How Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill hope to redefine Democrats in Virginia and NJ

They both were members of the 2018 freshman class that helped Democrats retake the U.S. House. Both present themselves as kitchen-table centrists with extensive military and national security experience.

And the two friends − who text each other regularly and were roommates on Capitol Hill − were even born in each other’s states.

Now, Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill, moderate gubernatorial candidates on the ballot this November, are seen by some observers as a model for how Democrats can make a broad electoral appeal, in contrast to the party’s socialist nominee for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who has been a target for President Donald Trump.

“These two candidates are not economic populists that Bernie Sanders and others would want to see,” said Matthew Dallek, a historian and professor of political management at George Washington University.

“The test is if they both win by at least a reasonable margin. Then it does send a signal that having a national security candidate who is moderate on a range of issues, including some of the hot button social issues, can be a winning formula.”

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Although both states lean Democratic, Republicans believe they have a shot in both races, which would blunt any national narratives of a mass rebellion against Trump and his party.

Political forecasters give the GOP a better shot in New Jersey, where their nominee, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, is nipping away at Sherrill’s lead in the polls.

One poll in September had Sherrill, a former Navy pilot, up by 8 percentage points, while the next one showed them tied. The most recent survey, from Oct. 22, has Sherrill leading by 5 points.

In Virginia, Spanberger, a former CIA officer, leads by roughly 7 percentage points in the most recently released Virginia Commonwealth University poll, although other surveys give her a better edge. But an embarrassing revelation about Virginia attorney general Democratic nominee Jay Jones is shaking up the contest and serving as the last-minute rallying cry for Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, whose aggressive campaign for governor has struggled to gain traction.

Sherrill’s Navy service an asset and potential liability

Sherrill burst onto the New Jersey political scene in 2018. In her first campaign for office, she won a once-solidly Republican congressional seat by about 15%. She was one of three Democrats to flip New Jersey seats in the 2018 anti-Trump “blue wave.”

Now in her fourth term representing a suburban blue district that covers portions of Essex County, just west of New York City, the 53-year-old congresswoman is looking to trade Washington for Trenton.

Sherrill grew up in Reston, Virginia, in the suburbs of Washington, DC, and after high school earned an undergraduate degree from the U.S. Naval Academy. She was a Navy helicopter pilot and has campaigned on that experience. In the video announcing her campaign for governor, she sported her Navy flight jacket.

After 10 years in the Navy, she earned a law degree from Georgetown University, went to work in litigation in New York City and became a federal prosecutor in New Jersey.

Sherrill’s Navy experience has been a hallmark of her campaign, but it became a source of controversy when her entire Navy record was released to an ally of Ciattarelli by the National Archives in Washington. The mostly unredacted version of Sherrill’s records included her Social Security number; home addresses for her and her parents; life insurance information; performance evaluations; and the nondisclosure agreement between her and the U.S. government to safeguard classified information.

Sherrill has said that the leak was illegal and that the National Archives worked in coordination with the Trump administration.

The release came as the Ciattarelli campaign tried to raise questions about whether Sherrill was involved in a cheating scandal during her time in Annapolis in the early 1990s.

Sherrill has denied involvement. There is no known evidence she cheated, and those who were credibly accused of cheating were expelled.

Although she does not appear in the commencement program with the rest of her graduating class of 1994, Sherrill was commissioned in May of that year, according to a copy of her service record provided by the Navy Personnel Command Public Affairs Office.

In a statement, Sherrill said that during her time as an undergraduate, she did not “turn in some of my classmates,” which is why she didn’t walk but still graduated.

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‘Will crawl over broken glass to vote against Donald Trump’

Governors races held the year after a presidential election are often seen as a sign of brewing backlash to the party controlling the White House: Republicans Christine Todd Whitman and Chris Christie won the Garden State gubernatorial races in the years after Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won nationally.

Though that might be the race’s frame for some pundits, Sherrill doesn’t believe it’s a motivation for voters in the state.

“I think voters in New Jersey are largely focused on New Jersey,” she said. “I speak to thousands of people a day, and they’re focused on their cost here.”

Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said Sherrill will have to “contend with the question” of whether independent and unaffiliated voters have “had enough of Democrats.”

New Jersey has not voted for a Republican president since 1988 but has had two Republican governors serve multiple terms in that time. Trump lost the Garden State by 6 points last year, compared with 16 points in 2020 and 14 points in 2016.

