What to know about today’s key races, from NYC’s mayoral race to history in the making in Virginia
By Eric Bradner, CNN
(CNN) — Zohran Mamdani walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to New York’s City Hall early Monday morning holding a banner that seemed to answer the president who has opposed him and the portions of the Democratic Party that have been slow to embrace him. “Our time is now,” it said.
Mamdani faces former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is attempting a political comeback as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, and Republican Curtis Sliwa in the mayoral race — one of a handful of contests around the country Tuesday that will draw copious attention.
“When the sun comes up, everything changes — shadows lift off the river, light reflects off of office building windows, and you start to feel the warmth of a new day. That was how it felt when we beat Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani said Monday morning, referring to his Democratic primary win. “And it’s how we will feel again tomorrow when polls close at 9 p.m. (ET).”
Though New York City is overwhelmingly Democratic, the outcome could offer a window into what the party’s voters want from their leaders as a slew of competitive House and Senate primaries approach, and the 2028 presidential primary starts to take shape. Mamdani, a 34-year-old Muslim immigrant and democratic socialist, has faced resistance and reticence within his own party, including from congressional leaders, over his views about Israel. But his relentless focus on the cost of living and his viral social media videos have also shot him to stardom — making him a unique figure in a party desperate for new ways to counter President Donald Trump.
Mamdani on Monday said Cuomo is “Trump’s puppet in this race,” after Trump on Sunday called Mamdani a communist and threatened to withhold federal dollars from the city. Trump on Monday urged New Yorkers in his strongest terms yet to vote for Cuomo, writing on Truth Social that voters “really have no choice.”
The race for governor across the Hudson River in New Jersey, another one in Virginia and a key redistricting vote in California will also serve to gauge how voters feel in the first year of Trump’s second presidency – and provide signals about the midterm elections just one year away.
In Virginia, the ongoing shutdown and Trump’s efforts to remake the government have affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers who will play a central role Tuesday. In New Jersey, the durability of Latino voters’ swing to Trump in 2024, and the political potency of affordability concerns fueled by increasing taxes and utility costs, are at the center of a competitive contest.
And in California, the race to redraw congressional district boundaries ahead of next year’s battle for majority control of the US House of Representatives faces a critical moment.
A special election in Texas and a state Supreme Court retention vote in Pennsylvania cap an important set of odd-year elections. Here are the races and issues to watch Tuesday:
New York City mayor
The mayor’s race is a signal moment for a Democratic Party looking for its way out of the political wilderness. Similar dynamics — progressives against moderates and insiders against outsiders — could play out in primary elections next spring. Democrats can also draw lessons from how questions of support for Israel have played in the race, and from Mamdani’s approach to social media and publicity, including appearing on Fox News.
Some national Democrats — most notably the party’s top two figures in Washington, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York — have been slow to embrace Mamdani. Jeffries endorsed him only in late October, and Schumer has not said who he is supporting in the mayor’s race.
Before heading out to rallies in Virginia and New Jersey on Saturday, former President Barack Obama called Mamdani. He has not endorsed the nominee — aides attribute that to a policy of generally not getting involved in mayoral elections — and that did not change in the call. But according to a person familiar with the conversation, he called Mamdani’s campaign “impressive to watch,” and offered to be a “sounding board” going forward.
Republicans are largely rallying around Cuomo, identifying him as the only hope of stopping Mamdani’s election despite Sliwa’s presence in the race. Trump said on “60 Minutes” Sunday that “if it’s going to be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m going to pick the bad Democrat all the time to be honest with you.”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who served a short stint in Trump’s White House, urged New Yorkers on X on Monday to vote for Cuomo. “Bear in mind that a vote for Curtis is really a vote for Mumdumi or whatever his name is,” Musk wrote.
New Jersey governor
Across the Hudson River, voters in the traditionally blue state of New Jersey will choose their replacement for term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Amid tax hikes and soaring utility costs, affordability has taken center stage in the election. Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican who is endorsed by Trump and has praised the president’s performance in his second term, has sought to localize the race — pitching himself as the consummate “Jersey guy” and casting Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who moved to the state after a Navy career, as an outsider.
Sherrill and Democrats, meanwhile, have emphasized Ciattarelli’s links to Trump — a potentially decisive factor in a state with 800,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. One point of emphasis: Trump’s cancellation of funding for the Gateway Tunnel, a rail project linking New Jersey and New York City.
“It’s going to be a continued fight against Trump’s vision in Washington as he tries to stifle opportunity for people across this country,” Sherrill told supporters at a campaign office visit Monday.
New Jersey has typically leaned blue, but Ciattarelli came close to winning in 2021, and the state shifted hard in Trump’s direction in 2024: He lost by just 6 percentage points, after a 16-point drubbing there in 2020.
Asked Monday by CNN whether Trump is a liability in the governor’s race, Ciattarelli said, “Not one bit.”
“The people of New Jersey know who I am. I will fiercely defend the 9 million citizens of this state every day of the week,” he said.
Virginia governor
Four years after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won a major upset, tapping into parents’ anger over local school boards, his lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, is seeking to replace him with a campaign centered on transgender policies, particularly in schools.
