Fortnight to Election Day: 5 key 2025 races to watch

With two weeks until Election Day, and the latest polls pointing to a potential photo finish in the battle for New Jersey governor, the two major party nominees are urging their supporters to get out and vote.

“When we vote, we win,” Democratic nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill said this past weekend at a rally.

And her Republican rival, Jack Ciattarelli, told his supporters that “championship teams finish strong… let’s win this race.”

New Jersey is just one of two states, along with Virginia, that hold statewide elections for governor this November. And the contests, which traditionally grab outsized national attention, are viewed as crucial early tests of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and relentless second-term agenda, as well as key barometers ahead of next year’s midterm showdowns for the U.S. House and Senate.

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Also in the political spotlight this November is New York City’s high-profile mayoral election, the ballot box proposition over congressional redistricting in California, and three state Supreme Court contests in battleground Pennsylvania.

Democrats, who are aiming to exit the political wilderness following last year’s election setbacks when they lost control of the White House and Senate and failed to win back the House majority, are highlighting their success so far this year in special elections.

“There’s wind at our back,” Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin recently touted. “We have overperformed in every single election that’s been on the ballot since Donald Trump was inaugurated.”

ONE OF THE TOP 2025 RACES MAY END UP IN A PHOTO FINISH

But Republicans point to the multitude of problems facing the Democratic Party.

“Sadly for the DNC, the truth is that Democrats’ approval rating is at a 30-year low as the party has hemorrhaged more than 2 million voters over the past four years,” Republican National Committee communications director Zach Parkinson told Fox News Digital recently.

Here’s a closer look at 2025’s top elections.

New Jersey

Ciattarelli, who’s making his third straight run for Garden State governor and who nearly upset Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago, has good reason to be optimistic he can pull off victory in blue-leaning New Jersey.

In a state where registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans despite a GOP surge in registration this decade, three public opinion polls released last week — from Fox News, Quinnipiac University and Fairleigh Dickinson University — indicated Ciattarelli narrowing the gap with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill in the race to succeed the term-limited Murphy.

The Fox News poll, conducted Oct. 10 – 14, put Sherrill at 50% support among likely voters, with Ciattarelli at 45%. Sherrill’s 5-point advantage was down from an 8-point lead in Fox News’ September survey in New Jersey.

While Democrats have long dominated federal and state legislative elections in blue-leaning New Jersey, Republicans are very competitive in gubernatorial contests, winning five out of the past 10 elections.

And Trump made major gains in New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, losing the state by only six percentage points, a major improvement over his 16-point deficit four years earlier.

THE POLITICAL BOMB TRUMP EXPLODED IN THE NEW JERSEY SHOWDOWN FOR GOVERNOR

Multiple sources confirmed to Fox News that Trump will hold a tele-rally with Ciattarelli ahead of Election Day. Trump’s teaming up with Ciattarelli may help energize MAGA supporters, many of whom are low propensity voters who often skip casting ballots in non-presidential election years.

The race in New Jersey was rocked a couple of weeks ago by a report that the National Personnel Records Center, which is a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, mistakenly released Sherrill’s improperly redacted military personnel files, which included private information like her Social Security number, to a Ciattarelli ally. 

But Sherrill’s military records indicated that the United States Naval Academy blocked her from taking part in her 1994 graduation amid a cheating scandal.

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

The showdown was jolted again two weeks ago after Sherrill’s allegations that Ciattarelli was “complicit” with pharmaceutical companies in the opioid deaths of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans, as she pointed to the medical publishing company he owned that pushed content promoting the use of opioids as a low-risk treatment for chronic pain.

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Last week, Trump set off a political hand grenade in the race, as he “terminated” billions of federal dollars for the Gateway Project, which is funding a new train tunnel under the Hudson River connecting New Jersey and New York.

Sherrill, holding a news conference Thursday at a major commuter rail station just a few miles from the site of the tunnels in one of the busiest train corridors in the nation, called the project “critical” as she took aim at Trump and Ciattarelli.

Virginia

Explosive revelations in Virginia’s attorney general race that the GOP is aiming to leverage up and down the ballot recently shook up the race for governor, forcing Democratic Party nominee, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, back on defense in a race where most polls indicated her enjoying a sizable lead over Republican rival Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

Virginia attorney general Democratic nominee Jay Jones has been in crisis mode since his controversial texts were first reported a couple of weeks ago by the National Review.

Jones acknowledged and apologized for texts 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 was given two bullets, he would use both against the GOP lawmaker to shoot him in the head.

But he’s facing a chorus of calls from Republicans to drop out of the race. 

Earle-Sears hasn’t wasted an opportunity to link Spanberger to Jones.

And during this month’s chaotic and only gubernatorial debate, where Earle-Sears repeatedly interrupted Spanberger, the GOP gubernatorial nominee called on her Democratic rival to tell Jones to end his attorney general bid.

FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE VIRGINIA SHOWDOWN, HEAD HERE 

“The comments that Jay Jones made are absolutely abhorrent,” Spanberger said at the debate. But she neither affirmed nor pulled back her support of Jones.

Earle-Sears has kept up the pressure.

“Abigail Spanberger should have been the first to call for Jay Jones to step down. Instead, she doubled down—because deep down, she’s OK with what he said,” Earle-Sears argued recently in a social media post.

New York City

The mayoral election in the nation’s most populous city always grabs outsized attention, especially this year as New York City may elect its first Muslim and first millennial mayor.

Democratic socialist 33-year-old state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani’s victory in June’s Democratic Party mayoral primary sent political shock waves across the country. And he’s come under attack from Republicans and from his rivals on the ballot over his far-left proposals.

Mamdani is the clear polling and fundraising frontrunner in the heavily blue city as he faces off against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who came in a distant second in the primary and is now running as an independent candidate. Cuomo is aiming for a political comeback after resigning as governor four years ago amid multiple scandals.

THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL ELECTION IS RIGHT HERE 

Also running is two-time Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, a co-founder of the Guardian Angels, the non-profit, a volunteer-based community safety group.

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

California

Voters in heavily blue California will vote in November on whether to set aside their popular nonpartisan redistricting commission for the rest of the decade and allow the Democrat-dominated legislature to determine congressional redistricting for the next three election cycles.

The vote will be the culmination of an effort by Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats to create up to five left-leaning congressional seats in the Golden State to counter the new maps that conservative Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law last week, which will 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 pad their razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

Polls suggest majority support for passage of what’s known as Proposition 50.

Pennsylvania

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

But three Democrat-leaning justices on the state Supreme Court, following the completion of their 10-year terms, are running this year to keep their seats in “Yes” or “No” retention elections.

The election could upend the court’s composition for the next decade, heavily influence whether Democrats or Republicans have an advantage in the state’s congressional delegation and legislature, and impact crucial cases including voting rights and reproductive rights.

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

The state Supreme Court showdown this spring in Wisconsin, where the 4-3 liberal majority was maintained, drew nearly $100 million in outside money as both parties poured resources into the election.