“In the general elections of 2021, 2022 and 2024, unaffiliated voters appear to have voted for Republican candidates, which is why they were closer than expected,” he said. “Some of the public polling suggests that Sherrill is holding her own with unaffiliated voters, and if that’s the case, she will do well in the election.”

He went on to explain that voters may see her as a fresh face, but if recent trends continue, Ciattarelli will be the “beneficiary of Democratic fatigue.” As of Oct. 1, there are 6.6 million registered voters in New Jersey: 2.5 million who are declared as Democrats and 1.6 million as Republicans.

To boost Democratic turnout, Democrats want this race to be a referendum on Trump and national politics, said Dan Cassino, a Fairleigh Dickinson University professor of politics who heads the FDU poll.

“They are fully aware that liberal and progressive voters might not be enthusiastic about any particular candidate but will crawl over broken glass to vote against Donald Trump, so they’re doing their best to make the argument that Ciattarelli is Trump and this is a referendum on national issues.”

Republicans have won gubernatorial races in New Jersey because they rely on ticket-splitting Democrats who are willing to deviate from their presidential preference, Cassino said. The problem for Republicans is that ticket splitting isn’t nearly as common as it was even 10 years ago.

Ciattarelli is a relatively strong candidate for Republicans, New Jersey experts say. He has served in local and state government and had been a business owner. He lost in the Republican primary in 2017 and came within 3 points of upsetting incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021.

But it’s a less favorable environment with a Republican in the White House.

“In 2021, his party was railing against an unpopular White House, but this time, his party is defending one,” Rasmussen said. “That is clearly top of mind for many voters, but not everyone − others are thinking more about New Jersey’s tendency to let the other party have a turn in charge after a party has had two terms in the front office.”

The state “almost always elects the party that lost the presidency in the previous year,” Cassino said; Murphy squeaking out a victory in 2021 is the exception.

Sherrill told the USA TODAY Network that voters are largely focused on their cost of living, and their national policy concerns are also largely tied to costs.

“Tariffs are on everyone’s minds. I do hear about concerns from parents of kids with disabilities, parents in nursing homes, some in veterans qualified health centers. I hear concerns about the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ so that’s kind of in the ether and understanding that more costs are coming, and then there’s the state costs, electricity, housing, health care.”

Sherrill has pledged to implement a state of emergency to freeze utility rate increases, which have soared 20% this year, and to bring more affordable housing to the state.

But Trump looms over the race: Sherrill says she will fight the Trump administration in the courts to claw back any funding being withheld. She is also tying her opponent to the president in campaign commercials.

Trump is backing Ciattarelli, who gave the White House an “A” grade in the gubernatorial debate and has said he would not sue Trump for actions taken by the administration.

The third-time candidate told the USA TODAY Network that “Trump has done right by New Jersey” when it comes to policies like canceling wind farms, increasing the deduction for state and local taxes − which was capped in the first place by Trump’s own first-term tax law − and fighting New York City’s plan to set a toll on cars entering Manhattan.

“I do not think that his endorsement or his involvement is hurtful to my campaign,” Ciattarelli said. “There’s only one implication I’m worried about, and that’s the future of New Jersey.”

Trump’s government employee layoffs could help Virginia Democrats

Just across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital, Virginia’s election for governor has long been regarded as the first national response to Trump’s direction for the country.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s close victory in 2021 was viewed by many Republicans as the first turn against the Biden administration.

This time around, Democrats are wagering that the unpopularity of the Department of Government Efficiency cuts, coupled with the federal government shutdown, will boost turnout in Spanberger’s favor. The Old Dominion State has one of the highest concentrations of government employees in the country.

“Virginia tends to be reactive to whatever happens on the other side of the Potomac,” said J. Miles Coleman, an associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which provides nonpartisan analysis on elections through the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “The Trump administration seems to be going out of its way at every turn to alienate federal workers.”

A survey released in October by Public Policy Polling, found 46% of Virginia voters blamed Trump and congressional Republicans for the government shutdown, compared with 37% who said the same about Democrats on Capitol Hill.

That narrative suits Spanberger, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus during her tenure in Congress, whose campaign has knocked Earle-Sears for not opposing the DOGE cuts.

