The Latest: Democrat Abigail Spanberger is elected Virginia’s first female governor

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Former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who was outraised by the Democrat and failed to earn the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

The win flips control of the governor’s mansion in the commonwealth. While local issues and the biographies of the candidates played a strong role in the race, the results also reflect a contest where Trump’s presence loomed.

Virginia has a concentration of federal workers in the north and has deeply felt both the impact of the president cutting the workforce and of the government shutdown.

Virginia was one of two states, along with New Jersey, where voters were picking a governor on Tuesday. Voters were also selecting a new mayor in New York City, and in California, were deciding whether to approve a new congressional map that is designed to help Democrats win five more U.S. House seats in next year’s midterm elections.

Here's the latest:

Most New Jersey voters said either “taxes” or “the economy” were the top issues facing the state, according to the AP Voter Poll.

Property taxes and electricity costs were among the issues that stood out. About 7 in 10 New Jersey voters called property tax rates where they live a “major problem,” and about 6 in 10 said that about electricity costs.

Only about 2 in 10 voters in New Jersey said health care was the top issue facing the state, while roughly 1 in 10 pointed to immigration and fewer named crime.

Polls have closed in most of New Jersey, except for Passaic County, where Democrats filed a lawsuit to keep them open one hour longer because of unfounded bomb threats earlier in the day.

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat in her fourth term in Congress, would become the state’s second female governor if elected. Meanwhile, Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator backed by Trump, is trying to oust Democrats from the governor’s office.

A win for the Democrats would make this the first time in more than six decades that either major party has achieved a three-peat. Passaic County was one of several New Jersey counties subject to a bomb threat earlier Tuesday and is the lone county in the state where the Department of Justice deployed election monitors. It’s also a pivotal swing county that has favored Democrats for years but has been trending toward Republicans.

The Atlanta mayor’s office is officially nonpartisan but has been held by Democrats for decades. Dickens won the office outright with more than 50% of the vote, defeating three challengers. Prior to taking office in 2022, Dickens served on the Atlanta City Council and as the chief development officer for a tech-based nonprofit.

The Associated Press declared Dickens the winner at 8:13 p.m.

Pureval won reelection as mayor of Cincinnati on Tuesday, defeating Cory Bowman, a Republican who is Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother.

Pureval was first elected mayor in 2021. The office is officially nonpartisan, but his party preference is Democratic.

He won the all-party municipal primary in May with more than 80% of the vote. Prior to running for mayor, he worked as a lawyer.

The Associated Press declared Pureval the winner at 8:13 p.m.

Voters in the two states are deciding on new voting proposals that proponents say would strengthen election security and opponents decry as unnecessary.

The proposal in Texas is fairly simple: It would amend the Texas Constitution to add “persons who are not citizens of the United States” to the list of those excluded from participating in elections.

Maine’s proposal centers on requiring a photo ID to vote, but it is far more sweeping. The Republican-backed initiative also would limit the use of drop boxes for returning completed ballots and make several changes to the state’s absentee voting system, including eliminating two days of absentee voting and ending ongoing absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities.

Spanberger won the governor’s race in Virginia on Tuesday, defeating Republican Winsome Earle-Sears. Spanberger will succeed Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is not allowed to run for a second consecutive term.

Her victory aligns with recent voting patterns in Virginia, which picks its governors the year after a presidential election and tends to elect someone of the opposite party of the president. Spanberger, a former case officer with the CIA, flipped a U.S. House seat in Northern Virginia in 2018 and retired from Congress in 2024 to run for governor. She will be the state’s first female governor.

The Passaic County Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court on Tuesday seeking to keep the polls open for an extra hour because of unfounded bomb threats earlier in the day.

The party is asking to extend poll closings in Passaic County until 9 p.m. There are about 340,000 registered voters in the key swing county. A court hearing is expected imminently.

Passaic County received three threats and redirected some affected voters to other locations early Tuesday, county spokesperson Lindsay Reed said in an email. One location, a school building, was cleared and voting resumed.

