LIVE COVERAGE: Youngkin wins in Virginia; New Jersey governor’s race in dead heat
Polls are closed across the country and results are starting to trickle in.
Virginia and New Jersey are among the most closely watched states tonight. Both feature some of the marquee elections of the year — races that will provide some of the earliest clues about the political environment heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
And in both states, the races for governor are top of mind for most voters. In Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe is in a close race with Republican Glenn Youngkin. And in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, is facing off against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli
There are a number of other races to watch on Tuesday. Voters in Ohio’s 11th and 15th congressional districts will decide the replacements for former Reps. Marcia Fudge (D) and Steve Stivers (R), and New York City is poised to choose its next mayor.
Here are five things to watch for in the Virginia governor’s race. And here are some other races you might want to keep an eye on.
Check back here for live updates.
Youngkin is projected to win Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, defeating McAuliffe and becoming the first Republican to win a statewide election in the Old Dominion since 2009.
NBC News and ABC News both called the race for Youngkin on Wednesday around 12:30 a.m. ET.
McAuliffe addressed supporters but did not concede, arguing that there were still more votes to be counted.
“We still have a lot of votes to count, too,” McAuliffe told a crowd of supporters in McLean, Va., on Tuesday. “So we’re going to continue to count votes, because every single Virginian matters.”
McAuliffe made the remarks standing on stage with his family, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and Virginia first lady Pam Northam.
A source at the Republican State Leadership Committee told The Hill that they believe a Republican takeover of the Virginia House of Delegates is “certainly possible” tonight, adding that they are on track to “drastically” outperform their expectations.
The group’s original goal going into the election was to net just one seat. Republicans lost a total of 22 seats over the past three House of Delegates elections in Virginia. Republicans have picked up four seats in the chamber and only need two more to win a majority, according to the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman.
Republican Mike Carey is projected to win a special election to replace former Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) in Congress, holding on to Ohio’s 15th Congressional District for the GOP.
The Associated Press said Carey, a coal industry lobbyist, had bested Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo on Tuesday. The race largely favored the GOP from the outset, given the district’s Republican tilt. Stivers, the district’s former representative, stepped down from Congress earlier this year to take a job as the president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
But Democrats had hoped to pull off an upset victory, banking on strong support from suburban voters who have drifted toward Democrats in recent years.
While Carey was largely expected to win the Tuesday special election, Republicans are likely to tout the win as a sign of momentum heading into the 2022 midterm elections, when Democrats’ razor-thin congressional majorities will be on the line.
Carey emerged from a crowded GOP primary field in August after securing the support of former President Trump, who remains an influential endorser in the Republican Party.
Minneapolis on Tuesday voted down Question 2, a ballot measure that would have overhauled the city’s police department.
The ballot question failed with 57 percent of Minneapolis voters voting against it, according to The Associated Press.
Question 2 would have dissolved Minneapolis’s current police department by revising the city’s charter to establish a new Department of Public Safety.
The new entity would have employed a “comprehensive public health approach to safety,” replacing the city police chief with a commissioner nominated by the mayor and appointed by the Minneapolis City Council.
Police officers themselves would not be completely done away with, but non-police first responders — social workers, therapists and other trained professionals — would be introduced to deal with substance abuse emergencies, mental health crises and other nonviolent situations.
Minneapolis has been at the center of the police reform conversation since May 2020 when George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Alvin Bragg was elected as Manhattan’s first Black district attorney Tuesday and will inherit a high-profile investigation into former President Trump’s business.
Bragg, a former chief deputy New York state attorney general, trounced Republican candidate Thomas Kenniff by roughly 70-point margin in royal blue Manhattan.
Bragg, who also previously worked as an assistant U.S. attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, won the Democratic primary in July with a plurality of the vote.
He will now take the helm of a prominent probe that has already produced an indictment of both the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, a top executive of the company. They are accused of various fraud and conspiracy charges.
Bragg will replace outgoing District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
The Democratic primary to replace the late Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) appears more likely than not to head to a recount.
With all of the vote counted in Broward County and 99 percent counted in Palm Beach County, Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness and health care executive Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick are in a dead heat, with Holness leading by just 78 votes, or about 0.2 percentage points.
Under Florida’s election rules, a vote margin of 0.5 percentage points or less triggers an automatic machine recount, while a margin of 0.25 percentage points or less triggers an automatic manual recount.
Votes are still being counted in Palm Beach County, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be enough to lift Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief out of third place. She currently sits with about 17.8 percent of the vote.
The race to succeed Hastings in Florida’s 20th Congressional District, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, has drawn a crowded field of 11 Democratic candidates. Given the district’s hard Democratic lean, the winner of the primary is almost certain to win the Jan. 11 special election.
Jason Mariner, a small-business owner, was declared the winner of the GOP primary in Florida’s 20th Congressional District earlier Tuesday night. He defeated fellow Republican Greg Musselwhite by a roughly 15-point margin.
The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman called Virginia’s lieutenant governor’s race for former GOP state Del. Winsome Sears and the state’s attorney general race for GOP state Del. Jason Miyares.
The Associated Press has yet to call the races, but if elected, Sears would make history as the first woman to be elected lieutenant governor in Virginia while Miyares would be the first Latino to hold the attorney general’s position in the state.
