The U.S. Justice Department Thursday officially backed the California Republican Party’s lawsuit over Proposition 50, the ballot measure that was approved by voters last week to redraw congressional district lines across the state.
While the complaint does not appear to have new evidence, the federal government’s intervention is setting the stage for a bigger political fight ahead of the 2026 midterm election.
Attorney General Pam Bondi called Prop 50 a “brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process” while discussing the DOJ’s legal action against Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber.
The initial lawsuit claimed the ballot measure violates the 14th Amendment, equal protections under the law and 15th amendment, which prohibits states from denying the right to vote based on race while improperly using voters’ race as a factor in drawing new district boundaries.
In response to the new development, Governor Newsom’s office expressed confidence that the federal complaint won’t be held in court.
“These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will lose in court,” Brandon Richards with the governor’s office said in a statement.
These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court. https://t.co/SVsEFmFrbc
California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said Californians are “sick and tired of lawlessness and of his lies.”
“Even before voters passed Proposition 50 by a large margin, there were several legal challenges filed against the initiative. To date, none of those challenges have prevailed,” Bonta’s office said in a statement.
As the lawsuit names Newsom and Weber, the state attorney general’s office will be representing them in court, according to Bonta’s office.
Prop 50, known as the “Election Rigging Response Act,” was overwhelmingly approved by voters last week as Californians gave the state government the green light to temporarily override the independent redistricting commission and replace the congressional map with new lines.
Despite criticism that Prop 50 is against the state constitution, there appeared to be a resounding yes to the proposal as NBC News was able to issue its projection within minutes after vote centers closed across the state.
Prop 50 aims to help Democrats gain five seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections as a response to Republican districting efforts in Texas and other stations.
Prop 50 was the only question before voters in Tuesday’s California special election.
The measure asked the state’s 23 million registered voters whether they authorize temporary changes to congressional district maps approved by state lawmakers.
Congressional district maps are usually redrawn once a decade after each census and by an independent voter-approved redistricting commission in California.
Prop 50 is a response led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats to redistricting in Texas that came at the urging of President Trump in an effort to gain Republican seats in the U.S. House.
Prop 50 opens a path to flip up to five of 435 U.S. House seats in favor of Democrats.
A federal lawsuit challenging the one measure on the November special election ballot was announced Wednesday morning by group that includes the California Republican Party.
Planning for Republican legal challenges was underway Wednesday after California voters were projected to approve a congressional redistricting measure that redraws maps in favor of Democrats, starting with the 2026 midterm elections.
A federal lawsuit challenging the one measure on the November special election ballot was announced Wednesday morning, just hours after vote centers closed on Election Day, by the Dhillon Law Group, Assemblyman David Tangipa, 18 California voters and the California Republican Party. At a news conference, they announced plans to pursue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent Prop 50 from going into effect.
The group said that the measure improperly used voters’ race as a factor in drawing new district boundaries. It claims violations under the 14th Amendment, equal protections under the law, and 15th amendment, which prohibits states from denying the right to vote based on race.
Refresh this page for updates on the lawsuit.
The Dhillon Law Group, Assemblyman David Tangipa, 18 California Voters, and the California Republican Party File Federal Lawsuit Challenging Prop 50 https://t.co/ZEi5R2OXSc
Prop 50 supporters have said the measure results in “fair maps that represent California’s diverse communities and ensure our voices aren’t silenced by Republican gerrymandering in other states.”
“Yes” votes in support of Prop 50 held a 64% to 36% lead early Wednesday morning, a day after Election Day in California where statewide voter turnout was estimated at 35 percent. More than 7 million ballots had already been cast by mail and other voting options a day before Election Day.
Prop 50, named for the 50 states and the only question on ballot in the Tuesday statewide special election, was placed before the California’s 23 million registered voters as a counter to redistricting in Texas at the urging of President Trump that gives more seats to Republicans. The California measure, placed on the ballot by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature, was a yes-or-no question that asked voters whether they authorize temporary changes to congressional district maps already approved by state lawmakers.
The changes could flip as many as five of 435 U.S. House seats in favor of Democrats.
The new congressional district maps approved by lawmakers in August would be used for the next three election cycles. After the 2030 U.S. Census, California’s independent redistricting commission would resume drawing the maps.
The next election for all U.S. House seats is 2026. Republicans have a slim 219-213 margin with three vacancies.
Voting districts are typically redrawn just once a decade after each census, but a national battle erupted over partisan gerrymandering this year in Texas when the Republican-controlled state adopted a new map in August that could flip five Democratic-leaning U.S. House seats. California responded in an effort led by Gov. Newsom. Missouri and North Carolina both adopted new maps and other states may soon follow.
California Democrats already hold 43 of the state’s 52 congressional seats. That number could jump to 48, if Prop 50 is approved and voters favor the Democratic candidates in those redrawn districts.
There are 10.3 million registered Democrats and 5.8 million registered Republicans in California, according to the Secretary of State. About 5.2 million voters were not registered with any party.
Will your district change?
See how your congressional district will change if the proposed map goes into effect.
Prop 50 was the only question before voters in Tuesday’s California special election.
The measure asked the state’s 23 million registered voters whether they authorize temporary changes to congressional district maps approved by state lawmakers.
Congressional district maps are usually redrawn once a decade after each census and by an independent voter-approved redistricting commission in California.
Prop 50 is a response led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats to redistricting in Texas that came at the urging of President Trump in an effort to gain Republican seats in the U.S. House.
Prop 50 could open a pathway to flip up to five of 435 U.S. House seats in favor of Democrats.
California voters were asked to decide whether to reshape congressional districts in a move by leaders in the nation’s most populous state that could flip some House seats from Republican to Democratic control.
Prop 50, named for the 50 states and the only question on ballot in the Tuesday statewide special election, was placed before the California’s 23 million registered voters as a counter to redistricting in Texas at the urging of President Trump that gives more seats to Republicans. The California measure, placed on the ballot by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature, was a yes-or-no question that asks voters whether they authorize temporary changes to congressional district maps already approved by state lawmakers.
Vote centers closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday. See updated results below.
The changes could flip as many as five of 435 U.S. House seats in favor of Democrats.
The new congressional district maps approved by lawmakers in August would be used for the next three election cycles. After the 2030 U.S. Census, California’s independent redistricting commission would resume drawing the maps.
Will your district change?
See how your congressional district will change if the proposed map goes into effect.
The next election for all U.S. House seats is 2026. Republicans have a slim 219-213 margin with three vacancies.
Voting districts are typically redrawn just once a decade after each census, but a national battle erupted over partisan gerrymandering this year in Texas when the Republican-controlled state adopted a new map in August that could flip five Democratic-leaning U.S. House seats. California responded in an effort led by Gov. Newsom. Missouri and North Carolina both adopted new maps and other states may soon follow.
California Democrats already hold 43 of the state’s 52 congressional seats. That number could jump to 48, if Prop 50 is approved and voters favor the Democratic candidates in those redrawn districts.
There are 10.3 million registered Democrats and 5.8 million registered Republicans in California, according to the Secretary of State. About 5.2 million voters were not registered with any party.
The Donald Trump era has changed American politics for a decade. On Tuesday night, two contentious races for governor will define what the next steps for Republicans and Democrats might look like — not only who will lead Virginia and New Jersey for four years, but how the two parties are appealing to different types of voters and building coalitions for future elections.
Republicans have gained ground in those two blue-leaning states since Trump’s heavy losses there in 2020. Tuesday’s elections will show just how durable those advances were, hinging in part on the progress the Republican Party under Trump made with groups that once voted more strongly against the GOP. That especially includes Latino voters, who banked heavily toward Trump in 2024.
But Democrats have spent the last year focused on how to reverse those trends, nominating candidates without baggage from the party’s 2024 election loss. And, of course, Trump is now in the White House, which led to voter backlash against him as the incumbent during his first term.
The two states saw similar results in the last presidential election, but the races have gone differently this year. In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger enters Election Day with a clear polling lead over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. And in New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill holds a smaller advantage in most surveys over Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
Here are the places and the trends to watch when the votes get tallied Tuesday night.
New Jersey
Back in 2020, Joe Biden trounced Trump by 17 points in New Jersey. But Republicans have been seeing steady gains since then.
In 2021, Ciattarelli came within just three points of unseating Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. And last year, Trump lost by less than 6 points, the second-largest improvement he posted anywhere in the country. Both results were better performances — in all of the state’s 21 counties — than Trump in 2020.
