The NPR Politics Podcast - Four Races To Watch This Election Day

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Tuesday is the last day voters in New Jersey and Virginia can cast ballots in their states’ gubernatorial races, as well as the end of voting in California’s redistricting ballot measure contest and New York City’s mayoral race. We discuss the big takeaways from each of those contests and what lessons they offer about the 2026 midterm elections.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Ashley Lopez, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. Hi, this is Jeannie. I live in New York City and I am on my way to vote in the New York City mayoral race. This podcast was recorded at 106 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4th, Election Day, some places. Things may have changed by the time. you hear this. Enjoy the show. Yay. Voting. It's like the best part. I was saying this before, but I'm very jealous of everyone in New York who voted on Halloween because there was a specialty I voted sticker that was

Halloween themed. And I love an I voted sticker. That's interesting. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, it is. is election day, or shall we say, the last day of voting. Virginia and New Jersey will be electing new governors. California will decide on whether to redraw congressional maps, and New York City will have a new mayor. Domenico, let's start with Virginia. Who are the leading candidates there? And what are you watching for in that race? Well, those are Democrat, Abigail Spanberger, and Republican winsome, Earl Sears. And there are a ton of other races up and down the ballot.

But those two are the main attraction in the state. An off-year election usually goes to the party out of power in Virginia, 11 of the last 12 times since 1977. That's been the case. We're talking about Trump being in the White House right now. He's a Republican, obviously. So that would put the Democrat at an advantage, most likely. And she's favored to win this race. And we're watching the margins. I think the margin is the thing that's most important in these off-year elections. How much does the political needle move. All right. Let's talk about New Jersey real quick. Who are those candidates? And what are you watching for there? The Democrat is Mikey Cheryl, Congresswoman, who's been really stressing her military credentials as a former Navy helicopter pilot against a Republican Jack Chittarelli, who's run twice before for governor and lost. He's a businessman owned a medical information company and has really been trying to take the focus off of President Trump. And I know we'll talk about him more and try to talk about things like higher electricity costs. Yeah, Ashley, why don't we talk through some of the themes in these races that we're seeing come through in both of them. Yeah, well, I mean,

Domenico kind of got to it. It's cost of living. Affordability is what like everyone says now, but what we're talking about is how expensive it is for people to buy houses, to afford energy costs, groceries. This is a huge liability for Donald Trump. This was a key part of his campaign. He made some big promises to solve some of the high prices and cost of living issues for voters and has not delivered on that as of yet. So it's not surprising that Democrats, and to some extent, you know, Jack Chirrelli has as well talked about housing and just high prices in general. Yeah, property taxes are the perennial issue in New Jersey. So that's never going away. Yeah, but it's also really interesting to see them so focused on energy costs. Well, at least

three of the candidates focused on the cost of energy. Here are some of the ads. What does she say about Trump's bad budget bill? The bill, as you know now, there's so many great things. What? The Trump budget raises health care costs, raises mortgages, raises the price of electricity and gas. Now, Mikey has a plan to drive down costs so families can get ahead, including a crackdown on predatory landlords jacking up rent, courage to fight. All lower electricity bills, cut and cap property taxes, and keep our community safe. Folks, it's time to fix New Jersey. When I'm governor, we will. Those were in order ads from Virginia Democrat Abigail. Spanberger, New Jersey Democrat, Mikey Cheryl, and New Jersey Republican Jack Chittarelli,

other than sounding like truck commercials, those last two. It really did sound like they were hitting on the same basic ideas. Domenico, Winsmorel Sears has been running a lot of ads. They are not on that theme, though, generally. No, they're not. There's a lot of them on culture war issues, whether people who are transgender can use bathrooms that don't adhere to their sex assigned at birth, really explicitly trying to drive out conservatives. You know, she's also really tried to latch on to this controversy in the race about quote unquote political violence in these leaked text messages from the attorney general candidate for the Democrats in this race, Jay Jones, who had these text messages that leaked that had him seemingly

advocating for violence against the Republican then Speaker of the House. So that has been the thing that Republicans have really latched on to in the last month. Yeah, it's an interesting strategy, right, considering that Virginia, I mean, from my understanding, those are pretty moderate voters. This kind of thing doesn't really usually play well in a general election, which I guess is why we haven't seen Donald Trump, the president, full-throatedly endorse winsome Earl Sears. Actually, Tam, I mean, like, can we talk about the Trump of it all? Has he had a lot to say about these races because I haven't heard him talk much about Virginia specifically. He has put out

a lot of messages on social media recently where he is saying Republicans need to vote, Republicans must vote. He has had a lot of negative things to say about the Democratic candidates and he has endorsed Jack Chittarelli in New Jersey, but

he has pointedly not endorsed winsome Earl Sears. Last night he joined a tele-rally in Virginia for Republicans and And it was slightly awkward because he kept talking about voting for Republicans, and then he explicitly named the Republican candidate who he has endorsed for Attorney General Jason Miaris, but no mention of Winsome Earl Sears. Vote Republican. You know, just if I just cover one subject, your energy prices will go way down as opposed to your energy prices going through the roof. Just that one subject alone is so big. but every Virginia Patriots should get out and vote.