Passaic is the only county outside California where the Department of Justice sent election monitors.

About half of Virginia voters said “the economy” was the most important issue facing their state in the AP Voter Poll, an survey of more than 4,000 voters in the state.

Federal government cuts seemed to be taking a toll: Roughly 6 in 10 voters said federal government cuts this year affected their family’s finances “a lot” or “a little.” Only about 2 in 10 Virginia voters pointed to health care as the state’s top issue. About 1 in 10 named immigration or education, and fewer said crime was the top issue facing Virginia.

Voters in Virginia also expressed broad dissatisfaction with the country’s direction generally, with about 6 in 10 saying they were “angry” or “dissatisfied” with the way things are going in the country.

Economic worries were the dominant concern as voters cast ballots for Tuesday’s elections, according to preliminary findings from the AP Voter Poll.

The results of the expansive survey of more than 17,000 voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City suggest they are troubled by an economy that seems trapped by higher prices and fewer job opportunities.

The economic challenges have played out in different ways at the local level. Most New Jersey voters said property taxes were a “major problem,” while most New York City voters said this about the cost of housing. Most Virginia voters said they’ve felt at least some impact from the recent federal government cuts.

▶ Read more about what the AP Voter Poll found

A judge in Bergen County, New Jersey, has ordered local election officials to notify voters whose mail-in ballots were deficient that their ballot won’t be counted so they could cast a provisional ballot.

The court order says nearly 500 mail-in ballots were set aside by the Bergen County Board of Elections, and that elections commissioners should consider whether any or all of them will be subject to a process to cure any deficiency.

New Jersey Democrats on Monday filed a lawsuit against election officials over the ballots that were returned without an inner security envelope. New Jersey State Democratic Chairman LeRoy Jones said, “We should always strive to ensure that every vote is counted.”

New Jersey Republicans intervened in the case. The Republican National Committee said it supports the state party. National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said New Jersey law is clear that unsealed or tampered ballots can’t be counted.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters he cast his ballot for Cuomo, telling voters not to screw up the city by electing Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.

“The only message I can give to New Yorkers as I go to the next leg of my journey: I’m leaving you a good city,” don’t mess it up, he said, using an expletive.

Adams abandoned his own reelection campaign earlier this year after failing to politically recover from his now-dismissed federal corruption case. He endorsed Cuomo last month.

With three hours until polls closed, a few dozen Mamdani supporters were gathered in the dark corner of a Brooklyn park, preparing to set out on their final canvas launch of the long campaign.

“We will deliver Zohran a mandate tonight, but we have to keep pushing,” Austin Dilley, a 26-year-old line cook and field coordinator for the campaign, told the group of volunteers. “Your job is to find the people who still haven’t voted and get them to the polls in time.”

As volunteers — some in bright yellow Mamdani beanies — sipped hot chocolate and chalked the candidate’s name on the pavement, Dilley said the group planned to continue talking to voters “until the very last minute.”

“There’s folks we’re talking to here in the park who had questions about the agenda that we could answer,” he said. “I think we’re still changing hearts and minds.”

As of 6 p.m., 1.7 million people have voted in the mayoral election.

That’s the biggest turnout in a New York City mayoral election in at least 30 years. Just under 1.9 million people voted in the 1993 race, when Republican Rudy Giuliani ousted Mayor David Dinkins, a Democrat.

Damian Koszalka, a carpenter from Queens, says he knew Trump wanted supporters of Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa to back Cuomo. But Koszalka wasn’t swayed, saying, “You have to go with your own guts.”

“I don’t give a damn, you know, if Trump or whoever, is telling me I have to vote for this guy because that’s the less evil, or this and that,” he said after casting his ballot. “It doesn’t work that way.”

Trump reluctantly endorsed Cuomo on the eve of the election, saying Mamdani would bring “disaster” to the city.

