Voters on Tuesday are casting ballots in U.S. state and local elections with an injection of presidential-level politics, including a pair of competitive races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, the mayoral race in the nation’s largest city, and a ballot measure in California that Democrats are counting on for next year’s elections to determine control of Congress.

The off-year elections have drawn President Trump ’s attention, and no race has attracted as much lip service or social media opinions from Trump as the mayor’s race in his hometown of New York City.

All eyes on New York City’s mayoral race

From Coney Island to the Bronx, the candidates in New York City’s heated mayoral race spent Monday crisscrossing the five boroughs in a final, frenzied day of campaigning before Election Day.

As candidates made final pitch to voters, President Donald Trump urged New Yorkers to cast their ballot for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in an effort to defeat Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani. The president posted that voters “really have no choice.”

The campaign hurtled toward its end after more than 735,000 votes were cast during the city’s nine days of early, in-person voting — more than four times the number of ballots cast during the only other mayor’s race to allow early voting, in 2021.

The tally was well short of the nearly 1.1 million early, in-person votes cast during last year’s presidential election, but some voting locations saw large crowds Sunday, the last day of early voting. The line at one polling place in downtown Brooklyn snaked around the building and, at one point, took an hour to cast a ballot.

California proposition could affect control of Congress

The national battle to control the U.S. House shifts to California today as voters consider a Democratic proposal that could erase as many as five Republican districts and blunt President Trump’s moves to safeguard his party’s lock on Washington power.

The outcome will reverberate into next year’s midterm elections and beyond, with Democrats hoping a victory will set the stage for the party to regain control of the House in 2026. A shift in the majority would imperil Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his term at a time of deep partisan divisions over immigration, health care, and the future direction of the nation.

“God help us if we lose in California,” Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom says.

Democrats need to gain just three seats in the 2026 elections to take control of the House.

California’s Proposition 50 asks voters to suspend House maps drawn by an independent commission and replace them with recast districts adopted by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Those new districts would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.

The recast districts would dilute Republican voters’ power

The measure has been spearheaded by Newsom, who has thrown the weight of his political operation behind it in a major test of his mettle ahead of a potential 2028 presidential campaign. Former President Obama has also urged voters to pass it.

Virginia governor’s race a potential bellweather for rest of Trump presidency

Virginia voters are deciding a history-making race for governor Tuesday that will serve as a barometer of attitudes toward President Donald Trump and Democrats’ attempts to regain their footing on the national stage.

Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, a Black woman and staunch conservative who serves as Virginia’s lieutenant governor, and Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a center-left Democrat and former CIA case officer who helped her party win a House majority during Trump’s first presidency, are vying to become the first-ever woman to lead the commonwealth. Earle-Sears also would make history as the first Black woman elected governor in any state.

The race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has taken on national dimensions from the start, serving as a testing ground for both parties one year ahead of national midterm elections that could redirect the country’s course for the balance of Trump’s second term. It comes as the state Trump lost in three successive presidential contests has been strained by many of his policies, particularly the steep cuts to the civil service and the ongoing government shutdown.

For Republicans, Earle-Sears will show whether a candidate in Trump’s general mold — though notably without his full-throated support — can win in a battleground state. For Democrats, Spanberger will signal whether the same center-left approach that worked across the country in the 2018 midterms is the answer in 2026, when the party’s energy has been focused on its progressive base.

A special election for a Texas congressional district

The seat in the 18th Congressional District has been vacant since the death of Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner in March. Turner was only months into his first term after serving as Houston’s mayor.

Sixteen candidates are on the ballot in the heavily Democratic district. The biggest names include Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote Tuesday, there will be a runoff.

Democrats accused Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott of delaying the special election after Turner’s death to protect the GOP’s slim majority. Abbott has said Harris County officials needed more time to prepare for the election.

Confusion has lingered because many of the district’s residents will vote in a different district next year under a redrawn map demanded by President Trump in an effort to increase the number of GOP seats.

A GOP Trump endorsee and a Democratic ex-Navy pilot vie for NJ governor’s seat

New Jersey voters are electing their next governor Tuesday in a race that will reveal whether Democrats maintain their grip on a state that has been reliably blue but has shown signs of shifting toward Republicans in recent years.

Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator endorsed by President Donald Trump, is trying to become New Jersey’s first Republican governor since 2018. He faces U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat in her fourth term in Congress who would become the state’s second female governor if elected.

The outcome could gauge how the electorate is responding to Trump’s policies and whether some groups of core Democratic Party voters still have faith in the party’s leadership.