Crucially, the areas where Trump and Ciattarelli made their biggest strides don’t necessarily overlap. They each tapped into different voters in different places. Ciattarelli made some of his biggest gains in suburban areas with above-average median incomes and higher concentrations of college degrees. Meanwhile, Trump’s largest improvements largely came in areas with heavier Hispanic populations.
Republican Jack Ciatterelli made his final case to voters as he positioned himself as the one who will drive down costs for New Jersey families. But Democrat Mikie Sherrill said it’s not possible to talk affordability in the state without also touching on what is happening in the White House. NBC New York’s Adam Harding reports.
Where Ciattarelli outperformed Trump
Somerset County is an affluent and historically Republican county filled with New York City bedroom communities. But like many suburban areas around the country, its population has diversified — from 75% white at the turn of the century to barely 50% in the most recent census — and its highly educated voters have reacted with hostility to the Trump-led GOP. George W. Bush carried Somerset in 2004, but Democrats have won it in every presidential election since, with Biden’s 21-point romp in 2020 as their high water mark.
In 2021, Ciattarelli came within four points of Murphy — a 17-point improvement over that Trump 2020 performance. Trump didn’t give back all of those gains in 2024, but he did lose significant ground from Ciattarelli’s showing, finishing 14 points behind Kamala Harris. (It helped that Ciattarelli once represented parts of Somerset in the state Legislature.)
A key question is whether Ciattarelli can at least replicate that 2021 showing. Four years ago, he benefited from the fact that Biden was in the White House. Many anti-Trump voters were willing to put aside their concerns with the national Republican Party. It turned out they had concerns with the Democrats who were running New Jersey, too, and deemed Ciattarelli an acceptable alternative. But with Trump back in power, will it be different?
Within Somerset, Bernards Township (population 27,000) is a great example of these dynamics. It has a median household income that’s nearly twice the statewide average. Two-thirds of its population is white, and more than two-thirds of its white adult population have college degrees, far above the statewide level. As recently as 2012, it was still voting Republican at the presidential level, but Trump’s emergence changed that. He lost it by 14 points in 2020 and only improved a smidge in 2024, when Harris bested him by 11.
Ciattarelli, on the other hand, won it by 5. Bernards Township is chock full of exactly the kind of voter Ciattarelli needs to hang on to: the avowedly anti-Trump, affluent suburbanite.
Where Trump outperformed Ciattarelli
Passaic County in North Jersey includes the state’s third-largest city, Paterson, along with a number of densely populated middle-class suburbs and a stretch of rural land and wilderness. It is racially and ethnically diverse: a population that’s about 40% Hispanic and white, just under 10% Black and Asian, andnotable Orthodox and Arab American pockets. Bill Clinton broke a string of Republican successes in Passaic when he carried it in his 1996 re-election bid and his party then posted double-digit wins until last year, when Trump flipped it.
While Ciattarelli also made sizable strides in 2021, he didn’t make the kinds of inroads Trump did in the county’s largest and least white municipalities: Paterson and Passaic city.
In Paterson, which is two-thirds Hispanic and less than 10% white, Ciattarelli lost by 71 points in his 2021 campaign, around what the typical margin of defeat for a Republican in the city had long been. But Trump finished only 28 points behind Harris last year. He did this by demonstrating significant new appeal in heavily Hispanic areas and by posting improvements in heavily Arab American South Paterson, where voters seemed to cast protest votes either for Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
With 70,000 residents, Passaic city is about half the size of Paterson, but it’s also overwhelmingly (75%) Hispanic. In 2024, Trump carried the city by 6 points after Ciattarelli lost it by 40 in 2021.
This was a trend seen across the state. Trump’s biggest gains from 2020 — and his biggest overperformances relative to Ciattarelli — tended to come from areas with sizable Hispanic populations. Ciattarelli’s inability to make even remotely similar inroads four years ago casts doubt on whether he can add these voters to his coalition this year.
Certainly, his campaign hopes that Trump will serve as a gateway to the broader Republican Party for them. But it also appears that many were first-time voters or voters who don’t normally participate in non-presidential elections. If Ciattarelli can fold in some of these new Trump voters, he’ll be taking a major step toward victory.
Short of winning over new votes in Paterson and Passaic city, Ciattarelli will have to hope that turnout is low. This was the case in 2021, when turnout plummeted in many heavily Democratic urban areas around the state. Take Paterson, where turnout in 2021 was just 35% of the level it had been in the 2020 presidential race — compared to the statewide average of 57%.
Reasserting their dominance in cities like Paterson while also beefing up turnout is a major priority for Sherrill this year.
Virginia
In 2024, Trump lost Virginia by just under 6 points, an improvement from his 10-point defeat in four years earlier. In a way, the result amounted to a tale of two different elections in the same state.
In the Washington, D.C., suburbs and exurbs of Northern Virginia, Trump made big strides, particularly in areas with significant Hispanic and Asian American populations. Had these gains extended across the state, he might have actually put Virginia in play, but outside of northern Virginia his progress was spotty at best, and he even backtracked in some areas.
The counties and cities that comprise Northern Virginia account for about one-third of all votes statewide. The growing and diversifying populations here are the primary source of Virginia’s evolution into a blue state — but those same places also drove Trump’s Northern Virginia improvement in 2024.
Building on 2021 gains
In reducing his deficit, Trump locked in many — but not all — of the gains that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin made in these same places in his victorious 2021 gubernatorial campaign. For example, in sprawling Loudoun County, which accounts for 5% of all votes cast statewide, Youngkin lost by 11 points in 2021, and Trump lost by 16 points last year. Both represent big jumps from Trump’s 25-point loss in 2020.
Trump did this in part by building support with Latino voters, as he did nationally. Case in point: Sterling has the highest concentration of Latino residents (50%) of any census-designated place in Loudoun County. Trump lost Sterling by 19 points to Harris after getting crushed by 44 against Biden in 2020.
Notably, this is one place where Trump outperformed Youngkin, who lost it by 24 in his own campaign. For Earle-Sears, building on this momentum is essential.
GOP improvements in Loudoun are also rooted in local politics, especially contentious disputes over education standards and school policies over the last half-decade. In particular, gains by both Youngkin and Trump with Asian American voters seem tied to these battles.
Earle-Sears is seeking to capitalize the same way. This makes majority-Asian Loudoun Valley Estates worth watching closely. A development community of about 10,000, its median income and college attainment rate are both far above the state average. In 2020, Loudoun Valley Estates sided with Biden by 43 points. Youngkin cut that to a 28-point Democratic margin a year later, and Trump brought it down five points further last year.
It will be a solid barometer of whether Earle-Sears has tapped into the same currents that boosted Youngkin and Trump in Loudoun and across northern Virginia.
There are similar dynamics in suburban Prince William County, another population juggernaut that accounts for 5% of all votes statewide. With a white population of around 40%, Prince William is more diverse and slightly more Democratic than Loudoun. Trump lost by 27 points there in 2020, a margin that both he and Youngkin reduced by about 10 points in 2021 and 2024.
Then there’s the geographically compact city of Manassas Park, which has just over 16,000 residents, almost half of whom are Hispanic — the highest concentration of any county or independent city in Virginia. Trump cut his deficit there from 33 points in 2020 to 20 points last year.
Where to watch beyond Northern Virginia
Moving away from Northern Virginia, two major population centers stand out for their willingness to embrace Youngkin — and their refusal to do the same for Trump last year.
One is Chesterfield County, which takes in the suburbs to the south of Richmond. With 365,000 residents, it’s the fourth-largest county in the state, and the biggest outside of Northern Virginia.
These were staunchly Republican suburbs from the end of World War II on, but a gradual shift away from the GOP exploded with the emergence of Trump. In 2016, he carried Chesterfield by 2 points, the worst showing for a Republican since Thomas Dewey in 1948. By 2020, it had flipped completely and Trump lost it by 7 points. And last year, it was the rare county in America that actually got bluer, with Harris pushing the margin to 9 points.
Chesterfield is racially diverse and has one of the largest Black populations in the state. Notably, though, a precinct-level analysis finds that Trump actually improved his performance in predominantly Black parts of the county; it was in largely white and high-educated precincts that he continued to lose ground:
A major reason why Youngkin is governor today is that he managed to roll back these Trump-era Democratic inroads, beating Democrat Terry McAuliffe by 5 points in Chesterfield. His campaign kept Trump at arm’s length and was no doubt helped by the fact that Trump was a former president in 2021, with the White House then occupied instead by an unpopular Democrat in Biden.