Koszalka voted for Sliwa in 2021 when he ran for mayor that year. Koszalka says Sliwa, the creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, is the only candidate on the ballot this year who “actually did something for the city,” referring to Cuomo and Mamdani as “parasites.”

For many years, New York voters have found candidates listed twice, three times or even more on their ballots when they go to the polling booth.

It isn’t an error — it’s a practice known as fusion voting that allows candidates to appear under multiple political parties if they are nominated by multiple parties.

But such intentional duplications on the New York City ballot this year, along with other layout choices, have some outside observers around the country wondering whether they are seeing evidence of rigged voting, including billionaire X owner Elon Musk.

“The New York City ballot form is a scam!” he wrote in an X post. “No ID is required. Other mayoral candidates appear twice. Cuomo’s name is last in bottom right.”

But there is nothing amiss about the ballots, which are in keeping with New York’s voting laws.

Fusion voting “occurs pretty frequently and it enables the Democratic candidate to get the votes of people who don’t normally vote for Democrats and Republicans to get the vote of people who don’t vote Republican etc.,” said Richard Briffault, an expert on election administration and a professor at Columbia Law School.

Cuomo is in the eighth spot because he filed to run as an independent later in the process.

▶ Read more here about false claims about Election Day and the facts

Voters are only deciding on Tuesday who will be Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner’s successor after the former Houston mayor died in March, just weeks into his first term.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he set the election for November out of concern for what he described as Harris County’s history of election problems. Democrats accused Abbott, a Republican, of keeping the seat empty to help the GOP maintain their thin House majority.

District resident Jose Saucedo said not having representation has worried him.

“The lack of leadership is concerning,” the 54-year-old design professor said. “I hope that we can get a very strong leader for us, to represent us all.”

Sixteen candidates are running in the district. If no candidate reaches 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff.

Voters in northern Virginia mentioned economic uncertainty, healthcare costs, anti-immigration rhetoric and Republican extremism as reasons they were siding with Democrats on Tuesday.

Accountant Sherry Kohan, 56, voted at the Aurora Hills Library in Arlington on Tuesday morning. She said she split her ticket — voting for Democratic U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger for governor while choosing Republican nominee Jason Miyares for attorney general.

Kohan said she used to think of herself as Republican but hasn’t felt aligned with either party since Trump’s first term. Her vote for Spanberger was a vote against Trump. She blamed Republicans for the government shutdown.

“They have the majority and they should be able to get something done,” she said. “But I mean, there’s a little part of me that says, ‘Fire them all, get rid of all of them.’”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday declined to say who he voted for in New York City’s mayoral election, telling reporters only, “I voted, and I look forward to working with the next mayor to help New York City.”

The powerful New York Democrat has largely stayed out of the contentious race to lead America’s biggest city, choosing not to endorse Mamdani or Cuomo.

Mamdani has slowly picked up a slew of endorsements from many of the state’s Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Police say text message bomb threats against the Livingston Park Elementary School polling location in North Brunswick began about 8:15 a.m. Officials said no explosive devices were found at the location.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office said in a statement that North Brunswick police took an “unidentified juvenile” into custody. It’s unclear how police learned who the suspect was or if any charges are pending. Officials did not respond to an email seeking more information.

The Republican candidate for New Jersey governor touted his plans to make living in the state more affordable during talks with voters and Fox News at a diner in Succasunna on Tuesday morning. Those plans include tax cuts made possible by government spending cuts, a new school funding formula that he said would lower property taxes and lowering electric rates by pulling out of a multistate environmental compact.

“We have an affordability crisis in New Jersey, and I can address that on Day One,” he said.

He also pledged to bring back single-use plastic bags that were banned in the state in 2022. “I say plastic, you say bag,” he told the diner crowd.

Mikie Sherrill, his Democratic opponent, agreed that affordability is a top issue in the state. After voting in the morning in Montclair, she told reporters that the Trump administration was to blame for many of the cost increases hurting consumers because of tariffs and other policies.

California’s Democratic officials were reassuring voters Tuesday after Trump said the state’s elections process is rigged.

