Polls open in NYC mayoral race - here are five things to watch in US elections
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The day has come for the slices of right to vote in America.
The passing of time has marked the opening of the first polling stations in New York, Virginia, and New Jersey, and the centers in California will be open a little later on.
Even though this so-called “off year” election does not include presidential nor congressional races, there are still some important votes that people need to pay attention to, and they will be just as last night.
The mayoral election of New York City will bring in a new mayor, and the battle is between a younger and progressive Democrat and a member of the old guard.
The people of Virginia and New Jersey will be picking governors, and it is even being said that the winners of these elections could indicate a trend for next year’s midterm congressional elections.
With the Democrats trying to prevent a Republican advantage in the upcoming midterm elections, the Californian people will decide whether it is time to re-draw the US congressional district maps in what is set to be a rare mid-decade redistricting.
Here are five tips on what you should keep an eye on.
NYC mayoral election
Uptown City will be watching closely as Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old state legislator, seeks to overturn the political landscape in his quest to be the youngest mayor of New York City in more than a hundred years.
Mamdani, who calls himself a democratic socialist, outperformed the former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary this summer, thus stunning the political establishment. Nevertheless, Cuomo, who is not discouraged, continues to promote himself as an independent candidate. At the same time, the Republican Curtis Sliwa has remained firm in his decision not to quit the race to smoothen Cuomo’s way.
If Mamdani is successful, he would be the first Muslim mayor of the city. The Democratic Party would not be the only one watching to see if his razor-sharp focus on the cost-of-living issues of rent, groceries, and wages could act as a successful messaging in future races.
Despite his implied polling lead going into election night, Mamdani’s lead has decreased. In the last part of the campaign, Cuomo has been intensively confronting Mamdani with the issue of crime and public safety, saying that the young politician does not have enough experience to be the leader of America’s most populous city.
California Redistricting
The Democrats in California are asking the voters for their consent to change the drawing of the congressional districts during the decade. In California this would not be typical, as it is a by-law that a nonpartisan committee draws the state’s congressional maps once every ten years based on census data.
Nevertheless, as the states led by Republicans like Texas and Missouri are pushing to draw their congressional maps quickly to give their party a leg up in the 2026 mid-term elections, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom is looking to off-set the losses with re-districting in his state.
The California Proposition would allow the temporary use of new congressional district maps through 2030. The campaign has reported $158 million in donations as per the Los Angeles Times, with the Democrats raising significantly more money than the Republicans who are opposing them.
The Republican supervision in California, who have a mere nine of the 52 US House seats in the state, is vehemently against the project.
According to a poll by University of California Berkeley/IGS, 60% of likely California voters approve Proposition 50, whereas 38% disapprove it. The distribution of the votes was highly bipartisan, as 93% of Democrats indicated that they would vote “yes” and 91% of Republicans indicated that they would choose “no”.
New Jersey’s gubernatorial contest
Polls suggest that Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate, and Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican nominee, are locked in a very neck-and-neck contest, even though for New Jersey the latter is considered as a blue state. This one is among the two gubernatorial races this year that might reveal how the citizens perceive the current political climate in the country.
Sherrill is presently the congresswoman for New Jersey’s 11th District, and Ciattarelli is a former state assemblyman.
The state that has a Democratic inclination has previously seen Republican governors. The most recent one, Chris Christie, was in office for two terms from 2010 to 2018.
The ambiance in the election has been very charged. Ciattarelli and his team have been running political advertising which features Sherrill’s remarks with interruptions and pauses in her responses to questions about her policies.
It has also pulled in the big names associated with both parties nationally. The Democratic figureheads, such as the ex-president Barack Obama and the ex-secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg, have joined Sherrill in his campaign. The virtual rally for Ciattarelli was attended by President Donald Trump, and conservative activist Jack Posobiec is one of his supporters.
Virginia governor’s race
Virginia is traditionally ruled by either Democrats or Republicans, so the result of this year’s governor election may reflect the public mood.
Whatever candidate prevails, this year the state will have a female governor for the first time in history. The ballot consists of Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger from the Democratic Party and the current Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears from the Republican Party.
If Earle-Sears becomes the winner, she will be the first black woman ever to lead a US state through elections in the country’s history.
Virginia is next to Washington DC, which has a more liberal population, to the north; many people living there are working either in the federal government or the capital. However, the state also has strong conservative support in its rural areas along with swing voters.
Spanberg has brought Trump’s reduction of the federal government as a major factor in economic consequences for Virginia, which has already affected the state’s employment. Earle-Sears has claimed that under the Republican leadership industry is flourishing in Virginia. However, she has also touched on subjects like transgender, which Republicans effectively used as a wedge issue in last year’s presidential election.
The Trump factor
He is not on the ballot, but Trump’s name still overshadows the election.
The New York mayoral race is about the next city leader’s approach to the Trump administration that has interfered with the city’s politics. Cuomo is putting his experience as governor dealing with the first administration as an advantage in getting the voters’ support.
The president suggests that he will punish the city if it chooses Mamdani.
“New York is going to be a hard place for me to send taxpayer dollars since they voted for a communist, and the only thing left to do with the money sent there is to burn it,” Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes in an interview aired Sunday. Mamdani denies the communist label.
The redistricting fight started by Trump resulted in Proposition 50 being voted on in California, and he has also supported Ciattarelli in the New Jersey governor’s race.
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