Trump ignores elections as Democrats stumble on the way to likely victories

The Democrats running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia should win easily And yet the races are tighter than the prognosticators had expected Here s why Mikie Sherrill a former Navy officer and ex-prosecutor as well as a sitting congresswoman should clobber Jack Ciattarelli a onetime assemblyman who has already run twice and lost Since I began my career at a New Jersey newspaper I can tell you that the Garden State has never been as solidly blue as it is now SHERRILL PULLS OUT ALL STOPS WITH OBAMA ENDORSEMENT STAR-STUDDED NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN PUSH AS RACE TIGHTENSOne matter that Sherrill faces is that outgoing governor Phil Murphy is extremely unpopular and voters tend not to reward the party in power when they re ticked off And then there s the Trump factor which hangs over Tuesday s races like a storm cloud While Ciattarelli called Trump a charlatan in they ve since made up and the president has endorsed him In he voted against a bill legalizing same-sex marriage but has since flipped his position Sherrill is doing everything she can to make the balloting about Trump She pounds away at the president knowing full well that Ciattarelli can t separate himself from the Trump agenda on any issue without potentially triggering his anger What s more Trump canceled a billion tunnel between New Jersey and New York That is poison among North Jersey commuters Throw in a month-long executive shutdown and the weekend s suspension of SNAP food benefits and you ve got a perfect storm for Sherrill But with Ciattarelli campaigning in minority communities it s just not going to be a cakewalk TRUMP STUMPS FOR ENTIRE VIRGINIA GOP TICKET WHILE YET TO FORMALLY ENDORSE EARLE-SEARSIn Virginia Rep Abigail Spanberger a former CIA officer would ordinarily be rolling to preeminence against Lt Gov Winsome Earle-Sears the first Black woman to win a statewide race Trump has not endorsed her But Spanberger has displayed a distinct lack of courage and that s hurt her The Democrat running for attorney general Jay Jones is widely viewed as a disgrace He texted a colleague that he had two bullets for the then-speaker of the House of Delegates Todd Gilbert Oh and he d like to see his children die Spanberger could have insisted that he bow out of the race that this was absolutely appalling behavior But she didn t She still backs Jay Jones That made her look like just another self-serving political hack The press has largely given Spanberger a pass making it into a one- or two-day story before moving on But Earle-Sears a combat veteran has thrown preponderance of her advertising budget at this one issue while also playing up the trans women in men s sports conflict Spanberger is running against the Trump financial market as a way of playing up the affordability issue in the commonwealth She casts the Trump tariffs as a massive tax hike on Virginians Virginia is not as blue as New Jersey but the northern suburbs certainly are a place where untold numbers of federal workers have been fired or aren t getting paid during the shutdown Spanberger is trying to convert selected Trump voters in rural areas But as former senator Joe Manchin notified Politico If you have a D by your name in rural America grassroots rural religious America they re going to lose no matter how they try to switch Spanberger is still on track to win by double digits in a state won by Kamala Harris so she seems to have ridden out the storm NEW POLL IN KEY SHOWDOWN FOR VIRGINIA GOVERNOR INDICATES SINGLE-DIGIT RACETrump who has been consumed by foreign advance and mediating wars has paid little attention to this week s elections publicly at least He has not campaigned for anyone in person during the final stretch It s as though he knows he has a losing hand probable losses in left-leaning states and doesn t want to be associated with the outcome Barack Obama the de facto champion of the leaderless Democrats campaigned for Spanberger and Sherrill on Saturday That brings us to New York City and its toxic melting pot heavily ethnic punch-in-the-nose brand of politics Here Trump is playing a role by constantly denouncing Zohran Mamdani the front-runner who would be the city s first Muslim mayor as a communist The Republicans are already running against Mamdani the self-proclaimed socialist He is a gift from the political gods They are making him the face of the Democratic Party Andrew Cuomo who learned politics from his father Mario when I first met him was outhustled by Mamdani The polls are suddenly tightening but the charismatic Mamdani is still likely to win largely because Republican Curtis Sliwa the former Guardian Angel who has no chance refuses to drop out The hard-edged Cuomo is hardly an ideal candidate He was forced to resign as governor four years ago after a torrent of sexual harassment claims which he denies SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST A RIFF ON THE DAY'S HOTTEST STORIESHakeem Jeffries in the end gave Mamdani a lukewarm endorsement despite the fact that he doesn t recognize Israel s right to exist as a Jewish state because he s the expected winner If that happens Mamdani won t be able to deliver on the greater part of his promises for free goods and services because he ll need help from Albany and other power centers And that will be hung around the neck of every Democrat running in places far less liberal than the five boroughs The Republicans will make sure that Mamdani is the bulk famous Democrat in the country the symbol fairly or not of a far-left party Off-year elections are usually a snooze testing turnout when the incumbent president isn t on the ballot But this one has more twists and turns than the L A Dodgers hanging on by their fingernails to beat the Toronto Blue Jays