The sole item on the state’s special election ballot is a redistricting initiative championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom after Trump pushed GOP-controlled states to redraw congressional lines before next year’s midterm elections.

In a post Tuesday on his social media platform, the president called the initiative a “GIANT SCAM.” He said the election was “RIGGED” and warned it was “under very serious legal and criminal review.”

The Trump administration sent election monitors to five counties in California, a state Trump lost three times. He’s often criticized the state’s practice of sending all registered voters a mail ballot, despite no evidence of any widespread fraud or other voting-related problems.

Newsom’s office quickly responded with their own social media post, criticizing the president for “spreading false information.” They later posted a cartoon image of Trump crying and said he was “whining about California.”

California’s top election official, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, called it “another baseless claim” and said California voters should not be deterred from exercising their right to vote.

After casting her ballot in the South Bronx, Leyla Ba, a 52-year-old assistant day care teacher, said she opted for Mamdani because housing and the cost of living were most important to her. She said those issues are more pressing than they were five or so years ago.

“It seemed easier back then — things were a little cheaper, a little more accessible,” Ba said.

On the swanky Upper East Side of Manhattan, Dr. Sam Schwarz, a 57-year-old physician who described himself as a “mostly conservative” independent, said he voted for Cuomo. Although he sees Sliwa as “a very good man,” he didn’t think the Republican had any chance of winning. And he faulted Mamdani for having “zero experience.”

Schwarz said safety is the city’s No. 1 issue and he believed Cuomo would be the better mayor.

Republicans in Roseville said they were concerned the city represented in the House by GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley could flip under Democrats’ plan to redraw congressional districts in California.

Lee Sander, a veteran, said he was voting against Proposition 50 because voters already approved an independent redistricting commission to draw the state’s congressional lines every 10 years. California shouldn’t redraw its lines just because Texas has, he said.

“That’s what this is all about is, ‘Oh let’s get Trump, let’s get Texas for being bad,’” he said outside the Roseville Veterans Memorial Hall, a polling station. “Each state should do their own thing. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

But Martin Ellison, who isn’t registered with a political party, voted for the measure.

“I hate Trump, and he’s trying to fix the election coming up,” he said.

Two years after the deadliest mass shooting in state history, Maine residents are voting on whether to make it easier for family members to petition a court to restrict a potentially dangerous person’s access to guns.

A statewide ballot question Tuesday asks residents if they want to build on the state’s yellow flag law, which allows police officers to initiate a process to keep someone away from firearms. Approval would add Maine to more than 20 states that have a red flag law empowering family members to take the same step.

Gun safety advocates began pushing for a stricter red flag law after 18 people were killed when an Army reservist opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar and grill in Lewiston in October 2023. An independent commission appointed by Maine’s governor later concluded that there were numerous opportunities for intervention by both Army officials and civilian law enforcement.

▶ Read more about Maine’s vote on the proposed gun law

While Trump lost Virginia and New Jersey last fall, there were significant shifts to the right in both states. In New Jersey, Trump’s 16-percentage-point loss in 2020 shrank to less than 6 percentage points in 2024.

Those shifts were fueled by Trump’s increasing popularity among traditional Democratic loyalists: labor union members, Black men, Hispanic voters and younger people. Democrats are particularly vulnerable in New Jersey, which has among the largest percentage of labor union households in the nation.

If those pro-Trump trends continue this week, Democrats could be in trouble.

But Trump isn’t on the ballot, of course. And the Trump coalition — especially lower-propensity voters — hasn’t typically shown up in the same numbers in nonpresidential years.

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate cast her ballot in the closely watched contest in Montclair, New Jersey, accompanied by her husband, Jason Hedberg, and two of their four children Tuesday morning.

“I think I’m going to do quite well today,” she told reporters afterward.

Asked about Election Day bomb threats at several New Jersey polling places, Sherrill said she was told none of them was credible and state voters wouldn’t be deterred.

