The Imperfect Bellwethers of New Jersey and Virginia

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “It will be very tempting to use the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races as predictors for next year’s midterms.”

“Sometimes these races do provide a preview of the following year, but there are enough instances where they do not that we would urge caution against overinterpreting the results.”

“One key factor is that the political situation could just be different in the midterm year than it is in the gubernatorial year, something we arguably saw as recently as 2021 and 2022, the most recent comparable cycle.”

“Another confounding factor is that New Jersey and Virginia are both more Democratic than the nation at the federal level, which was not consistently the case until recently.”