Now, with polls indicating there’s been no growth in Trump’s popularity over the last year, it figures to be tougher for Earle-Sears to connect with these voters. Democrats are banking on a backlash against Trump, and Chesterfield looms as a test of whether they are right to.
The biggest bellwether in the state may be the independent city of Virginia Beach, which has about 460,000 residents. For years, a large Navy presence helped make Virginia Beach one of the most Republican-friendly big cities in the country, but as it has continued to grow and diversify, it has tipped into the Democratic column.
In 2020, Biden became the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson to carry Virginia Beach, taking it by 5 points. Flipping it back was a priority for Republicans as they sought to make Virginia a battleground state last year, but Harris managed to hang on to it by 3 points.
The story was different in the last governor’s race, though, with Youngkin winning Virginia Beach by 8 points. As with Chesterfield, the question is whether Trump’s return to the White House will make it all but impossible for the GOP to replicate that 2021 roadmap this year.
The Donald Trump era has changed American politics for a decade. On Tuesday night, two contentious races for governor will define what the next steps for Republicans and Democrats might look like — not only who will lead Virginia and New Jersey for four years, but how the two parties are appealing to different types of voters and building coalitions for future elections.
Republicans have gained ground in those two blue-leaning states since Trump’s heavy losses there in 2020. Tuesday’s elections will show just how durable those advances were, hinging in part on the progress the Republican Party under Trump made with groups that once voted more strongly against the GOP. That especially includes Latino voters, who banked heavily toward Trump in 2024.
But Democrats have spent the last year focused on how to reverse those trends, nominating candidates without baggage from the party’s 2024 election loss. And, of course, Trump is now in the White House, which led to voter backlash against him as the incumbent during his first term.
The two states saw similar results in the last presidential election, but the races have gone differently this year. In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger enters Election Day with a clear polling lead over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. And in New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill holds a smaller advantage in most surveys over Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
Here are the places and the trends to watch when the votes get tallied Tuesday night.
New Jersey
Back in 2020, Joe Biden trounced Trump by 17 points in New Jersey. But Republicans have been seeing steady gains since then.
In 2021, Ciattarelli came within just three points of unseating Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. And last year, Trump lost by less than 6 points, the second-largest improvement he posted anywhere in the country. Both results were better performances — in all of the state’s 21 counties — than Trump in 2020.
Crucially, the areas where Trump and Ciattarelli made their biggest strides don’t necessarily overlap. They each tapped into different voters in different places. Ciattarelli made some of his biggest gains in suburban areas with above-average median incomes and higher concentrations of college degrees. Meanwhile, Trump’s largest improvements largely came in areas with heavier Hispanic populations.
Republican Jack Ciatterelli made his final case to voters as he positioned himself as the one who will drive down costs for New Jersey families. But Democrat Mikie Sherrill said it’s not possible to talk affordability in the state without also touching on what is happening in the White House. NBC New York’s Adam Harding reports.
Where Ciattarelli outperformed Trump
Somerset County is an affluent and historically Republican county filled with New York City bedroom communities. But like many suburban areas around the country, its population has diversified — from 75% white at the turn of the century to barely 50% in the most recent census — and its highly educated voters have reacted with hostility to the Trump-led GOP. George W. Bush carried Somerset in 2004, but Democrats have won it in every presidential election since, with Biden’s 21-point romp in 2020 as their high water mark.
In 2021, Ciattarelli came within four points of Murphy — a 17-point improvement over that Trump 2020 performance. Trump didn’t give back all of those gains in 2024, but he did lose significant ground from Ciattarelli’s showing, finishing 14 points behind Kamala Harris. (It helped that Ciattarelli once represented parts of Somerset in the state Legislature.)
A key question is whether Ciattarelli can at least replicate that 2021 showing. Four years ago, he benefited from the fact that Biden was in the White House. Many anti-Trump voters were willing to put aside their concerns with the national Republican Party. It turned out they had concerns with the Democrats who were running New Jersey, too, and deemed Ciattarelli an acceptable alternative. But with Trump back in power, will it be different?
Within Somerset, Bernards Township (population 27,000) is a great example of these dynamics. It has a median household income that’s nearly twice the statewide average. Two-thirds of its population is white, and more than two-thirds of its white adult population have college degrees, far above the statewide level. As recently as 2012, it was still voting Republican at the presidential level, but Trump’s emergence changed that. He lost it by 14 points in 2020 and only improved a smidge in 2024, when Harris bested him by 11.
Ciattarelli, on the other hand, won it by 5. Bernards Township is chock full of exactly the kind of voter Ciattarelli needs to hang on to: the avowedly anti-Trump, affluent suburbanite.
Where Trump outperformed Ciattarelli
Passaic County in North Jersey includes the state’s third-largest city, Paterson, along with a number of densely populated middle-class suburbs and a stretch of rural land and wilderness. It is racially and ethnically diverse: a population that’s about 40% Hispanic and white, just under 10% Black and Asian, andnotable Orthodox and Arab American pockets. Bill Clinton broke a string of Republican successes in Passaic when he carried it in his 1996 re-election bid and his party then posted double-digit wins until last year, when Trump flipped it.
While Ciattarelli also made sizable strides in 2021, he didn’t make the kinds of inroads Trump did in the county’s largest and least white municipalities: Paterson and Passaic city.
In Paterson, which is two-thirds Hispanic and less than 10% white, Ciattarelli lost by 71 points in his 2021 campaign, around what the typical margin of defeat for a Republican in the city had long been. But Trump finished only 28 points behind Harris last year. He did this by demonstrating significant new appeal in heavily Hispanic areas and by posting improvements in heavily Arab American South Paterson, where voters seemed to cast protest votes either for Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
With 70,000 residents, Passaic city is about half the size of Paterson, but it’s also overwhelmingly (75%) Hispanic. In 2024, Trump carried the city by 6 points after Ciattarelli lost it by 40 in 2021.
This was a trend seen across the state. Trump’s biggest gains from 2020 — and his biggest overperformances relative to Ciattarelli — tended to come from areas with sizable Hispanic populations. Ciattarelli’s inability to make even remotely similar inroads four years ago casts doubt on whether he can add these voters to his coalition this year.
Certainly, his campaign hopes that Trump will serve as a gateway to the broader Republican Party for them. But it also appears that many were first-time voters or voters who don’t normally participate in non-presidential elections. If Ciattarelli can fold in some of these new Trump voters, he’ll be taking a major step toward victory.
Short of winning over new votes in Paterson and Passaic city, Ciattarelli will have to hope that turnout is low. This was the case in 2021, when turnout plummeted in many heavily Democratic urban areas around the state. Take Paterson, where turnout in 2021 was just 35% of the level it had been in the 2020 presidential race — compared to the statewide average of 57%.
Reasserting their dominance in cities like Paterson while also beefing up turnout is a major priority for Sherrill this year.
Virginia
In 2024, Trump lost Virginia by just under 6 points, an improvement from his 10-point defeat in four years earlier. In a way, the result amounted to a tale of two different elections in the same state.
In the Washington, D.C., suburbs and exurbs of Northern Virginia, Trump made big strides, particularly in areas with significant Hispanic and Asian American populations. Had these gains extended across the state, he might have actually put Virginia in play, but outside of northern Virginia his progress was spotty at best, and he even backtracked in some areas.
The counties and cities that comprise Northern Virginia account for about one-third of all votes statewide. The growing and diversifying populations here are the primary source of Virginia’s evolution into a blue state — but those same places also drove Trump’s Northern Virginia improvement in 2024.
Building on 2021 gains
In reducing his deficit, Trump locked in many — but not all — of the gains that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin made in these same places in his victorious 2021 gubernatorial campaign. For example, in sprawling Loudoun County, which accounts for 5% of all votes cast statewide, Youngkin lost by 11 points in 2021, and Trump lost by 16 points last year. Both represent big jumps from Trump’s 25-point loss in 2020.
Trump did this in part by building support with Latino voters, as he did nationally. Case in point: Sterling has the highest concentration of Latino residents (50%) of any census-designated place in Loudoun County. Trump lost Sterling by 19 points to Harris after getting crushed by 44 against Biden in 2020.
Notably, this is one place where Trump outperformed Youngkin, who lost it by 24 in his own campaign. For Earle-Sears, building on this momentum is essential.
GOP improvements in Loudoun are also rooted in local politics, especially contentious disputes over education standards and school policies over the last half-decade. In particular, gains by both Youngkin and Trump with Asian American voters seem tied to these battles.
