trump’s attorney general, and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who was tapped as Trump’s national security adviser. 

Trump endorsed Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer, to replace Gaetz and state Sen. Randy Fine to succeed Waltz. The two men will have to survive a primary on Jan. 28, 2025, before moving on to the general election, in which they are expected to win easily in the GOP-leaning districts.   

“If Virginia is any indicator, a Trump endorsement is basically a guaranteed nomination,” Kirwin said about Trump’s endorsements. 

Interestingly enough, Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, endorsed former Escambia County Commissioner Gene Valentino in the race to succeed Gaetz.

“I’ve lived in this district for over 30 years, I own businesses in this district, I have hundreds of employees in this district, and we are tired of being ignored,” Valentino told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “I’m not a career politician, I’m running to bring my business acumen to Washington, D.C., and help the people of the Panhandle. It’s time we drain the swamp and send real people with real experience to represent our beautiful district.”

In New York, voters will decide who will replace Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) after Trump tapped her as his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

After Stefanik is presumably confirmed and vacates her seat, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has 10 days to set a special election date.  

Several Republican contenders for the 21st Congressional District could include Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY), state Sens. Dan Stec and Jake Ashby, Rensselaer County Executive Steven McLaughlin, and state Assemblymen Robert Smullen and Christopher Tague. 

Pro-Trump businessman and Sticker Mule CEO Anthony Constantino said he was willing to spend $2.6 million of his wealth to run for the congressional seat. 

“Just like President Trump was an outsider who brought a great skill set to politics, a great skill set to government, I think the country needs more people with similar backgrounds that are outsiders, that are talented people. And I happen to be one of them,” Constantino told Fox News. 

Although the seat is reliably Republican, some Democrats who could decide to run for the seat include Assemblyman Billy Jones, Paula Collins, who ran against Stefanik in 2024, and Matt Castelli.