RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Former President Barack Obama will lead rallies Saturday for Democrats running for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, rallying voters ahead of an election that could signal the national mood 10 months into Donald Trump’s second presidency and a year before midterm elections that could shift the country’s mood.
The Republicans in these states are also at a loss on the last weekend of the campaign before the elections on Tuesday, but without the national star power.
And on the West Coast, California advocates are making a final push ahead of a statewide referendum on whether to redraw the state’s congressional map to favor Democrats. The initiative, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is part of a national redistricting battle that began when Trump called on Republican-led states to assist him maintain a consensus House majority in 2026.
Obama, the Democrat whom Trump succeeded when he first took office, will appear in Norfolk on the first Saturday alongside Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Abigail Spanberger. Obama then travels to New Jersey for an evening rally with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill in Newark. Both events bring the country’s first black president into areas where black turnout is crucial to Democratic victories.
Virginia Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears, the current lieutenant governor, and New Jersey Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker, also have plenty to do.
The contest in Virginia ensures the election of the first woman to lead the commonwealth since its founding in 1776. If elected, Earle-Sears would be the first black woman elected governor of a state.
Democrats need forceful Black turnout
Virginia Democratic House Speaker Don Scott dismissed questions about whether Obama was needed to win over black voters, who are crucial to the Democrats’ coalition of voters, saying his popularity cut across racial lines.
“Black people and white people are inspired by his leadership. They are inspired by the way he governed himself,” said Scott, Virginia’s first Black Speaker of the House.
Obama’s re-election campaign proves how popular the 64-year-old remains with his party’s base, more than eight years removed from the White House. Still, it underscores the dearth of current Democratic leaders and surrogates as Republicans hold all the levers of federal power and a cadre of Democratic governors and lawmakers vie for status as national figures.
And beyond Scott’s protests, the visit highlights the pressure on Democrats to maximize their diverse coalition after Trump gave up Democrats’ usual advantages among black and Hispanic voters in 2024. Trump lost Virginia and New Jersey, but narrowed margins in both states from his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Republicans believe New Jersey in particular is ripe to continue that trend for Ciattarelli.
Trump is not there, but he is in conversation
Trump endorsed Ciattarelli and said – without mentioning Earle-Sears by name – that he supported the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia. The president held a telephone rally for Ciattarelli. He has not personally campaigned for either candidate, although he has made several trips to his golf resort in New Jersey in recent months.
This reflects the tightrope that Republicans have to walk: Trump remains extremely popular with the most conservative voters, but has a more precarious position with the rest of the electorate.
Spanberger and Sherrill tried to capitalize on this.
“Jack will not say a single bad word about the president,” Sherrill demanded in a debate with Ciattarelli.
Ciattarelli responded: “No matter who is in the White House, my job is to advocate for the state’s 9.3 million citizens, and I will do that.” He then played up his Trump connections. “It’s best to have a relationship with whoever occupies the White House,” he said.
Earle-Sears aligns itself with the president, and according to AdImpact data, Spanberger’s largest advertising investment went into spots that seek to associate Earle-Sears with Trump.
The lieutenant governor will lead Republican turnout rallies on Saturday in Republican-rich miniature towns, first in Abingdon in the southwestern corner of Virginia, then in Purceville, in the northernmost part of the state near the Pennsylvania border.
Ciattarelli has stops in Woodbridge, Westfield and Fairfield, a route that takes him to the outskirts of Newark and then across the state to a much less densely populated, more Republican district.
The economy and the shutdown overshadow the governor’s election
Spanberger and Sherrill, both center-left Democrats who helped the party retake the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections during Trump’s first term, have emphasized economic arguments.
They have vowed to address rising consumer costs and have criticized Trump for failing to lower prices as he promised during the 2024 campaign. In New Jersey, however, Ciattarelli blames Democrats for higher energy costs as outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy has led the state for two terms.
The Democratic candidates have sharply criticized federal domestic policy and the Republican tax cut proposal. In Virginia, Spanberger highlighted Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and, to a lesser extent, the ongoing federal shutdown – both of which are having a disproportionate impact in a state with more than 300,000 federal employees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Earle-Sears has tried to blame the shutdown on Spanberger, arguing that the former congresswoman should operate her influence with Virginia’s Democratic U.S. senators. Both senators voted against the GOP spending extension bill as Democrats demand Republicans address looming health care cuts.
In addition, the elections could provide clues as to whether social issues are less essential to voters than in previous elections. Spanberger and Sherrill announce their support for abortion rights, Spanberger does so in the last Southern state to make the procedure widely available. Earle-Sears counters with a focus on transgender politics, trying to paint Spanberger as out of step with mainstream voters, just as Trump used the issue against Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024.
California will have an immediate impact in the medium term
While the results in Virginia and New Jersey will merely be guideposts for the 2026 midterm elections, California is likely to have the most immediate impact on the national landscape.
There, voters will decide whether to override a bipartisan redistricting commission and approve a modern congressional plan that would send five more Democrats to Washington.
It is a direct counterproposal to the neutralization of the already approved Texas plan, which aimed to give five seats in that state to the Republican column. And more states have followed suit, moving the national map even years after the usual post-census redistricting process in an unprecedented mid-decade mess.
Republicans began the current Congress with a lead of just 220 votes to 215 in the House of Representatives. That means just a few seats could determine whether Trump enjoys full GOP control of Washington for the duration of his presidency or faces a modern Democratic majority that, if formed along the lines of his first term, would block his agenda, launch an investigation into his administration and consider articles of impeachment.