Earle-Sears is seeking to capitalize the same way. This makes majority-Asian Loudoun Valley Estates worth watching closely. A development community of about 10,000, its median income and college attainment rate are both far above the state average. In 2020, Loudoun Valley Estates sided with Biden by 43 points. Youngkin cut that to a 28-point Democratic margin a year later, and Trump brought it down five points further last year.
It will be a solid barometer of whether Earle-Sears has tapped into the same currents that boosted Youngkin and Trump in Loudoun and across northern Virginia.
There are similar dynamics in suburban Prince William County, another population juggernaut that accounts for 5% of all votes statewide. With a white population of around 40%, Prince William is more diverse and slightly more Democratic than Loudoun. Trump lost by 27 points there in 2020, a margin that both he and Youngkin reduced by about 10 points in 2021 and 2024.
Then there’s the geographically compact city of Manassas Park, which has just over 16,000 residents, almost half of whom are Hispanic — the highest concentration of any county or independent city in Virginia. Trump cut his deficit there from 33 points in 2020 to 20 points last year.
Where to watch beyond Northern Virginia
Moving away from Northern Virginia, two major population centers stand out for their willingness to embrace Youngkin — and their refusal to do the same for Trump last year.
One is Chesterfield County, which takes in the suburbs to the south of Richmond. With 365,000 residents, it’s the fourth-largest county in the state, and the biggest outside of Northern Virginia.
These were staunchly Republican suburbs from the end of World War II on, but a gradual shift away from the GOP exploded with the emergence of Trump. In 2016, he carried Chesterfield by 2 points, the worst showing for a Republican since Thomas Dewey in 1948. By 2020, it had flipped completely and Trump lost it by 7 points. And last year, it was the rare county in America that actually got bluer, with Harris pushing the margin to 9 points.
Chesterfield is racially diverse and has one of the largest Black populations in the state. Notably, though, a precinct-level analysis finds that Trump actually improved his performance in predominantly Black parts of the county; it was in largely white and high-educated precincts that he continued to lose ground:
A major reason why Youngkin is governor today is that he managed to roll back these Trump-era Democratic inroads, beating Democrat Terry McAuliffe by 5 points in Chesterfield. His campaign kept Trump at arm’s length and was no doubt helped by the fact that Trump was a former president in 2021, with the White House then occupied instead by an unpopular Democrat in Biden.
Now, with polls indicating there’s been no growth in Trump’s popularity over the last year, it figures to be tougher for Earle-Sears to connect with these voters. Democrats are banking on a backlash against Trump, and Chesterfield looms as a test of whether they are right to.
The biggest bellwether in the state may be the independent city of Virginia Beach, which has about 460,000 residents. For years, a large Navy presence helped make Virginia Beach one of the most Republican-friendly big cities in the country, but as it has continued to grow and diversify, it has tipped into the Democratic column.
In 2020, Biden became the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson to carry Virginia Beach, taking it by 5 points. Flipping it back was a priority for Republicans as they sought to make Virginia a battleground state last year, but Harris managed to hang on to it by 3 points.
The story was different in the last governor’s race, though, with Youngkin winning Virginia Beach by 8 points. As with Chesterfield, the question is whether Trump’s return to the White House will make it all but impossible for the GOP to replicate that 2021 roadmap this year.
New Jersey Republicans are trying to ride the coattails of Donald Trump’s 2024 electoral momentum, with gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli courting voters in a key — and traditionally Democratic — stronghold that contributed to the president’s gains in the state.
Ciattarelli has been crisscrossing the state, while Trump is expected to speak at telephone rallies with voters later Monday. This comes after his opponent, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, campaigned over the weekend alongside former President Barack Obama.
It’s a delicate balance for Republicans, who want to catch some of Trump’s electoral energy by drawing infrequently voting conservatives to the polls while not dismissing concerns about increasing costs. Democrats are urging voters to see the off-year election as a referendum on Trump’s economic policies and his efforts to expand his power.
Ciattarelli paid a visit to a crowded Irish bar in Passaic County, one of the traditionally blue areas that highlighted Trump’s strength in 2024. It’s also a county where the Department of Justice is set to send poll watchers.
At the bar, a reporter pointed out the president’s absence on the campaign trail and asked Ciattarelli: Is Trump a “liability” to him? The candidate was also asked to respond to attacks from his opponent that he would not stand up to the Republican president.
“New Jerseyans know who I am. I will fiercely defend the 9 million citizens of this state every day,” Ciattarelli said.
The stop featured a surprise appearance of the candidate’s son, Army Capt. Jake Ciattarelli, who flew in from Kuwait and showed up in uniform. Defense Department regulations impose broad restrictions on troops participating in partisan activity, especially in uniform, in an effort to maintain the military’s historically apolitical role in American society.
Sherrill, the Democratic opponent, spoke in Morristown, where her first campaign for Congress in 2018 got its start. She tried to cast the contest in New Jersey in clear national terms.
“It’s going to be up to the next governor to take on the federal administration to claw back as much money as possible and have them in court if they refuse to run programs that they should be running for the people of New Jersey,” Sherrill said. She has seized on the Trump administration’s decision to abruptly freeze funding for a project on the Hudson River to replace the aging rail tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York City.
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Mike Catalini, Adriana Gomez Licon and Olivia Diaz | The Associated Press
The final day of early voting in New York City’s race for mayor brought a spike in turnout.
More than 150,000 people voted on the last day of early voting across the five boroughs, doubling the number who voted on the first day of early voting. As of Sunday evening, 735,317 voters had cast their ballot citywide over the entire early voting period, according to the New York City Board of Elections.
Lines were reported around the block at some polling sites.
With Election Day on Tuesday, the three candidates spent Sunday making their closing arguments to voters.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner in polls, spent the day in Harlem, cheering on his volunteers in the home stretch.
While the state Assembly member from Queens is drawing support from voters like “Sharon” who told News 4 “he’s going to bring hope to the people,” his campaign is also drawing anger from another voter who called Mamdani “such a little communist!”
Mamdani identifies himself as a Democratic Socialist, not a communist, though President Donald Trump again used the “communist” label against Mamdani in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” Sunday.
Independent Andrew Cuomo campaigned in the Bronx, arguing to voters that Mamdani, 34, is too anti-cop, too anti-Israel, and too young and inexperienced. Mamdani campaigned in six nightclubs on Saturday night.
“This kid is going to deal with Donald Trump?” Cuomo, 67, said to reporters after addressing Heavenly Vision Church worshippers. “Donald Trump will step on him and do whatever he wants in New York.”
Some believe Mamdani’s socialist policies will damage Democrats in next year’s midterms.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) endorsed Mamdani after a long period of wait and see. When asked on Sunday if he saw Mamdani as the future of the Democratic Party, Jeffries told CNN no.
“I think the future of the Democratic Party is going to fall, as far as we’re concerned, relative to the House Democratic Caucus and members who are doing a great work all across the country,” Jeffries said.
New York’s Senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand – both Democrats – have declined to endorse Mamdani. Jeffries endorsed Mamdani last month, following Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to back him in September.
Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa squared off in the New York City general election debate, with topics ranging from Israel and Gaza, affordability, President Donald Trump, and more. David Ushery, Melissa Russo, Senior Politics reporter at Politico Sally Goldenberg, and Rosarina Breton moderate the debate, hosted by NBC 4 New York/WNBC, Telemundo 47/WNJU, and POLITICO New York
Cuomo supporters remain concerned about his chances to defeat Mamdani and his movement, especially with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa still in the race. While Sliwa has trailed in recent polls, an Emerson College/PIX 11/The Hill survey released Thursday showed him in a dead heat with Cuomo for second place.
“My closing argument is there are three main candidates for mayor. I’m a ‘law and order’ candidate,” Sliwa, 71, told News 4. “I’ve been endorsed by Rudy Giuliani. I’m Giuliani, 2.0.”
Cuomo dismissed a phone call Mamdani reportedly had with former President Barack Obama Saturday, in which The New York Times reported Obama praised the Mamdani campaign and offered to be a “sounding board” in the future.
“He didn’t endorse him,” said Cuomo, who noted that Obama campaigned for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mikie Sherrill in Newark Saturday.
While much of the attention in Tuesday’s election will be focused on the battle for New York City mayor, voters are also being asked to decide half a dozen ballot proposals, including one up for statewide consideration.
