Conventional wisdom has the GOP dead in the water in Virginia and New Jersey — the only two states that’ll be electing new governors in Nov. 2025. This highly focused spotlight gives the Commonwealth of Virginia and/or New York Junior an outsized role in determining long-term political mojo: The winning party owns the opening momentum in next year’s midterms.
And conventional wisdom has the Republican Party in a world of hurt.
New Jersey, after all, is a Democratic stronghold. Hasn’t gone Republican in a presidential race since 1988. Out of their 12 congressmen, only 3 are Republicans.
Meanwhile, from 1952 through 2004, Virginia went red in every presidential election, sans ’64. But since 2008, they’ve gone blue every single time — and often by lopsided margins. The three times Trump was on the Virginia ballot, he never got within five points of his Democratic opponent. (His worst defeat was in 2020, where he lost to Biden by over 10 points.)
So already, the historic headwinds strongly favored the Democrats. That’s strike one.
Conventional wisdom also cited our current political climate: Fortune favors the party out of power, and that’s also the Democrats. In recent Virginia and Joisey gubernatorial elections, discontent with the party in power (and/or self-satisfaction within that party’s base) typically leads to the out-of-power party either winning outright, or at least surpassing expectations.
That’s strike two.
The third strike, according to convention wisdom, are the DOGE cuts and ongoing government shutdown. Northern Virginia is home to 35% to 40% of the state’s population, and Northern Virginia is essentially a suburb of D.C. (And in a bizarre coincidence, these suburbs also rank among the wealthiest in the land. How ‘bout that?)
Because so many of those NoVA suburbanites are dependent on the government teat, the theory goes, anger at the federal shutdown should spike turnout, further elevating Virginia’s Democratic candidates.
But the Sopranos State is bearing the brunt of the shutdown, too: New Jersey has been a longtime beneficiary of federal largesse, and the government shutdown has halted the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Avenue Subway. As Tony S. might’ve said, (sniff, snort) “Dis is bad fuh bizness.” (Fuhgeddaboudit!)
And that’s strike three. Yerr out!
Or maybe not. After all, conventional wisdom is just that: conventional. It blindly follows precedence, shackled to the tide of popular opinion.
Which is kind of stupid, because unconventional men doing unconventional things in unconventional ways shape world history — and if you don’t believe me, look who’s in the White House today. Weird events, black swans, and unpredictable people make the world go ‘round.
It’s why conventional wisdom gets so much so wrong.
Either way, the Virginia and Jersey elections matter greatly. Momentum is a self-fulfilling prophecy: A big win over here — or a better-than-expected outcome over there — entices wealthy donors to open their wallets. Activists are energized. Fence-sitters choose sides.
Momentum begets momentum. And that’s critical for the 2026 midterms.
We’re officially 31 days away from Election Day 2025. Early voting has already been underway in Virginia, but those voters were, presumably, inelastic: If you’re so motivated to vote Elephant or Donkey that you do it 45 days ahead of time, you probably made up your mind a long time ago.
So those voters weren’t in play.
In the final month of the campaign, GOP candidates must concentrate on three PR objectives:
- Mobilize their base;
- Win undecideds;
- Demotivate their opposition.
Which is why negative campaign ads are so popular in the last leg of the race: If your message resonates, it accomplishes all three PR objectives.
Painting your opponent as a dirty, no-good sleazebag demotivates his base, scares the hell out of your base, and gives undecideds an excellent reason to vote for your candidate. It’s win-win-win.
Prediction: From now ‘til Election Day, both Virginia and New Jersey will be utterly awash in negative campaign ads. The number will grow exponentially. If you thought there was a lot before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
And that’s why it’s so important to determine which party has the most mud to throw. Let’s begin with New Jersey.
Fox News (Sept. 26, 2025): Massive cheating scandal involving Democratic governor candidate also involved husband: report
A massive cheating scandal that rocked the U.S. Naval Academy in 1994 and involved New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill also involved her husband, Jason Hedberg, according to reporting by the New York Post.
