by Jarrett Stepman
Election day is already behind us. While we’re still a year away from the essential 2026 congressional elections, there are still plenty of races that are gaining national attention for one reason or another.
Will President Donald Trump’s redshift in blue states in 2024 continue? Will the Democratic Party move further to the left?
Here’s a quick preview of the races to watch on Tuesday.
Minneapolis mayoral race
Two mayoral races dominate this election cycle. While Minneapolis may not reach New York’s level of interest, it does have its own version of Zohran Mamdani, who wants to push the Democratic Party even further to the left.
The city’s ranked-choice voting system ensures the top two candidates are Democrats. The first is incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, a man who had already veered far left and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement when the city erupted in riots in summer 2020.
He is challenged by democratic socialist Omar Fateh, the son of Somali immigrants who became the first Muslim to serve in the Minnesota Senate after winning the 2020 election.
My colleague Tyler O’Neil wrote about Fateh in his announcement of the mayoral race: :
Fateh, a self-described democratic socialist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, favors raising taxes “so that the rich pay their fair share.” He is an advocate for “environmental justice.” …
The state senator appears to be taking advantage of the petite but influential Somali Muslim community in Minneapolis. A Minnesota insider described the Somali community as a “very important voting bloc” that is not a “majority” of the city but is extremely influential. According to reports, members of this community went to training with Al Shabaab terrorist group in Somalia and the Islamic State, but law enforcement has engaged with the community to counter radicalism.
New York mayoral race
It’s infrequent for a mayoral race to attract so much attention across the country, but in the Big Apple, this one is really gigantic.
In one corner is 34-year-old New York National Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who ran a successful insurrectionary campaign in the Democratic primary. He has been the leader since the June victory.
In the other corners are Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who was defeated in the Democratic primary and is now running an independent campaign, and Curtis Śliwa, a Republican. Śliwa is the founder of Guardian Angels, an anti-crime organization established in the tardy 1970s.
Mamdani presented a position of resistance to President Donald Trump and federal immigration enforcement. His platform spearheads the message about overpriced housing and offers mostly government solutions to a problem that comes down to taxing the wealthy and tax whites in a city considered the financial capital of the United States. Not only that, but he was also self-made close to radical Islamists and refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the Intifada.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York State, who has apparently entered the 2026 race for New York governor, commented on Mamdani’s inappropriate connections.
This is America’s worst governor @KathyHochul proudly supports:
“He looks quite happy to be there. Zohran Mamdani wants to be the next mayor of New York… Who is he with? He’s with the imam who once called for jihad in the Big Apple and he’s smiling. That’s… pic.twitter.com/7WxPJmAl3K
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) October 26, 2025
Cuomo took the stance of an experienced voter who knows how to govern and condemned Mamdani’s radicalism.
Sliva maintains that he is Mamdani’s true opponent and is the only candidate who is consistently earnest about stopping and preventing crime in the city.
Recent polls show that the race is on may become more severealthough many polls also showed Cuomo winning the primary. Anyway, here’s what’s happening in the New York mayoral race will have consequences not only for the city, but also for the country.
New Jersey Governor’s Race
Few states have moved further to the right in 2024 than New Jersey. While the Garden State still cast its electoral college votes for former Vice President Kamala Harris, there was a noticeable dramatic shift in the vote. Or New Jersey now the purple state? Or is it even tilted red?
These are the questions that need answers in the New Jersey governor’s race, which pits Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli against each other to replace Gov. Phil Murphy, who is out of office for a term. Ciattarelli came close to defeating Murphy in the last election.
Most polls show Sherrill leading Ciattarelli, but the race has tightened significantly since the beginning. By RealClearPollingSherrill started with a 21-point lead in June, but current polling averages show a difference of less than four points between the candidates.
The race was close enough even former president Barack Obama hit the campaign trail to lend a hand Sherrill get to the finish line.
Republican candidate for Ohio governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, came to Ciattarelli’s aid.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRAmaswamy) October 16, 2025
“New Jersey is a state where there are a lot of Republicans who just don’t know yet that they’re actually Republicans,” Ramaswamy said during a mid-October visit.
Virginia AG Race
The Virginia attorney general’s race has become a race of national importance not only because Virginia is a key electoral battleground, but because of a particular issue that changed the race.
Democrat Jay Jones, who is challenging incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, has come under scrutiny after National Review published a series of his op-eds in which he said he wanted the former Republican Speaker of the Virginia House and his children to be shot.
The texts were from 2022, but came to lithe shortly after the murder Charlie Kirk. Despite calls for Jones to leave the race, he apologized and decided to continue his campaign. Virginia Democrats have refused to call on Jones to drop out of the race.
According to polls, Miyares opened a a significant advantage over Jones after the texts came to lithe and claims they lead to Election Day.
There are two main questions surrounding this race heading into Election Day. What can you expect from an elected official who, upon taking office, wished his opponents a violent death? The fact that Jones is performing poorly in the race may resolve that issue, but another question is whether his comments will drag down the rest of the Democratic ticket.
Virginia Governor’s Race
The Virginia governor’s race appears to be a potential decider in the 2026 midterm elections, which is why it is attracting a lot of attention.
Republican Gov. Glenn Younkin was ineligible to run due to Virginia’s unique ban on serving as governor. He will be replaced by his governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, or Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger.
Spanberger is a congresswoman and former CIA agent. She was leading in the polls throughout the race, but her lead has narrowed in recent days. This is likely due in part to the attorney general race mentioned earlier.
Spanberger has acted as an advocate for federal workers, an especially salient issue in the Washington suburbs of northern Virginia. But she refused to address the core issues around which Earle-Sears is campaigning. The first is the issue of transgender ideology, which partially put Youngkin in office in 2021. Spanberger essentially addressed this issue and I don’t want to deal with it.
The second issue is Jones’ comments. Not only did she continue to support Jones, but she also refused to engage Earle-Sears on the issue when it came up during the October debate.
Virginia @WinsomeSears he asks @SpanbergerForVA why doesn’t she condemn Dem AG candidate Jay Jones for calling for the death of a political opponent’s children when Spanberger refuses to even look at her during the debate. This is powerful. pic.twitter.com/KTGsNAd67L
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 10, 2025
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Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of “The War on History: The Plot to Rewrite America’s Past“
Photo “People Vote” by Ben Schumin. CC BY-SA 2.0.