The details below are provided by NYCVotes.org , an initiative of the New York City Campaign Finance Board. Visit their website for more information on, including arguments for and against, each proposal.
Ballot proposal No. 1
Amendment to allow Olympics sports complex in Essex County on state forest preserve land.
This proposal, to be voted on across New York state, would allow the expansion of new ski trails in the Olympic Sports Complex in Essex County, New York. The Olympic Sport Complex is in state forest preserve land. This proposal would also require New York State to add 2,500 acres of protected forest land to Adirondack Park.
Ballot proposal No. 2
Fast track affordable housing to building more affordable housing across the city.
This proposal would create two new processes to fast-track certain affordable housing projects. The first process is for publicly financed affordable housing projects. The second process is for affordable housing projects in the 12 community districts with the lowest rates of affordable housing development.
A “yes” vote creates two processes to fast-track affordable housing projects.
A “no” vote keeps the seven-month review process, with input from the local Community Board, local Borough President, CPC, City Council, and mayor.
Ballot proposal No. 3
Simplify review of modest housing and infrastructure projects.
This proposal would create a faster review process for certain land use projects, like smaller projects to change how land is used and to prepare the city for extreme weather or other future challenges. For most of these projects, the proposed process would remove final review by the City Council.
Ballot proposal No. 4
Establish an Affordable Housing Appeals Board with City Council, borough, and citywide representation.
NYCVotes says this proposal would change the current land use review process when the City Council rejects or changes an affordable housing project. The proposal would create an Affordable Housing Appeals Board comprised of the local Borough President, Speaker of the City Council, and mayor.
The proposal would allow the Appeals Board to reverse the City Council’s decision with a two-to-one vote.
Ballot proposal No. 5
Create adigital city map to modernize city operations.
This proposal would make the Department of City Planning (DCP) responsible for creating, maintaining, and digitizing a single city map.
Ballot proposal No. 6
Move local elections to presidential election years to increase voter participation.
This proposal would move election dates for city offices to the same year as federal presidential elections.
Nearly 225,000 ballots have already been cast during the first three days of early voting in New York City, with elections officials and candidates noting the high turnout.
While Monday was a bit of a drop in numbers from over the weekend, it still saw about 60,000 voters head to the ballot box. While still exceeding some expectations, it was down from Saturday (84,000) and Sunday (79,000) totals. The Board of Elections said the decline was expected.
Among the five boroughs, Brooklyn had seen the highest turnout, with more than 67,700 people voting so far. That narrowly edged out Manhattan, which also topped 67,000. Queens was third with more than 52,200 votes cast, followed by the Bronx with 19,000 and Staten Island with 17,000.
The high turnout comes amid a hotly contested three-way race for mayor between Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa. The candidates could feel the sense of urgency on Monday, as each said they were not close to being done campaigning yet in the final eight days of the race.
“I will not allow myself to become complacent,” said Mamdani, the Democratic nominee whose campaign sent out an email blast earlier in the day stressing that the “highest number of early voters so far are in age brackets where Cuomo either ties or leads.”
Cuomo, running as an independent, stressed they “need New Yorkers to turn out.”
It comes as a new poll showed the race tightening even more, with Cuomo seemingly cutting into Mamdani’s lead: Mamdani had 44% of the vote, while Cuomo had 34% and Sliwa, the Republican, had 11%.
“We now have eight days left in this campaign. And the people of New York City will be the ones to decide who their next mayor,” Sliwa said Monday.
The three candidates for New York City mayor each turned their attention to Queens on Sunday, where more than 57,000 voters have cast ballots early over the weekend.
On Sunday night, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani welcomed fellow progressives Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens/The Bronx) to a rally at Forest Hills Stadium. “This mayor’s race, my friends, is different,” Sanders told the crowd. “It is not just the folks here in New York City who are paying attention.”
Sanders suggested that President Donald Trump “seems to be very, very concerned about who wins this election.” Trump — a Queens native — has not endorsed any candidate. Mamdani, a state Assembly member representing Astoria, praised Sanders and suggested that if he wins, “it will be because of the movement that Bernie built.”
Ocasio-Cortez slammed independent candidate and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, condemning “an insufficient, eroded, bygone political establishment.”
After a morning meeting behind closed doors with Orthodox Jewish leaders in Brooklyn, Cuomo rallied in Kew Gardens Hills and unleashed on Mamdani, telling an audience, “He is a divider. He is a zealot. He is an extremist. He is a radical. He is dangerous for New York City.” Cuomo accused Mamdani of glorifying a group that was convicted of funneling charity funds to Hamas and other terror groups — a reference to lyrics in a Mamdani rap video — and said Mamdani refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Mamdani has responded in the past by saying that he believes Israel has a right to exist, but only as a state with equal rights. Cuomo spoke of fear in New York’s Jewish community, suggesting that some are “afraid to walk on the street with a yarmulke, afraid to walk on the street with a Star of David.” Polls have shown Mamdani winning with more than a third of the Jewish vote in the city.
Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa made several appearances in Queens, including in South Richmond Hill, Whitestone, Flushing and at the College Point Halloween Parade. “After the two debates, they saw I was a ‘law and order’ candidate, as I pointed out that Cuomo and Zohran share the same points of view on ‘no cash bail,’ ‘Raise the Age,’ and closing Rikers Island,” Sliwa told News 4.
Early voting will remain open in New York City through Sunday, Nov. 2. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 4.
With just weeks to go in New Jersey’s closely watched gubernatorial elections, voters are gearing up to make their voices heard.
Since 2021, New Jersey has allowed in-person early voting thanks to legislation.
The idea behind the law is to make then state “even more voter-friendly and strengthens our democracy by expanding opportunities to exercise your right to vote,” according to the New Jersey Division of Elections.
Thanks to early voting, voters can cast their ballot in person for both the Primary Election and General Election during a specific time frame before Election Day, allowing for more flexibility for registered voters to make their voices heard.
WHEN AND WHERE IS EARLY VOTING?
Ahead of the General Election, every county in the state designates in-person early voting locations that will be open during the early voting period.
This year, the early voting period is from Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025 through Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025.
Hours will be Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m. and Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. It’s important to know that any registered New Jersey voter can go and vote since no appointment is necessary.
GENERAL ELECTION IN-PERSON EARLY VOTING POLL LOCATIONS
Check the county where you are registered as a voter and live to see your early voting poll locations.
If you are registered to vote by mail, you are allowed to cast a provisional ballot during early in-person voting or on Election Day, which you can get at your early voting location or polling place.
But remember, if you choose to vote by provisional ballot during early in-person voting or on Election Day, you should NOT complete and return your mail-in ballot because your provisional ballot will be rejected.
It’s also important to note that mail-in ballots cannot be returned to your early voting site or polling place.
The months leading up to New York City’s General Election have caused a lot of buzz.
Political analysts across the country are keeping a close eye on the outcome, seeing them as a litmus test — specifically the race for mayor, where a self-described socialist democrat, Zohran Mamdani, is facing-off against former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Curtis Sliwa, who is running under the Republican Party.
Even though the mayoral race is the most talked-about race in the city’s general elections, there are other races taking place, including that for city comptroller, public advocate, a few city council seats and district attorney, among others.
With this in mind, registered voters should know that, while Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 4, early voting period runs from Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025 to Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025.
The Department of Justice is preparing to send federal election observers to California and New Jersey next month, targeting two Democratic states holding off-year elections following requests from state Republican parties.
The DOJ announced Friday that it is planning to monitor polling sites in Passaic County, New Jersey, and five counties in southern and central California: Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno. The goal, according to the DOJ, is “to ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law.”
“Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Election monitoring is a routine function of the Justice Department, but the focus on California and New Jersey comes as both states are set to hold closely-watched elections with national consequences on Nov. 4. New Jersey has an open seat for governor that has attracted major spending by both parties and California is holding a special election aimed at redrawing the state’s congressional map to counter Republican gerrymandering efforts elsewhere ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The DOJ’s efforts are also the latest salvo in the GOP’s preoccupation with election integrity after President Donald Trump spent years refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election and falsely railing against mail-in voting as rife with fraud. Democrats fear the new administration will attempt to gain an upper hand in next year’s midterms with similarly unfounded allegations of fraud.
The announcement comes days after the Republican parties in both states wrote letters to the DOJ requesting their assistance.
Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, said in a statement that “No amount of election interference by the California Republican Party is going to silence the voices of California voters.”
California’s House districts at stake
The letter from the California GOP, sent Monday and obtained by the AP, asked Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, to provide monitors to observe the election in the five counties.