This follows the improper release of bombshell private military records by the National Archives and Records Administration, which revealed that Sherrill was not allowed to walk with her graduating class at the Naval Academy and that her name was not included in the commencement program due to her involvement in the scandal.
[…]
"I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk but graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving for nearly ten years with the highest level of distinction and honor," Sherrill told the Globe when confronted with the commencement program. She defended not releasing any disciplinary records from her time at the academy.
It’s highly relevant to Sherrill’s political image because, as the New York Post noted:
Sherrill piloted helicopters in the Navy, and made her military record a core aspect of her political campaign. Rumors had swirled during her 2018 bid for New Jersey’s 11th District seat that she might’ve been ensnared in the cheating controversy, but until now, solid proof hadn’t emerged.
The US Naval Academy cheating scandal made national news at the time. Multiple midshipmen had gotten ahold of and shared answers to an electrical engineering exam in 1992. Roughly two dozen of her classmates were expelled.
Naturally, the Joisey GOP smells blood in the water:
Three Republican congressmen from New Jersey are calling on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) to authorize the immediate release of all military records connected to her involvement in the 1994 U.S. Naval Academy cheating scandal.
Reps. Christopher Smith (R-Manchester), Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), and Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) said it was “imperative” that Sherrill reveal her Annapolis record.
[…]
“By her own admission, Representative Sherrill was punished for her role in the scandal after denying it to the New Jersey Globe back in 2018. Given that, it is important for voters across New Jersey to know all the facts,” Smith, Van Drew, and Kean said.
The three questions the GOP House members want to know: “What did Representative Sherrill tell investigators when they questioned her? What violations did Representative Sherrill ultimately commit? What was the full extent of Representative Sherrill’s punishment?”
Her campaign has refused to authorize the release of those records.
The latest opinion polls has the race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli somewhere between an eight-point lead for Sherrill and a dead-heat.
It’s still anyone’s race.
As for Virginia, the battle to replace Gov. Glenn Youngkin is a triple-header: Unlike Jersey, where the lieutenant governor and governor run on a joint ticket, Virginia voters can pick and choose between the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. You can go Democrat at governor and Republican for the other two, if you want.
And that’s relevant, because the Republican nominee for governor, the sitting Lt. Gov., Winsome Earle-Sears, still hasn’t gotten within ten points of her Democratic opponent, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, according to the latest poll.
There’s also a financial disparity: Spanberger has a $2.5 to $1 cash advantage over Earle-Sears. And so far, the independents are breaking — in a very big way — for Spanberger:
“Spanberger has picked up significant momentum since the first Emerson College poll at the beginning of 2025, driven by increases in support from independents, males and younger voters,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Independent voters support Spanberger by a 19-point margin; a reversal from January, when they supported Earle-Sears by four points. Notably, the male vote, which traditionally favors the Republican candidate, shifted from a 15-point advantage for Earle-Sears to an even split, with 46% supporting each candidate.”
That doesn’t mean Earle-Sears is finished. In Virginia politics, a ten-point gap with 31 days to go is by no means unsurmountable. But between Virginia’s early voting and current polling, she needs to reconfigure her trajectory ASAP.
And conservatives in Virginia — as well as deep-pocketed MAGA donors across the country — desperately need to pour more resources into the races for lieutenant governor’s race and/or attorney general’s race.
Remember: In Virginia, we get three bites at the apple. Going 0-3 will impair momentum for 2026.
The lieutenant governor’s race is… unusual. As far as I can recall, it’s the first election in American history where a candidate was linked to gay fetish Nazi porn. (Who knew that was a thing?) Republican nominee John Reid, who made history as the first-ever openly gay candidate for statewide office in Virginia, vehemently denies the Nazi porn allegations, insisting they’re a smear. And he might be right.
But as far as smears go, holy crap, that one’s a doozy.