But polls suggest her Democratic opponent, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, has a clear advantage headed into Election Day in a state that three times voted against Trump. Democrats have relentlessly tied Earle-Sears to Trump, and she has not sought to distance herself from the president.
“What is it that we do here in Virginia?” Spanberger said at a Monday rally. “The answer is, we flip some seats. … The answer is that we stand up against the chaos and the division that we see coming out of this administration.”
None of the states holding elections on Tuesday are typically considered swing states in presidential elections. But Republicans were able to sweep statewide races in Virginia four years ago. And with the Virginia’s proximity to Washington, it is home to hundreds of thousands of federal government workers who are affected by the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal workforce and the government shutdown. Its gubernatorial election might be the closest to a true test of Trump’s performance this year.
Polls have shown closer races down ballot in Virginia, where Republican John Reid and Democrat Ghazala Hashmi are facing off for lieutenant governor. In the contest for attorney general, Republicans have what could be their best chance to win Tuesday as GOP incumbent Jason Miyares faces Democrat Jay Jones, who has been dogged by controversy surrounding violent text messages he sent in 2022.
Issue to watch: Utility costs
The economy is a perennial campaign issue, with voters often expressing concerns about prices at the grocery store or at gas pumps. This year’s pocketbook metric is one less often discussed: utility costs.
Electricity prices across the country, which have sharply increased since 2020, have jumped over the last year, introducing a new financial strain for voters in places like New Jersey and Virginia. Candidates in both states have featured energy costs in their television ads and campaign speeches.
Utility costs have become a particularly salient issue in New Jersey, where residential electricity prices have jumped nearly 21% over the past year compared with a 6% increase nationwide, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Ciattarelli has said Democrats’ push for clean energy is to blame, while Sherrill has said she will fix the issue by freezing utility rates, a proposal that has drawn skepticism from Murphy, the outgoing Democratic governor.
Even Trump appears to be aware of the political potency of the issue. In a tele-rally for Ciattarelli last month, the president repeatedly turned to talking about energy costs — an indication the issue could be front and center in next year’s midterm elections.
California’s redistricting battle
California’s vote on a measure known as Proposition 50 will set the stage for next year’s midterm battle for control of the US House of Representatives.
Voters will decide whether to green-light the Democratic plan spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom to set aside the congressional districts drawn by the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission in favor of a gerrymandered map aimed at improving Democrats’ chances of winning five GOP-held seats.
It’s a response to Texas, where the legislature approved and Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law new maps intended to help Republicans win five more seats — improving the party’s odds of retaining its House majority.
Newsom, widely viewed as a 2028 presidential contender, sought an answer that would neutralize those Texas gains. But unlike in Texas, California voters have to sign off on the plan to replace the nonpartisan commission’s maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections — before switching back to new, commission-drawn maps in the next decade, after the 2030 census.
A “yes” vote would be a big win for Democrats, who have fewer avenues to respond after Republicans also redrew Missouri’s maps to add one more seat, with Indiana set to convene a special legislative session in the coming weeks to potentially add one or two more GOP seats and North Carolina moving to add one more Republican-leaning district. It would also be a milestone for Newsom, as he and a slew of other Democratic governors seek to position themselves as Trump’s strongest opponents ahead of potential presidential runs.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention
In Pennsylvania, voters must determine whether to keep three Democratic members of the state Supreme Court — a decision with potentially significant ramifications in the coming months and years in the crucial presidential battleground.
Democrats have a 5-2 majority on the state’s high court. The three incumbents on Tuesday’s ballot face yes-or-no questions of whether they’ll be retained for new 10-year terms. If they aren’t, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro would appoint interim replacements until elections for new justices were held in 2027.
A change in party control of the state Supreme Court could have far-reaching implications for the 2028 presidential race, upcoming midterms and future redistricting. Ahead of the 2020 and 2024 elections, the Democratic majority sided with Democrats on key cases related to mail-in deadlines, provisional ballots and signature matching.
Texas House special election
The largely Democratic, Houston-area 18th Congressional District in Texas has been without representation in Washington for most of the last 16 months.
In July 2024, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee died. Her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, won the special election to fill the vacancy. But that special election was held the same day as the 2024 general election, which was won by former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner — who hadn’t been on the ballot in the special election.
Turner died in early March. Abbott, a Republican, scheduled the special election for eight months later — a move that gave the House GOP more breathing room as it moved toward passage of Trump’s landmark tax and domestic policy bill.
This special election, a jungle primary that will go to a runoff featuring the top two finishers unless one tops 50% of the vote on Tuesday, has drawn several high-profile candidates. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, who has technically resigned to run for Congress but continues to serve, is among the Democrats, as are state Rep. Jolanda Jones and Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member who lost in the 2024 primary to Jackson Lee. Republican Carmen Montiel, a Venezuelan American real estate agent and former TV journalist, is the highest-profile member of her party in the race.
This story and headline have been updated with additional details.
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CNN’s Arlette Saenz, Edward-Isaac Dovere and Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.