And all Republican up and down the line, it's so important. All Republican, not going to name them, don't want to be too closely associated with anyone who might lose. Yeah, and that's clearly the political weather vein here. You know, often we talk about the polls or whatever. But I think a lot of times a better indicator is the body language of candidates and key people and leaders within the party. And I think that this is one way in which Republicans, I think that Sears is not likely to do very well, but we'll see what happens. You know, I think that her strategy certainly is testing whether or not you can run a kind of full-throated MAGA culture warrior-centered campaign in a state that leans left.

Yeah, I mean, we should say that these are purple states, but that definitely lean left. But governors' races don't always closely match up with the presidential. So what are you watching for in terms of that, Ashley? Yeah, a good example of like a state that doesn't, like it doesn't really matter what happens sort of on the federal level. The governorship has its own kind of like ebb and flow is New Jersey. New Jersey hasn't voted for a governor in the same party for more than two consecutive terms since the 60s. And we should say the current governor is a Democrat who was reelected. So Mikey Sherrill is trying to go against trend here to win.

But Virginia, you know, like history is on that state. side, as Domenico mentioned, like usually the party that's in the White House loses the governorship. But we'll see. I mean, we're also like, we always say, like an interesting time. So who knows how much these trends are like predictive in any way. And I think it's going to be really interesting to see in New Jersey in particular how Trump is doing with Latinos, how Latinos feel about the Republican Party since these elections do tend to be a kind of referendum on the party in power. And of course, that means President Trump, even though he's not on the ballot.

You know, I think those barometers are things that people are going to be watching for. Of course, these are lower turnout affairs. And I would expect that lower propensity voters in general are going to be lower turnout voters in off-year elections as generally the case. Yeah. I mean, like, that's why I don't think we could draw big conclusions about what this means for like a general election next year. Because these are different kinds of voters. These are voters who are very politically motivated. And so they're going to turn out for things like, you know, a governorship.

in an odd year. Only five states hold their gubernatorial elections on odd numbered years. So most people, you know, unless you're kind of plugged in, don't know that this is happening because the rest of the country's not voting. Yeah, but it is a test of energy, right? Of activism. And that's what's important in midterm elections. And usually special elections and off your elections do tend to point to the direction that things are headed for the midterms next year. And narratives and margins matter. And I think it's going to be really interesting and important to watch how those things move. Well, and Democrats used to really rely on low propensity voters. Now their electorate is more high propensity voters. And the Trump version of the Republican Party has counted on those low propensity voters. So what does that mean for these elections then? Yeah. And as a bigger share of the party has become college educated voters, Democrats have done really well in things like special elections and off-year elections. But that has not solved a lot of their problems when we're looking at big elections, like presidential elections, for example. So I do. I do. think, like, yes, Democrats will likely do well in these races, but as Domenical says, the question

is how well? Like, how energized are their voters? All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll have more in a moment. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. And we're back and we're talking about some of the big elections happening today. So let's go out west to sunny California. Ashley, you were just out there. Voters in California are weighing in on Proposition 50. So remind us what that is. Yeah. So Proposition 50, it's a one-issue election that was put on the ballot by state lawmakers. It's basically asking voters to allow them to partisan gerrymander. Because California has an

independent redistricting commission, which voters approved about 15 years ago, they have to ask voters for permission first to go in and then, you know, redraw the map to favor one party because structurally there's just like they can't just do that like Texas did, for example. Yes. And so let us talk about why California might want to do that or why, let's be clear, California Democrats might want to do that. President Trump wants to give the Republican Party an advantage through redistricting. Texas at that request of President Trump redrew its maps earlier this year to create five more favorable seats for the Republican Party. So California, Democrats want to basically offset that edge that Trump wants Republicans to have in the midterms.