“In recent elections, we have received reports of irregularities in these counties that we fear will undermine either the willingness of voters to participate in the election or their confidence in the announced results of the election,” wrote GOP Chairwoman Corrin Rankin.
Each of the counties named, they alleged, has experienced recent voting issues, such as sending incorrect or duplicate ballots to voters. They also take issue with how Los Angeles and Orange counties maintain their voter rolls.
California is one of at least eight states the Justice Department has sued as part of a wide-ranging request for detailed voter roll information involving at least half the states. The department has not said why it wants the data.
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said he welcomes anyone who wants to watch the county’s election operations and said it’s common to have local, state, federal and even international observers. He described Orange County’s elections as “accessible, accurate, fair, secure, and transparent.”
Most Californians vote using mail ballots returned through the postal service, drop boxes or at local voting centers, which typically leaves polling places relatively quiet on Election Day. But in pursuit of accuracy and counting every vote, the nation’s most populous state has gained a reputation for tallies that can drag on for weeks — and sometimes longer.
In 2024, it took until early December to declare Democrat Adam Gray the winner in his Central Valley district, the final congressional race to be decided in the nation last year.
Trump has long had a tortured relationship with heavily Democratic California, where a Republican has not carried the state in a presidential election since 1988.
Passaic County the target in New Jersey
California’s request echoed a similar letter sent by New Jersey Republicans asking the DOJ to dispatch election monitors to “oversee the receipt and processing of vote-by-mail ballots” and “monitor access to the Board of Elections around the clock” in suburban Passaic County ahead of the state’s governor’s race.
The New Jersey Republican State Committee told Dhillon that federal intervention was necessary to ensure an accurate vote count in the heavily Latino county that was once a Democratic stronghold, but shifted to President Donald Trump’s column in last year’s presidential race.
The county could be critical to GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli’s hopes against Democrat Mikie Sherrill. But the letter cited previous voter fraud cases in the county and alleged a “long and sordid history” of vote-by-mail shenanigans.
In 2020, a judge ordered a new election for a city council seat in Paterson — the largest city in Passaic County — after the apparent winner and others were charged with voter fraud.
But Michael Zhadanovsky, a spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, said in a statement responding to the letter that it “would be highly inappropriate for the federal government to interfere in this November’s state election.”
He said New Jersey “is committed to ensuring the integrity of our elections” and protecting the right of every eligible voter “to have their vote counted.”
Election observers are nothing new
The DOJ has a long history of sending observers to jurisdictions across the country that have histories of voting rights violations to ensure compliance with federal civil rights laws.
Last year, when the Biden administration was still in power, some Republican-led states said they would not allow federal monitors to access voting locations on Election Day.
Trump has for years railed against mail voting as part of his repeated false claims that former President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was rigged. He alleges it is riddled with fraud, even though numerous studies have found no evidence of widespread fraud in U.S. elections.
Earlier this year, Trump pledged to ban vote-by-mail across the country, something he has no power to do under the U.S. Constitution.
The DOJ’s effort will be overseen by Dhillon’s Civil Rights Division, which will deploy personnel in coordination with U.S. attorney’s offices and work closely with state and local officials, the department said
“The Department of Justice will do everything necessary to protect the votes of eligible American citizens, ensuring our elections are safe and secure,” Dhillon said in a statement.
The department also is soliciting further requests for monitoring in other jurisdictions.
David Becker, a former DOJ attorney who has served as an election monitor and trained them, said the work is typically done by department lawyers who are prohibited from interfering at polling places.
But Becker, now executive director of the Center for Election Integrity & Research, said local jurisdictions normally agree to the monitors’ presence.
If the administration tried to send monitors without a clear legal rationale to a place where local officials didn’t want them, “That could result in chaos,” he warned.
All local election offices and polling places already have observers from both political parties to ensure rules are followed. While voter fraud does occur, it is rare and there are numerous safeguards in place to prevent it.
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Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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JILL COLVIN and MICHAEL R. BLOOD | Associated Press
New York City‘s mayoral candidates clashed bitterly during their final debate Wednesday evening, as Democrat Zohran Mamdani tried to maintain his lead and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa cast him as out of his league.
While Mamdani began the debate accusing his rivals of being too consumed by fighting — suggesting he would instead focus on his vision for New Yorkers — the state assemblyman repeatedly ended up in the mud with his rivals.
Mamdani’s opponents have spent much of the race criticizing the 34-year-old democratic socialist for his relatively thin political resume, his pro-Palestinian advocacy, and President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the city — and even arrest him — if he wins.
Cuomo, who is now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, has spent recent days urging Sliwa to drop his bid, and has been courting conservatives and moderates, casting himself as a more viable candidate than Sliwa.
But Sliwa, the swaggering creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, has forcefully maintained he will not exit the race and has in turn ramped up his criticism of the former governor.
Here are some key takeaways from the debate:
Barbs all around
Mamdani entered the debate saying he would try to stay above the fray and keep his focus on voters and issues — like affordability — that have defined his campaign.
But the Democratic nominee landed plenty of digs against his rivals, whom he accused of spending more time calling on each other to drop out “than actually proposing their own policies.”
Cuomo and Sliwa, he said, “speak only in the past because that is all they know.”
“I am the sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city,” he went on, calling Cuomo “a desperate man, lashing out because he knows that the one thing he cares about, power, is slipping away from him.”
Cuomo, meanwhile, touted his experience, and portrayed Mamdani as out of his league. “It’s Bill de Blasio rehash and we know how that turned out,” he said.
“I did things. You have never had a job. You’ve never accomplished anything,” he said, insisting Mamdani lacks the merit and qualifications to run the nation’s biggest city or handle an emergency. “Shame on you!”
Sliwa accused both men of “fighting like kids in a school yard,” but piled on as well.
“Zorhan, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin. And, Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City,” he quipped. He also made frequent references to Cuomo’s decision to resign as governor amid a barrage of sexual harassment allegations, which Cuomo denies.
Canal Street raid
Candidates were asked within minutes about an immigration enforcement sweep targeting vendors on Manhattan’s famed Canal Street that led to 14 arrests.
Cuomo responded by touting his squabbles with Trump during the Republican’s first term. Cuomo said the city does not need Immigration and Customs Enforcement to handle quality-of-life crimes like dealing in counterfeit bags.
Mamdani similarly pledged to oppose federal interventions in the city, saying “ICE is a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve.”
The Trump factor
Trump again took center stage, as each of the candidates insisted that they would be most adept at handling the notoriously mercurial president.
Cuomo spoke repeatedly about how he had held Trump at bay during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and said a Mamdani win would be a “dream” for the president.
“He has said he’ll take over New York if Mamdani wins, and he will! Because, he has no respect for him. He thinks he’s a kid and he’s going to kick him on his tuchus,” Cuomo said.
Mamdani, meanwhile, tried to depict Cuomo as Trump’s “puppet” and too aligned with the president.
“He wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him,” Mamdani said.
Sliwa accused his rivals of trying to out-macho each other, and warned both were taking the wrong approach by antagonizing the president.
ORLANDO, Fla. — A disconnect between two Florida state databases could cause big problems for the 2026 elections all across Florida if it is not closed.
What You Need To Know
The Florida DMV’s new license numbers aren’t updating in the state voter database
The disconnect mostly affects mail-in voters in Florida
Voters with new licenses are encouraged to update their registration info to avoid disruptions
This year, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles started issuing driver’s licenses with more random numbers to better protect people’s personal information. Everyone who gets a new license will get a new number.
But when people get those new licenses, the information is not going into the Florida Department of State database, which is used to verify IDs when voting.
“If they don’t update their voter registration at all, then that data is not bundled up and sent to the Secretary of State and then down to the Supervisor of Elections,” Orange County Tax Collector Scott Randolph said.
Orange County Supervisor of Elections Karen Castor Dentel says the gap between the FLHSMV database and the state department database is affecting people who need to vote by mail.
Castor Dentel’s office reported last year that nearly 152,000 people voted by mail in Orange County. That’s about 25% of all the votes cast in that election.
“We’re seeing people who have problems requesting their vote by mail ballot and other issues if they don’t update that driver’s license number,” Castor Dentel said.
Castor Dentel says voters will be able to vote at the polls on election day by bringing their current ID or voter registration card, but some people who are trying to get a vote by mail ballots may not receive them as the databases do not talk to each other.
“Not everyone can get out to the polls and vote,” she said. “Whether their work schedule does not permit it or they have disabilities that won’t permit it. So it is important that people do have access to the vote by mail.”