Spanberger, 46, born in Red Bank, New Jersey, joined the CIA in 2006 after briefly working as a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

A daughter of a federal law enforcement officer and a nurse, Spanberger’s time with the intelligence agency was spent as an undercover operative who spent more than eight years fighting terrorism. She left the CIA in 2014 and three years later challenged a Tea Party movement-aligned incumbent for Congress, winning the Virginia congressional seat by roughly 2% in the “blue wave” election that gave Democrats control of the House during Trump’s first term.

The former four-term congresswoman has been described as a poised policy wonk who avoids the bombastic style that many progressives use to go viral. She accentuates her own dealmaking pragmatism to address rising costs.

The campaign’s message is focused on keeping people safe, educating children and putting more money in people’s pockets. And in this election, Spanberger, whose campaign did not provide her for an interview with USA TODAY, has hammered home that Trump’s federal workforce cuts have disproportionately harmed the state.

“When Trump’s DOGE fired thousands of Virginians, my opponent … defended it,” she said in Sept. 30 post on X. “Trump is now threatening DOGE 2.0 and she’s again defending it. Now is the time to stand up for Virginia jobs − not encourage more mass layoffs.”

About 52% of Virginians in the Public Policy Polling survey in October said they would prefer a governor who opposes Trump’s firing of federal workers.

“You’ve seen a lot of rejection of the way the Trump administration has been abusing federal workers, and Abigail has done a forceful job showing that she will fight for them,” Andrew Bates, a former White House spokesman for Joe Biden whose group Cost Coalition has endorsed Spanberger, told USA TODAY.

Opponents see her cautious, on-message style as robotic, such as in October during the lone Virginia gubernatorial debate when she stood stone-faced as Earle-Sears challenged her.

“Spanberger was soulless, emotionless, disconnected and failing to stand on principle,” conservative Virginia radio host John Fredericks said in an Oct. 15 post on X.

GOP presses Spanberger on other Dems’ violent rhetoric

What has benefited Spanberger the most on the campaign trail, however, has been the lackluster support Republicans have shown for Earl-Sears, the state’s first Black female lieutenant governor, who has struggled to gain traction.

Several GOP strategists have taken shots at her candidacy, including Fredericks, who was Trump’s campaign chair in the state. He described her campaign as a poorly managed “clown car” after she dumped her campaign manager.

After failing to attract Trump’s direct support, Earle-Sears got a shout-out from Trump on Oct. 20, even though he didn’t mention her by name directly.

“I think the Republican candidate (Earle-Sears) is very good and she should win because the Democratic candidate (Abigail Spanberger) is a disaster,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

And the Earle-Sears campaign has been able to turn the spotlight back onto Spanberger after months of trailing by double digits thanks to a series of controversial text messages by Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who wrote in 2022 that the statehouse speaker at the time should get “two bullets to the head.”

During their debate, Earle-Sears bombarded Spanberger with questions about what it would take for the Democratic nominee to call for Jones to exit the race. The former congresswoman condemned the text but refused to say whether she would stop supporting her ticket mate.

“You have little girls. What would it take? Him pulling the trigger?” Earle-Sears, a retired U.S. Marine, asked when facing her opponent directly. “Is that what would do it and then you would say he needs to get out of the race, Abigail?”

Earle-Sears has otherwise struggled to find a signature issue in what has become an underdog battle against Spanberger, focusing on supporting tougher immigration enforcement, opposing transgender influence in schools and showcasing her work alongside Youngkin, a rumored presidential contender who remains popular in the state.

Organizers on the conservative side are looking at Virginia as the first test of younger, right-leaning voters who are inspired and angry after the shocking Sept. 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whose shooting sparked a national debate about political violence and free speech.

Former Republican Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore said Spangberger failed during a crucial moment in the debate on political violence that could emerge as a winning argument for the GOP ticket in the final weeks.

“It would appear at this late date that after trying four or five different messages, that Earle-Sears is going for the question of Spanberger’s character, and that goes to whether or not she’s really supportive of her own ticket mate,” Gilmore told USA TODAY.

Spanberger “is caught in a trap, and right now, what she’s trying to do, I think, is just ride a lead in the polls into the governor’s office by not making a mistake,” he said. “But as we know from sports, sometimes front-runners and leaders can lose.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Spanberger, Sherrill hope to shape a new Democratic Party in VA, NJ