Yeah. And Domenico polls indicate that Proposition 50 is very likely to pass in California. What would this measure mean for the midterm landscape next year? I think it's a huge piece of the ballgame here. I mean, this is all about the redistricting arms race that's taking place in the country. As Ashley talks about Trump asking Texas to try to squeeze out as many as five conservatives. seats and other red states trying to follow suit as well. And this is super important because of just how close the margin is for control of the House. Only three seats separate Republicans from Democrats in Republicans being able to control the House. So being able to get, you know, five extra seats, let's say, for example, out of California to counterbalance the five seats potentially that

Republicans in Texas could get out of it. That's huge because if you were talking about eight seats to try to make up for Democrats versus three seats, that's a very big difference in how you campaign in these swing districts. And I have to say you have to give a lot of credit if this does pass to Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor in the state, you know, and to Democratic leaders like former President Barack Obama, who has endorsed the plan and cut ads for it, because this really at the beginning, there was a real question of whether or not Democrats would vote to at least temporarily overturn this independent commission that's mandated by state. law to be able to go and draw districts and the kind of good government initiative that

Democrats had tried to do in several states. So they have been able to kind of win the messaging battle here, poured in way more money in a very expensive state. And we have seen Republicans and the no campaign start to kind of pull back a little bit, which does maybe signal which direction this is going. Yeah. And I got to say like Democratic base voters in California, like I was in Southern California last week. And I was struck by how often they told me, how happy they were with Gavin Newsome. I mean, I don't know, like, if in general, like, how popular he is, but people voting for Prop 50 were just like really happy that Democrats were doing something because for the most part, a lot of Democratic-based voters have been very

frustrated with their leaders. And so they were happy to see that their party was at least engaging in a fight and not just letting, you know, Republicans create an edge for themselves ahead of the midterms. And then Democrats not really doing anything in response. That's going to be a key lesson out of this election or thing to watch. at least in the next year or so, as we know Gavin Newsom's got his eye on 2028. Indeed. And he's got a podcast. So, Domenico. Don't they all? Yes. Yes, they do. Domenico, let us move on to New York City, where a municipal election is getting a whole lot of attention. What do people need to know about the race for mayor in New York City?

Is it a race that people are paying attention to? I haven't heard of any of these people running, right? Sarcastically here. The mayoral election in New York does. does get sort of outsized attention than other places, one because it's the biggest city in the country population-wise. And because, you know, a lot of the media is centered on the East Coast and New York is certainly, you've got a lot of fiery people who are running. But in this case, you have a really interesting thing happening on the Democratic side. And this is really the New York mayor's race almost becomes kind of like a Democratic primary election. You know, you have on the Democratic side, Zoran Mamdani, who's become a real rising Democratic

star because of his focus on affordability and cost of living. He calls himself a Democratic socialist proudly. And he's also drawn the ire of Republicans. He's been a lightning rod on the right because of his comments and criticisms about Israel, his past support for defunding the police in tweets, something that he's disavowed and says safety is a top priority. He's running against as an independent in this race, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of the state. He's state who's, you know, been trying to kind of close the gap here in the last few days. A Republican in the race is Curtis Sliwa, who's kind of perennial Republican candidate whose main focus has been on crime. Momdani has the lead in all the polls at this point. If he wins,

what does that say about the Democratic Party? You know, the theory of Momdani's case is the Democratic Party has lost a lot of working class voters over the years because they haven't embrace this economic populism. And so he believes that talking about things like health care, childcare, transportation, like these are things that will bring back some of these voters. And I mean, if he does really well and we see in exit polls that he's right, it'll at least will bring up a conversation of how seriously we should take whether that is the path forward. I mean, I think this is going to be the story over the next year is just how much Democrats are able to rally around Democrats to be able to try to win in 2026. We've seen from our own polling, the NPR PBS News Merris poll,

that Democrats haven't been that enthused with Democratic leaders, especially on the younger side, especially on the more progressive side, certainly not as much as Republicans have been. Of course, Democrats may very well just go to the polls anyway because they really don't like Donald Trump. But I think that Mamdani and how he presents himself his strategy on social media, the way he approaches people in the streets, his focus on very clear, by the way, slogany focus on affordability, right? Freeze the rent, make the buses faster, universal child care. You can understand what those things are. And even if all of those things don't get done, you know, people I've talked to said,

look, you know no one's going to fight harder for these things than Zoran Mamdani will. So, you know, there's going to be a real clash, especially on style. Because I don't think anybody disagrees in the Democratic Party or really almost anywhere. that cost of living, the prices of things are the most important thing facing everybody in this country right now. And there's just different styles of different people and how they're going to present themselves. So do Democrats wind up going with a Mamdani kind of style? Or do they go with an Abigail Spanberger style, which has been much more reserved, talking about, you know, tradition and service and all of that mixed in with talking about the cost of living?

All right. Let's leave it there for today. We will be back in your feet early tomorrow with the results of these races and what they mean. I'm Tamer Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro. I'm senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at our WJF.org.