Castor Dentel and Randolph are working on temporary solutions. Customer service workers at the tax collector’s office are asking every person who gets a license to update their voter registration, even if they don’t want to make any changes.
“When my employee asks you to update your voter registration and you think, ‘I don’t have any changes,’ please just go through the steps. I promise if you go through those steps, you won’t have that issue,” Randolph said.
Randolph says in the end, the solution must come out of Tallahassee.
“In the longer term, the two state agencies, DHSMV and the Secretary of State, are going to have to work out their databases to cure this issue,” he said.
Another short-term solution, Castor Dentel says, is people can call or visit the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office, and the staff will update their voter ID information, so it goes into the Department of State database correctly.
Spectrum News reached out to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and the Florida Department of State by phone and email on Tuesday to see what they are doing to fix this problem. We did not hear from either agency on Tuesday.
LAKELAND, Fla. — Lakeland City Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley has joined the 2025 race for mayor.
What You Need To Know
City commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley is one of the four candidates seeking to become Lakeland’s next mayor
If elected, McCarley said she plans to work alongside fellow commissioners to build on efforts toward accessibility, budget transparency and community involvement
Having served on the City Commission since 2019, she says her familiarity with city departments and local partnerships would make for a smooth transition
She was the first candidate to announce her bid following Mayor Bill Mutz’s decision not to seek another term.
“Because if you’re willing to tell the truth and be like, ‘Hey, I didn’t know that. I got that wrong.’ That’s really important. I think that builds sincerity and trust with the people around you,” she said.
The Lakeland native often shares that message with students across the area. She says it’s something that has guided her since leading Polk Vision, an organization focused on community priorities, local partnerships and accountability in Polk County. She maintained that philosophy after joining the City Commission.
“I love serving, and I love getting my hands dirty, and working in different segments of our community, with schools, and with the business community,” McCarley said.
McCarley hopes to continue serving the community, but in a different capacity. If elected mayor, she said she plans to work alongside fellow commissioners to build on what she describes as ongoing efforts toward accessibility, budget transparency and community involvement.
“Community service continues to be a big opportunity for us to engage more voices in the process, and that’s something I like to do from day one,” she said.
With years of experience at City Hall, McCarley believes the start of her term would be a smooth transition.
“My learning curve is shorter, and I can ramp up quicker,” she said. “I know the departments, and I know the constituencies outside of City Hall, which I think is really important. And I feel like bridging those conversations is something that I do well.”
McCarley said she hopes to bring those strengths into a new role as mayor while encouraging future leaders to do the same.
Lakeland residents will elect their next mayor on Nov. 4. Other candidates in the race include Kay Klymko, Kaitlin Kramer and Cedrick Valrie.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo entered Thursday evening’s first New York mayoral debate trying to blunt Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani’s momentum. Instead he spent much of the contentious face-off on defense, batting away criticisms over his long tenure in office from Mamdani and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Cuomo, now running as an independent, continued to try to cast Mamdani’s agenda as too extreme, saying he lacks the experience to lead America’s biggest city. Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, countered with attacks on the former governor’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and sexual harassment allegations that Cuomo denies.
But after two hours that touched on how the next mayor would deal with President Donald Trump, quality of life issues and affordability, it was unclear whether anyone did enough to move the needle.
For Cuomo the stakes of the face-off were especially high. The debate was one of his last chances to try to convince voters that going with Mamdani, who already defeated the once-powerful governor in the primary this summer, would be a mistake. The race is also Cuomo’s attempt at a political comeback after he resigned four years ago following the sexual harassment allegations.
Mamdani, who spent much of the debate smiling as he tried to maintain the hopeful, charming persona that has characterized his campaign, pushed his affordability agenda and sought to portray himself as a pragmatic liberal rather than a radical ideologue.
The race has catapulted him to national political stardom, with Republicans, including Trump, trying to turn him into the face of the Democratic Party by highlighting his most controversial past comments and positions and casting him as dangerous, a communist and an antisemite.
Meanwhile Sliwa, a Republican and the colorful creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, tried to vault his underdog campaign to the fore amid calls for him to drop out. Though he could have helped Cuomo by ganging up on Mamdani, he instead spent much of his time undercutting the former governor.
Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, suspended his reelection campaign late last month after being deeply wounded by a now-dismissed federal corruption case and his relationship with the Trump administration.
Here are some key takeaways from tonight’s debate, and watch the full debate below:
Mamdani on defense
Mamdani came under attack straight out the gate, as Cuomo highlighted the 33-year-old’s relative lack of job experience and painted his agenda as unrealistic and unachievable.
Cuomo, stressing his own lengthy resume, said being mayor “is no job for on-the-job training”
“This is not a job for a first timer,” he said, while trying to to cast Mamdani as “Bill de Blasio light,” a reference to the unpopular former mayor.
Mamdani hit back at Cuomo’s integrity and decision-making during the pandemic and repeatedly raised the sexual harassment investigation and legal bills related to his defense.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani went back and forth of record and campaign promises, trading a few attacks at their opponents during the beginning of the first general election debate.
“What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity. What you don’t have in integrity, you can never make up for with experience,” he charged.
Cuomo also sought to cast himself as the only true Democrat onstage, despite the fact that he is not running on the Democratic Party line.
Mamdani’s brand of economic populism and laser focus on lowering costs in the astronomically expensive city has generated buzz and excitement. At the same time, the state assemblyman’s calls to raise taxes on wealthy people and intense criticisms of the Israel’s military actions in Gaza have unnerved some centrists and conservatives, as well as many Jewish New Yorkers.
Mamdani pressed on past Israel comments
During an appearance on Fox News Channel this week, Mamdani sidestepped a question about whether Hamas should lay down arms as part of a fragile truce that has paused the two-year Israel-Hamas war.
On Thursday he did not equivocate, saying, “Of course I believe that they should lay down their arms.”
The comment came as Cuomo again highlighted Mamdani’s past reluctance to condemn the use of the phrase “Globalize the intifada,” which is seen by many Jews as a call to violence.
Since the primary Mamdani has said he does not use the phrase and would discourage people from saying it.
But Sliwa said that wasn’t enough. “Jews don’t trust that you are going to be there for them when they are the victims of antisemitic attacks,” he charged.
Mamdani was asked about his most recent comments on Fox News following a first round peace deal between Israel and Hamas.
Mamdani, meanwhile, accused Cuomo of failing to represent the city’s Muslim community, claiming that it took losing to a Muslim candidate for Cuomo to step inside a mosque.
“It took me to get you to even see Muslims as part of this city,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani’s walk-back comes as he has tried to distance himself from several of his more contentious past statements, such as calling the New York Police Department “racist” and “a major threat to public safety.”
During his Fox appearance, he publicly apologized for his language after doing so behind closed doors.
“I am not running to defund the police. I am running to actually work with the police to deliver public safety,” he said Thursday.
Trump front and center
The president, who has threatened to arrest Mamdani, to deport him and even to take over the city if he wins, was invoked early and often.
Pressed on how they would handle Trump, Mamdani — who walked to the debate venue at 30 Rockefeller Plaza from Trump Tower, accompanied by a brass band — said he would stand up to the president while also being willing to work with him on lowering costs and affordability.
The former governor claims that putting Mamdani in charge of New York City would welcome a President Trump takeover.
“What New Yorkers need is a mayor who can stand up to Donald Trump and actually deliver,” he said.
Cuomo warned that if Mamdani wins, “It will be Mayor Trump.”
“I’d like to work with you. I think we could do good things together. But No. 1, I will fight you every step of the way if you try to hurt New York,” Cuomo pledged.
Sliwa warned that taking too contentious a tone with Trump would end up hurting the city.
“If you try to get tough with Trump,” he said, “New Yorkers will suffer.”
Sliwa tries to stand out
The underdog found himself caught in the middle — literally and figuratively — with the Republican’s lectern positioned between his two opponents as they lobbed attacks at one another.
At one point Sliwa complained that he was not getting enough speaking time, saying, “I am being marginalized out of this.”
The Republican candidate says Cuomo and Mamdani’s past comments about defending the police department do not keep the city safe.
But he often attacked Cuomo aggressively, including after the former governor stressed his willingness to take on Trump.
“The president is going to back down to you?” Sliwa said. “You think you’re the toughest guy alive, but let me tell you something, you lost your own primary, rejected by your own Democratic Party.”
A second and final debate is scheduled for next week.