Virginia Democratic sources maintain that it is still too early to call the races, saying they are waiting on votes to come in from places like Richmond.
Eric Adams has won the New York City mayor’s race, fending off Republican and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.
The race was swiftly called for Adams, who was projected to be the winner shortly after polls closed. Early tabulations showed him garnering more than 75 percent of the vote, with Sliwa badly trailing with just under 20 percent.
“Tonight, we celebrate — because tomorrow, the real work begins!” Adams tweeted.
Adams, the current Brooklyn Borough president and a former state senator and police captain, had been the overwhelming favorite to win the general election after emerging victorious from a fierce primary battle in July.
The ballots are still being tallied but former President Trump is already crediting his base of supporters for handing Youngkin a win in the Virginia governor’s race.
“I would like to thank my BASE for coming out in force and voting for Glenn Youngkin. Without you, he would not have been close to winning,” Trump said in a statement through his leadership PAC.
“The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before. Glenn will be a great governor. Thank you to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia and most particularly, to our incredible MAGA voters!” he said.
To be sure, the race between Youngkin and McAuliffe hasn’t been called by any major news outlets or networks yet. But McAuliffe is facing an increasingly bleak outlook in his bid for a second four-year term as Virginia governor.
The vote tally shows Youngkin either meeting or over-performing expectations in the parts of the Commonwealth that he’ll need to win in order to capture the governor’s mansion. Meanwhile, McAuliffe is underperforming in many places outside of the D.C. Beltway, putting him in a bind.
Other Republicans were quick to tout Youngkin’s performance Tuesday, including Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair. In a tweet, she hailed Youngkin’s expected victory as a sign of GOP momentum.
“A few months ago, no one thought it was possible, but Virginians have sent a message across America,” she tweeted.
The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman called the race for Youngkin, who holds an 8-point lead, according to early data from The Associated Press.
However, the McAuliffe campaign is cautioning that an early lead for Youngkin is to be expected because of early and faster reporting from smaller, rural counties. Additionally, the former governor’s campaign is touting his lead in Loudoun County, which has become ground zero in the conservative-led debate over parental rights and education.
Polls in New Jersey, where Murphy is trying to fend off a challenge from former Republican state lawmaker Ciattarelli, officially closed at 8 p.m.
Murphy sought to cast himself as a progressive and an effective manager during the coronavirus pandemic while painting his opponent as a Trump foot soldier. Ciattarelli, meanwhile, focused most of his campaign on school and economic issues such as lowering taxes, a perennially important issue in the Garden State.
Polls had shown Murphy’s lead growing smaller in recent weeks, but surveys in the final days of the race still showed him edging out Ciattarelli beyond the margins of error.
Democrat Shontel Brown has won the race to succeed Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District.
Brown, a member of the Cuyahoga County Council, cruised to victory over Republican Laverne Jones Gore in a special election that was called after Fudge stepped down earlier this year to join President Biden’s administration.
Brown was heavily favored to win heading into the Tuesday election, given the district’s heavy Democratic tilt.
The August Democratic primary for Fudge’s seat was far more contentious than the special election itself. Brown faced a challenge from former state Sen. Nina Turner, a top surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
Early data shows Youngkin slightly ahead as votes are counted in the state’s rural, redder areas, though that gap is likely to close as results filter in throughout the evening. With just 18 percent of the votes counted, the Republican leads McAuliffe 57 percent to 42 percent.
Polls show a tight race between McAuliffe and his Republican opponent Youngkin. Democrats have expressed nervousness at Youngkin’s ability to drum up enthusiasm despite being a relatively unknown figure at the start of the campaign. However, Democrats are in part relying on McAuliffe’s surrogates, including President Biden, Vice President Harris and former President Obama, to fire up Democratic voters.
The race is being viewed as a bellwether for Democrats and Republicans ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Polls in Virginia officially closed at 7 pm. Early voting data appears to have favored McAuliffe and Democrats, but the gap is likely to close as results flood in. The commonwealth appeared to be on track to surpass 3 million votes, breaking its 2017 gubernatorial race record of 2.6 million, according to the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman.
The McAuliffe campaign is particularly touting numbers from the Washington, D.C., suburb of Falls Church, where they said turnout was surpassing the 2017 turnout. The city is a Democratic stronghold and could serve as a boost to McAuliffe. Political watchers are also keeping an eye on Fairfax County, the most populous county in the state.
McAuliffe, a Democrat who already served one term in the Virginia governor’s mansion, is looking to become only the second Virginia governor since the Civil War to be elected twice.
But McAuliffe is facing a tough challenge from Youngkin, who had the momentum heading into Election Day. Recent polls show a closer race than most Democrats are comfortable with in a state that has trended in their direction over the past decade.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, is facing a less competitive reelection bid, with recent polling showing him with a comfortable lead over his Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli. If Murphy pulls off a win on Tuesday, he’ll be the first Democratic governor to win a second term in New Jersey since Brenden Byrne in 1977.
Polls close in Virginia at 7 p.m. EDT, while New Jersey voters will have until 8 p.m. to get in line to cast their ballots.
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