Trump’s agenda faces its first major test in a key 2025 election on Tuesday

Nearly 10 months into President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, voters in contests from coast to coast head to the polls Tuesday in local and statewide elections.

Key showdowns, including gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, are seen, in part, as the first big ballot box test of Trump’s unprecedented and explosive agenda for a second term.

“Failing to vote tomorrow is the same as voting for a Democrat,” the president charged in a social media post on election eve in which he urged Republicans to head to the polls.

The states of New Jersey and Virginia are at the forefront, and they are the only states that hold competitions for the position of governor in the year following the presidential elections. Their gubernatorial races typically garner significant national attention and are seen as a key gauge ahead of next year’s midterm elections when the GOP defends its razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate.

Trump delivers a last-minute speech to Republicans on the eve of the 2025 election

Also among the political spotlight on Election Day 2025 is a high-profile showdown for mayor of New York City, where 34-year-old Democratic socialist Zahran Mamdani is about to make history, a blockbuster ballot box proposal on congressional redistricting in California, the nation’s most populous state, and three states vying for the Supreme Court in battleground Pennsylvania.

Here’s what’s at stake.

New Jersey

Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who is making his third straight run for governor in the Garden State and nearly upset Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago, is optimistic he can pull off a victory in blue-leaning New Jersey.

In a state where registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans despite a GOP surge in registration this decade, Ciattarelli appears to be closing the gap in recent weeks with his Democratic challenger, Rep. Mikie Sherrill.

Trump-backed CIATTARELLI gets a big surprise on election eve

While Democrats have long dominated federal and state elections in New Jersey, Republicans are highly competitive in gubernatorial contests, winning five of the past 10 elections.

Trump made big gains in New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, losing the state by just six percentage points, a significant improvement over his 16-point deficit four years ago.

The president, whose poll numbers have declined among New Jersey voters, chaired two phone-in rallies for Ciattarelli in the final stretch of the campaign in hopes of energizing MAGA supporters, many of whom are low-propensity voters who often skip casting ballots in non-presidential election years.

“We appreciate what the president is doing to excite the base, and we remind them that they have to vote, as all New Jerseyans do,” Ciattarelli told Fox News Digital on Monday after a campaign stop in this northern New Jersey district. “The future of our state is at stake. Get out and vote.”

Trump is exploiting huge wealth to energize voters in the 2025 elections, the final push

But in a state where Trump’s poll numbers are very low, Sherrill regularly linked Ciattarelli to the president, charging that her GOP rival “was going along with the president, giving him an A.”

The race in New Jersey was shaken earlier this fall after a report that the National Personnel Records Center, a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, mistakenly released Cheryl’s inappropriately redacted military personnel files, which included private information such as her Social Security number, to a Ciattarelli ally.

But Cheryl’s military records indicated that the US Naval Academy barred her from participating in its 1994 graduation ceremony amid a cheating scandal.

Sherrill, who was never accused of cheating in the scandal, went on to serve for nearly a decade in the Navy.

The standoff was rocked again during the final debate last month after Sherrill’s claims that Ciattarelli was “complicit” with drug companies in the opioid deaths of tens of thousands of New Jersey residents, as she pointed to his medical publishing company pushing content promoting the use of opioids as a low-risk treatment for chronic pain.

Virginia

Surprising revelations in Virginia’s attorney general race, in which the GOP was aiming to capitalize on votes up and down, have rocked the state’s gubernatorial race, forcing the Democratic Party’s nominee, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, back on the defensive in a campaign in which she was seen as the favorite against her Republican challenger, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earl Sears.

Virginia’s attorney general, Democratic nominee Jay Jones, was in crisis mode after the controversial texts were first reported earlier this fall by National Review.

Jones admitted and apologized for text messages he sent in 2022, when he compared then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert to mass murderers Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot, adding that if he got two bullets, he would use them against the GOP lawmaker to shoot him in the head.

But he faced calls from Republicans to withdraw from the race.

Earl Sears did not waste an opportunity to connect Spanberger with Jones. During last month’s only chaotic debate, in which Earl Sears repeatedly interrupted Spanberger, the GOP gubernatorial nominee called on her Democratic rival to tell Jones to end his bid for attorney general.

For the latest FOX NEWS reports on the Virginia showdown, head here

“The comments made by Jay Jones are extremely abhorrent,” Spanberger said in the discussion. But she neither confirmed nor retracted her support for Jones.

The winner will succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

New York City

Municipal elections in the country’s most populous city always garner a lot of attention, especially this year New York City It may elect the first Muslim and the first millennial mayor.

Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary last June in this deep blue city sent political shock waves across the country. He was attacked by Republicans and his rivals at the polls because of his extreme leftist proposals.

Mamdani faces the previous government. Andrew CuomoHe came in second place by a wide margin in the primaries and is now running as an independent candidate. Cuomo aims to make a political comeback after resigning as governor four years ago amid multiple scandals.

The latest Fox News reports on New York City’s mayoral elections are available here

Two-time Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, a co-founder of Guardian Angels, a nonprofit community safety group, is also running.

Embattled Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who was running for re-election as an independent, dropped out of the race last month. He recently supported Cuomo, but his name remains on the ballot.

ca

Voters in California is intensely blue They will vote in November on whether to set aside the nonpartisan Redistricting Commission for the rest of the decade and allow the Democratic-dominated Legislature to determine congressional redistricting for the next three election cycles.

Head here for the latest FOX NEWS reports on the 2025 elections

The vote will be the culmination of the government’s efforts. Gavin Newsom And California Democrats to create up to five left-leaning congressional seats in the Golden State to counter new maps that conservative Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law two months ago, which would create up to five more right-leaning U.S. House districts in the red state of Texas.

The redistricting in Texas, which came after Trump’s urging, is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to consolidate its razor-thin House majority to maintain control of the chamber in the 2026 midterm elections when the party traditionally in power faces political headwinds and loses seats.

Trump aims to avoid a repeat of what happened in the 2018 midterm elections, during his first term, when Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives.

Pennsylvania

Democrats currently hold a 5-2 majority on the Supreme Court in the battleground state of northeastern Pennsylvania.

But three Democratic-leaning justices on the state Supreme Court, after completing their 10-year terms, are running this year to retain their seats in a yes-or-no retention election.

The election could upend the makeup of the court over the next decade, dramatically influence whether Democrats or Republicans have an advantage in the congressional delegation and state legislature, and impact crucial issues including voting rights and reproductive rights.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

While state Supreme Court elections don’t typically get much national attention, contests in which the balance of the court in a key battleground state is up for the taking have attracted tons of outside money.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court showdown this spring, where a 4-3 liberal majority was preserved, has attracted nearly $100 million in outside money as both parties pour resources into the election.