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Anthony Izaguirre | The Associated Press and Jill Colvin | The Associated Press
New York’s mayoral contest has fully surfaced a tension bubbling in city politics for years: the divide between lifelong New Yorkers and young professionals who have recently moved in.
In his 7-point Democratic primary win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani cleaned up with younger voters who live in some of New York’s most gentrified neighborhoods — including Bushwick, Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Cuomo, meanwhile, edged out Mamdani in majority-Black, outer-borough neighborhoods that have experienced less gentrification, as well as other places like the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, also home to many longtime New Yorkers.
That divide is playing out in the general election, too, where Cuomo is running as a third-party candidate. A CBS News survey last month found that Mamdani held a 51-point edge over Cuomo among voters who have moved to New York within the last 10 years. Among voters who have lived in New York for more than 10 years, Mamdani’s advantage over Cuomo dropped to 19 points.
And among born and raised New Yorkers, Mamdani held a smaller, 7-point advantage over Cuomo. Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, two fixtures of New York politics for decades, combined to win 49% of this demographic.
Surveys show Mamdani with double-digit leads, enjoying a glide path to election next month, even after Mayor Eric Adams dropped his own third-party campaign. Still, the split has set the terms of debate for this fall’s contest — and highlighted what could become a strain on a potential Mamdani mayoralty.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a fixture in New York City and Democratic politics for decades, said in an interview that he could not recall a citywide election where the split between lifelong New Yorkers and new transplants was as wide.
“Those who have grown up here all their life are more traditional voters who know the traditional battles in the city — when crime was higher, when it was lower, when there was more racial divide, when there were more police issues like stop and frisk,” said Sharpton, the host of MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation.” “Those who are new tend to not know a lot of the history and take a fresh look at the city as they know it.”
Mamdani, the self-described socialist, pulled off an upset victory in the Democratic primary by doggedly campaigning on cost-of-living issues and building an engaging social media presence. Notably, the younger electorate that lifted him to victory has seen rents soar in the Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods they flocked to in the years following the financial crisis.
Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said young professionals coming to New York City in waves from other parts of the country is a “phenomenon which has probably only existed over the last, say, 25-30 years.” For most of New York City history, he continued, new arrivals were overwhelmingly working-class immigrants.
“I can think about the elections with David Dinkins and Giuliani and Bloomberg — I think there was some appeal for Bloomberg with [young professionals], but I don’t think there’s any parallel to the appeal that Zohran has,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio noted that Adams sought to “drive a little bit of a wedge” in his 2021 campaign between longtime residents and newcomers, painting himself as “the candidate of long-term residents.”
Adams said in 2020 that new arrivals to the city were “hijacking” apartments from born and raised New Yorkers. Speaking at Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters in the city, Adams told those arrivals, “Go back to Iowa.”
“You go back to Ohio,” Adams said. “New York City belongs to the people that was here and made New York City what it is.”
In 2021, de Blasio said the newcomers “did not consolidate around one single candidate” as Adams made his pitch to city lifers.
“It is fair to say it is unprecedented in the last quarter century or so, when we’ve had this influx of young professionals, it’s unprecedented to have them attached to one candidate so deeply,” de Blasio said.
A senior Mamdani adviser, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the race, framed the divide not around Mamdani’s level of support from young professionals but rather a “broad coalition of immigrant New Yorkers” who back the 33-year-old assemblyman, pointing to strong support in New York’s South Asian, Muslim, Latino and African diaspora communities.
“My gut is it speaks to immigrant New Yorkers who are a big part of his coalition and for whom he spent a ton of time doing real, tangible organizing in neighborhoods that have high immigrant populations,” this person said, adding that Mamdani has sought to expand his coalition, particularly with a focus on winning over Black voters over 50.
This person mentioned Mamdani’s visits to Black churches and with community, business and elected leaders. Mamdani has won endorsements from Carl Heastie, the state Assembly speaker who hails from the Bronx, as well as Rep. Yvette Clark, D-N.Y., who currently heads the Congressional Black Caucus.
“The momentum that he’s feeling is across the city and across demographics, is not limited to just the primary coalition,” this person continued, “although that remains central and important and part of the core base of the campaign.”
Sharpton, who recently met with Mamdani, said he believes Mamdani is making progress with longer-standing New York City residents, “but he’s going to keep working at it.”
“The traditional people are the ones he’s got to convince that he would regard and respect the history of the city and the history of neighborhoods and the history of what they may have faced,” Sharpton said, adding that he told Mamdani: “You’ve got to think of not only how do you reach out in traditional places to win the election — you can maybe win like you did the primary with just some of them — but you can’t govern with all of them against you.”
Mamdani has made efforts to court these young professionals. In June, he released a video targeting voters who live in the city but still voted elsewhere. In roughly a week between when Mamdani released that video and the June 14 registration deadline, more than 54,000 new voters registered to vote — about 80% of all of those who registered that month, per an analysis by Gothamist.
The divide is also apparent between older and younger voters. A Marist College poll conducted before Adams dropped out, which showed Mamdani up 21 points on Cuomo in a four-way race and 10 points ahead in a two-way contest, showed Mamdani running up huge margins among voters under 45 years old. But with voters between 45 and 59 and above 60, Cuomo and Mamdani were neck and neck.
“Zohran’s voters are, ironically, not the people he says he speaks for,” said Bradley Tusk, who ran former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 re-election campaign.
“If socialism and far left-wing politics is about helping the poor, the poor don’t feel that way about Zohran. The reality is, Zohran’s agenda and politics are extremely appealing to young, upwardly mobile New Yorkers who are newer to the city, worried about their ability to be able to stay here, and like the idea of someone like Zohan disrupting the system,” Tusk continued, comparing that trend to the voters nationally who backed President Donald Trump in 2024.
Mamdani’s pitch to voters has included free buses, universal child care, a rent freeze for stabilized tenants and effective pushback against Trump, who has sought to influence the race and threatened to exert increased control over the city. Mamdani has also appealed to progressives angered by the war in Gaza.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday in Manhattan, Cuomo told NBC News he believed the divide in the race centered on younger voters animated by the war in Gaza, while criticizing Mamdani’s policy proposals as unrealistic.
“I think the divide was younger people, 20 to 30, which would fit with newer transplants to New York and the issue of Gaza, which, by the way, has nothing to do with the mayoral thing,” Cuomo said. “But I believe the issue of Gaza was his primary motivating issue with voters. Freeze the rent doesn’t mean anything. It’s a great slogan. It’s like Donald Trump saying, ‘When I get elected, the price of eggs is going to come down.’ How? Why? What’s the connection? Nobody asks. It’s the dumbing down in politics.”
“So it wasn’t freeze the rent, it wasn’t any of the above,” Cuomo added. “It wasn’t the price of eggs. It was Gaza and younger people.”
The fight between Mamdani and Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the primary in June, has gotten more heated in the final weeks of the race. Mamdani has slammed Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations he denies, for a “record of disgrace.” Cuomo has hit Mamdani for a litany of past statements and for policy aims he paints as a fairy tale wish list.
As Cuomo trails in the polls by a substantial margin, even if the numbers are significantly closer with longtime New York City residents and older voters, Sharpton said voters have opinions of the former governor baked in — good or bad. He added that Cuomo needs to campaign more aggressively.
“During the primaries, he played the Rose Garden strategy where he wasn’t in the Rose Garden,” Sharpton said. “He’s got to go out there and be willing to face detractors, even hecklers, because people will feel like he’s reachable. I’m seeing him start to do that. He’s got to do that.”
On the other hand, both Sharpton and de Blasio said Mamdani is gaining ground with voters who did not back him in the primary.
“I’ve been talking to Black clergy this week,” de Blasio said. “And I’m noting this week, compared to even a couple of weeks ago, a real growing sense that he’s going to win, and people starting to find comfort they didn’t have before, because they see he’s reaching out.”
A Cuomo adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about the race, said they had not seen a recent citywide race with such a divide between newer New Yorkers and lifelong residents, though this person noted the divide started to become apparent in some downballot races, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 upset primary win over then-Rep. Joe Crowley.
This person added the former governor knows “where our support is,” outlining a path to victory much like Adams’ in 2021 and mentioning specific outreach to Hindu and Muslim New Yorkers.
“It’s no surprise he won gentrified areas, while we won the traditional Black vote,” this person said of the primary. “We won the Upper East and West Side. In New York, to win the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, the African American vote and the Jewish vote, that used to be more than enough.”