Still, it’s worth noting that both John Reid and Republican attorney general nominee, Jason Miyares, consistently poll within 4 to 6 points of their opponent. (Reid claims his internal polls have him in the lead.) They have much less ground to cover than Earle-Sears.
So there’s an excellent chance the Democrats will take the governorship and the GOP wins the other two. As Meatloaf used to say, “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad.”
There’s also evidence that the Democratic nominee for attorney general, Jay Jones, is self-destructing.
This past week, two scandals broke: First, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Jones was busted in 2022 for going ridiculously over the speed limit, getting clocked at 116 mph. (Not a great look for the state’s chief legal officer.) Additionally, 500 of his community service hours were spent working on his own political action committee, Meet Our Moment.
But even more disturbing was his bloodlust for murdering his political opponents. Credit to the National Review for breaking this story:
On August 8, 2022, a Republican state legislator received a disturbing string of early-morning text messages from a former colleague, Jay Jones, this year’s Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general.
[…]
“If those guys die before me,” Jones wrote, referencing the Republican colleagues who were publicly honoring the deceased Johnson’s memory, “I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves” to “send them out awash in something.”
Jones then suggested that, presented with a hypothetical situation in which he had only two bullets and was faced with the choice of murdering then-Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert or two dictators, he’d shoot Gilbert “every time,” prompting pushback from his former colleague:
Jones: Three people, two bullets
Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot
Gilbert gets two bullets to the head
Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time
Coyner: Jay
Please stop
Jones: Lol
Ok, ok
Coyner: It really bothers me when you talk about hurting people or wishing death on them
It isn’t ok
No matter who they are
Especially after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, these texts are shocking and disgusting. And so was Jones’ original statement. Per the New York Post:
Meanwhile, Jones did not apologize for the texts and accused his GOP opponent, incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, of “dropping smears,” in his initial statement addressing the controversy.
“Like all people, I’ve sent text messages that I regret and I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics,” Jones said in a statement to the Virginia Scope.
“Let’s be clear about what is happening in the Attorney General race right now: Jason Miyares is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign,” he added. “This is a strategy that ensures Jason Miyares will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia.”
His follow-up statement, however, quickly reversed course: Instead of being defiant, he was suddenly full of remorse, claiming he was “embarrassed, ashamed and sorry.”
Jones later released a statement indicating that he has tried to apologize directly to Gilbert and his wife, describing the texts as “a grave mistake.”
“I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed and sorry,” Jones wrote.
“I have reached out to Speaker Gilbert to apologize directly to him, his wife Jennifer and their children. I cannot take back what I said; I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology,” he added.
For Jason Miyares, the timing is perfect: Now is when that sort of PR ammo is worth its weight in gold.
Full disclosure: I’ve known Jason since he was 18. We were buddies at James Madison University. I’m not involved/compensated by his campaign whatsoever, and the only interaction we’ve had over the last year or so was when a mutual “friend” — I suspect at Jason’s behest — told me to stop writing about all the beer we used to drink. (Go JMU!) But the important thing is, Jason is a reliable, dependable, lifelong conservative with a big heart and a helluva work ethic, and if my advocacy matters even a little bit, I hope you consider donating to his campaign.
(Plus, I’m pretty sure I drank way more beer than he did, anyway.)
In the Garden State and Virginia, we’re now in the homestretch. What was once a marathon has become a sprint. And if you know anything about track and field, sprinting shoes and long-distance running shoes are quite different.
That’s because different races require tools.
The governor’s race in New Jersey — and the Meatloaf quotient in Virginia — are tailormade for the skills, tools. and PR assets of the GOP. The past polls are prologue; it’s all gonna come down to the next 31 days. If the GOP charges hard, they can catch the Democrats flat-footed.
Make no mistake: The Republicans can really, truly win this thing.
One Last Thing: The Schumer Shutdown is upon us. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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