Democrat Abigail Spanberger wins the governorship of Virginia, shifting control of the Republican Party

Jeff Bennett:

Welcome to the News Hour.

This Election Day, voters cast ballots in key races across the country.

Amna Nawaz:

In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger will be the state’s first woman governor. With more than 70% of the votes counted, the former three-term congresswoman leads her Republican challenger, Winsom Earle-Sears, with 55% of the vote.

Spanberger spoke only moments ago.

ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (D-VA), Governor-elect: We are built on the things we share, not the things that divide us. I’m proud that our campaign received votes from Democrats, Republicans, independents, and everyone in between.

(acclaim)

Jeff Bennett:

In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill is ahead of her Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, in the race for governor, although the Associated Press has not yet called this race.

Meanwhile, polls have just closed in New York City, where Democrat Zahran Mamdani hopes to mount a challenge from former Democratic governor-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Amna Nawaz:

Well, our team has been following all the races today.

Liz Landers and William Brangham join me now with the latest.

So, Liz, let’s talk about Virginia, where former Congresswoman Spanberger elected its first female governor, flipping the office to Democratic control. How did you do that?

Liz Landers:

I mentioned this a little bit in those remarks we just made, that it was attractive to people of all political stripes.

She managed to get a good number of independents to vote for her in this race. We have some of this from some of the polls that have been released over the past few hours; 56 percent of independent voters split in favor of Spanberger. Only 41 percent broke for Winsome Earl Sears, the incumbent lieutenant governor.

If you’re a political candidate, you’re always trying to win over these independent voters. You look at moms in the suburbs. You’re looking at people who might want to — they’ve changed their votes in the last few months because of what they’re seeing at the federal government level.

Many of the voters we spoke with during the campaign said they were thinking and considering some of the actions President Trump has taken in Washington because the federal workforce has been significantly reduced in the past few months.

Some of these federal cuts have affected some of these voters’ finances. This is also something we are seeing here in this exit poll. For Spanberger’s voters, 66% said the federal cuts affected their finances. For Winsome Earl Sears, only 33% of voters who supported her said the federal cuts affected their finances.

This was the thing Spanberger focused on during the campaign: the economy and job creation. We’ve heard that from her over and over again. She was very disciplined about that, with Earl Sears focusing on immigration issues and some culture war issues instead.

So, in the end, it has paid off for Spanberger, as she is now expected to become the first female governor there in Virginia.

Amna Nawaz:

Meanwhile, more history will likely be made in Virginia as well. State Senator Ghazala Hashmi may become the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office in the entire United States. Tell us more about this race for lieutenant governor.

Liz Landers:

Yes.

So she is 61 years old. She was first elected to the Virginia Senate in 2019, and said she ran at the time in response to President Trump and some of the Muslim bans he passed once he took office — or tried to implement once he took office. She said that was an incentive for her.

But during her election campaign, and while she was running, she focused on other issues such as education. She’s a teacher by training, but, yeah, just another example of history being made. Regardless of who wins, Spanberger or Winsome Earl Sears, they are both women. Both of them would have made history in this race. There are few states that can say they have not elected female governors at this point. Virginia crossed it off the list tonight.

(He laughed)

Amna Nawaz:

Well, history was made there tonight.

Liz Landers:

right.

Amna Nawaz:

William, meanwhile, in New Jersey, of course, you have Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill who is hoping to maintain Democratic control of the governor’s office there against the Republican nominee, Jack Ciattarelli.

What’s the latest tonight?

William Brangham:

The latest is that this race is still very close, unlike what happened in Virginia. This – this has been a tight race throughout.

I mean, New Jersey is a blue state, and this was very annoying for Democrats throughout Spanberger’s term – I’m sorry – where Sherrill seemed to have a very narrow lead over Ciattarelli. But two recent opinion polls showed that she may be at odds with him.

Part of the reason for this is that President Trump expanded the Republican Party’s base when he last ran in New Jersey. He has performed well in the state compared to previous Republicans, and Ciattarelli appears to be riding some of those.

However, polls determined that Chiattarelli’s embrace of Trump was hurting him. In some polls released tonight, voters who said they were unhappy with the current focus and state of the country were going for Sherrill in very large numbers.

Latino voters were another key demographic. In 2024, Trump has made significant inroads with Latino voters in New Jersey. Let’s take a look at this drawing here. You’ll see below that Trump won 43% of Latino voters in the state versus Kamala Harris, but his time in office seems to have bothered him.

Look down – up there. Ciattarelli is down 10 percent, compared to only 32 percent of Latinos who support him. We’ve heard this a lot in previous reports, when we talked to Latino voters, who felt turned off by the Trump administration’s tariffs and its very aggressive immigration measures, which have swept up nearly 3,000 people in New Jersey so far.

So it seems like Cheryl’s pressing this issue throughout the issue that Ciattarelli was a MAGA candidate is helping her.

Amna Nawaz:

Meanwhile, William, I know you’re also following the New York mayoral contest, which has attracted national and global attention. Even President Trump has commented on this.

This is widely viewed as a race for Zahran Mamdani to lose here, but President Trump jumped in very late to support Andrew Cuomo as an independent candidate. What’s the latest in this race? What should we know?

William Brangham:

The latest is that we’re seeing this really fascinating political story, where a virtually unknown candidate a year ago, Zahran Mamdani, this 34-year-old democratic socialist, has come out of nowhere and now seems to be on the cusp of running the largest city in the country.

And Andrew Cuomo, who considered his race to be lost, is now a distant second in the polls that we’ve seen. With his name and long legacy in the state as a governor before, it is surprising that Mamdani and his affordability campaign have succeeded in convincing voters.

And as I said, the president has been commenting on this race all the time. Whether that will have an impact, we still don’t really know.

Amna Nawaz:

Well, Liz, in the meantime, I also want to ask you about the Justice Department’s decision today – you’ve been following this – to send election observers into two states while people were voting. What should we know about it?

Liz Landers:

They were sent to New Jersey and California, six counties, one of which was Orange County, the other of which was Los Angeles County, that is, some of the larger counties that people had heard of before.

I asked the Department of Justice for information about who they were sending, and what kind of surveillance they were doing. They referred us to their advertisement. This is to ensure transparency, ballot security and compliance with federal law, they said in their announcement.

Now, we’ve gotten more information, from the registrar in Orange County, California, who said he got the names of the people who were sent from the Department of Justice. They arrived yesterday. They will remain until tomorrow in that district.

They include Deputy Assistant District Attorney Michael Gates. He is a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Justice. A California lawyer by training, he has also been vocal about his desire to do away with mail-in voting. This is something we have heard the President talk about several times recently. The other person sent to Orange County is Assistant U.S. Attorney Corey Webster.

Now I spoke with former Justice Department Civil Rights Division attorney David Pecker about what it all means. He says it’s not unusual for the Justice Department to send election observers during federal election years, or during midterm or presidential election years. He said it is unusual for them to be sent to races that are not federal races.

California and New Jersey do not have any federal races on the ballot this year. More broadly, voting rights advocates worry that this could be a test for broader efforts to undermine next year’s midterm elections.

Amna Nawaz:

Another story we know you’ll keep following.

Liz Landers and William Brangham, thank you.