The November 4, 2025, election results delivered sweeping victories for Democratic party candidates in the handful of off-year state elections.
Nationally, Democratic Party pundits are calling decisive “blue wave” wins in New Jersey and Virginia a repudiation of policies advanced by President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress—and a bellwether for future elections.
This is a typical message during off-year elections heralded by party officials seeking to fire up their donors and voting base in advance of key gubernatorial and contentious mid-term congressional elections.
Of note, victories by Virginia governor-elect Abigail Spanberger (D) and New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill (D) were not unexpected given local candidate dynamics and difficult political environments at play in their respective blue and trending blue states. Likewise, the party occupying the White House after presidential elections typically loses ground in subsequent off-year and mid-term elections.
In Virginia, governor-elect Spanberger will be the first woman to serve as the Governor of the Commonwealth after she vanquished current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) in a lopsided contest. Many felt the race was lost months ago due to Sears’ weak fundraising and ever-changing campaign team, which frustrated donors and party leaders despite the Commonwealth’s impressive economic record and down-ticket election gains ushered in by the term-limited and rising GOP star Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The Republican Governors Association and other outside groups were reluctant to heavily invest in the race until controversial text messages surfaced by Jay Jones (D), the nominee for Virginia’s attorney general running against incumbent Jason Miyares (R). In the bombshell text, Jones said he wanted to murder Todd Gilbert—the Republican Leader of Virginia’s House of Delegates—and make his family watch and suffer in order to achieve Democratic policy priorities.
This controversial revelation from a man seeking the Commonwealth’s top law enforcement job grabbed national headlines, outraged voters, narrowed polls, and breathed new life into the Commonwealth’s statewide elections. Money poured into Miyares’s campaign, making the contest the most expensive attorney general race in the nation’s history, according to the political analytics firm AdImpact. Republicans put $22.9 million into anti-Jones television ads, more than twice what Jones spent. And Sears ran ads painting Spanberger as a radical leftist tolerant of political violence and Jones’s comments.
On Tuesday night, voters shrugged off the controversy. Jones secured a margin of victory larger than Miyares’s win or Youngkin’s win four years ago. State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D) won the lieutenant governor’s race against conservative talk show host John Reid, becoming the first Muslim and Indian American to hold statewide office in Virginia. Of note, Democrats picked up more than a dozen seats in the House of Delegates and stand a few votes shy of a veto-proof majority. The Virginia Senate, which is controlled by Democrats 29-21, was not up for election. Count on Democrats to invest heavily in the Virginia Senate to achieve a veto-proof Democrat trifecta.
In New Jersey’s election for the governor’s mansion vacated by term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D), Mikie Sherrill (D) crushed Jack Ciattarelli (R) by 13 points. In 2021, Ciattarelli lost to Murphy by less than 3 points.
These results suggest success in the Democrat campaign plans to nationalize each race and tap into local and national frustrations with President Trump and key hot button issues like the cost of living, federal workforce downsizing, the longest government shutdown in history, and the Trump administration testing the boundaries of White House power and political norms.
Ultimately, candidate selection and fundraising matter the most in elections. But Republicans are facing a bigger problem—it is hard to win when President Trump is not at the top of the ticket. President Trump was largely absent on the campaign trail for Sears and Ciattarelli, perhaps because he knew the contests were over before they began in these Dem-friendly states. Experts warn that President Trump needs to hit the campaign trail hard in the upcoming midterm elections if there is any hope for Republicans to maintain U.S. Senate and narrow House majorities in 2026. The Senate map favors Republicans this cycle, while state gerrymandering efforts by both parties suggest that just 17 contested seats will decide the House majority.
Of concern for IEC members, voters in New Jersey and Virginia elected Democratic governors who received union endorsements, which may result in the passage of anti-business and anti-merit shop legislation and executive policies in 2026.
While Virginia’s governor-elect Spanberger has promised not to repeal her state’s right-to-work law, the last time Democrats controlled both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly and the governorship in 2020, they passed costly prevailing wage requirements, gutted fair and open competition statutes, and tested the limits of anti-business policies during the COVID pandemic. This led to Republican wins in the General Assembly and the election of Gov. Youngkin in the next election cycle.
IEC’s local chapters in Virginia and New Jersey will be building coalitions and new relationships to keep pressure on the Spanberger and Sherrill administrations and to remind them how merit shops drive prosperity locally and across the country.
Likewise, IEC National is relying on our network of members and chapters to get involved in the critical 2026 midterm elections.
Here are three ways you can help advance IEC’s policy agenda and support merit shop-friendly candidates who will fight for IEC’s values and defend free enterprise:
- Learn more about IEC’s PAC, which accepts personal contributions of up to $5,000 in a calendar year. Complete your IEC PAC approval form today so you can receive direct solicitations and member benefits like invitations to upcoming webinars and insightful political and policy analysis.
- Contribute unlimited corporate or personal money to IEC’s Freedom Fund, which invests in IEC campaigns to educate voters on priority industry issues and candidates, and participate in Washington, D.C.-based business coalitions tackling policies that affect your bottom line.
- Sign up to receive grassroots Action Alerts from IEC via text so you can easily contact federal elected officials on key IEC legislative and regulatory issues. Simply text “IECACT” to 50457 to opt in.
Take these three simple actions today and pledge to get involved in the political process.
Regardless of party affiliation, IEC is focused on making sure elected officials protect free enterprise and advance fair and open competition. Candidate support of construction industry priority issues and electrical contractors will allow IEC members to continue to build and power America’s economy.