“Obviously this is an attempt to suppress the vote here, and I don’t think New Jerseyans take very kindly to that kind of tampering in our election system,” she said.

Her opponent, Republican Jack Ciattarelli, cast his ballot during early voting last week in Bridgewater.

The president didn’t set foot in Virginia or New Jersey to campaign with Republican gubernatorial candidates Winsome Earle-Sears or Jack Ciattarelli, but both contests will likely be viewed as a referendum on Trump’s job so far.

The president endorsed Ciattarelli in New Jersey’s governor’s race but held only a pair of tele-town halls on his behalf, including one Monday night. Trump also did a Monday night tele-town hall for Virginia Republican candidates, but he didn’t mention Earle-Sears, speaking mostly in favor of the GOP candidate for attorney general.

Earlier in the campaign, Trump gave Earle-Sears only a half-hearted endorsement, saying he supported the GOP candidate for governor though he didn’t use her name. Earle-Sears was nonetheless a fierce defender of Trump and his policies, just as Ciattarelli was in New Jersey.

Stephanie Uhl, 38, is currently working without pay for the Defense Department under the government shutdown and said of the Republican Party’s support for tariffs and the current risk to SNAP benefits, “I hate what they’re doing to the economy.”

“I can afford (it) just fine, but it bothers me that it affects so many other people, and they don’t care,” she said after casting her ballot at the Aurora Hills Library in Arlington.

Uhl, who describes herself as caring more about issues than party, said she voted for former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger for governor, but couldn’t bring herself to vote for Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, after learning of the violent references he made to other Virginia lawmakers in text messages made public last month.

Tuesday offers a test of two very different Democratic philosophies on display from candidates: toeing a moderate line or fully embracing far-left progressivism. But it also presents a scenario in which both, or neither, could be successful — making drawing conclusions going forward more difficult.

The party’s candidates for governor, New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, have focused largely on the economy, public safety and health care, distancing themselves from some of the Democratic Party’s far-left policies.

A growing collection of Democratic leaders believe the moderate approach holds the key to the party’s revival after the GOP won the White House and both congressional chambers last year. Tuesday could be a key indicator of whether they’re right.

Election Day comes in the midst of a federal government shutdown that’s already spanned more than a month. Both parties in Congress blame each other, and there’s no end in sight.

Will it matter?

Virginia is home to more than 134,000 federal workers, many of whom have been furloughed or are being forced to work without pay. New Jersey has nearly 21,000 federal employees, according to the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, out of a total of more than 2 million such government employees nationwide.

Either number is more than enough to swing a close election.

At the same time, millions of people may be losing critical food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, offering voters another urgent reason to express their displeasure.

The seat in the 18th Congressional District has been vacant since the death of Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner in March. Turner was only months into his first term after serving as Houston’s mayor.

Sixteen candidates are on the ballot in the heavily Democratic district. The biggest names include Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote Tuesday, there will be a runoff.

Democrats accused Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott of delaying the special election after Turner’s death to protect the GOP’s slim majority. Abbott has said Harris County officials needed more time to prepare for the election.

Confusion has lingered because many of the district’s residents will vote in a different district next year under a redrawn map demanded by Trump in an effort to increase the number of GOP seats.

In Virginia, the attorney general’s race grabbed the national spotlight following reports that Democrat Jay Jones had texted a Virginia delegate in 2022 messages suggesting the then-Republican House Speaker should get “two bullets to the head.” Before the scandal, he was seen as the race’s likely winner. The Republican incumbent has focused much of his campaign on the resurfaced texts.

In Pennsylvania, voters will cast Yes or No votes on whether to retain three justices of the state’s Supreme Court 5-2 Democratic majority. Partisan control of the court could play a role in the 2028 presidential race because justices might be asked to rule on election disputes in one of the country’s battleground states.

Detroit, Pittsburgh, Jersey City and Buffalo will elect new mayors, while incumbents in Atlanta, Minneapolis and Cincinnati seek another term.