Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races both hit by October surprises

With Election Day 2025 fast approaching, the only two states holding gubernatorial matchups this year have been rocked by October surprises.

In Virginia, explosive revelations in the Virginia attorney general race that the GOP aims to leverage up and down the ballot have upended the gubernatorial race, forcing former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger back on defense in a race where most polls indicated she enjoyed a lead over her Republican rival, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

And in New Jersey, weeks after Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s Naval Academy records controversy sent shockwaves during her gubernatorial battle with Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, the race was rocked again last week after her allegations that Ciattarelli was “complicit” with pharmaceutical companies in the deaths of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans from opioids.

Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states to hold gubernatorial showdowns in the year following a presidential election. These elections traditionally attract outsized attention and are seen as political barometers ahead of the following year’s midterm elections.

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New Jersey and Virginia are the only two states holding gubernatorial elections in 2025. (iStock)

Here’s where things stand in both races with three weeks until Election Day.

Virginia

Democratic candidate Jay Jones, Virginia’s attorney general, has been in crisis since his controversial posts were first reported a week and a half ago by National Review.

Jones acknowledged and apologized for texts he sent in 2022, when he compared then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert to mass murderers Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot, adding that if he were shot twice, he would use both against the Republican lawmaker to shoot him in the head.

But he faces a chorus of calls from Republicans to withdraw from the race.

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Earle-Sears didn’t waste an opportunity to link Spanberger to Jones.

And during last week’s chaotic and unique gubernatorial debate, during which Earle-Sears repeatedly interrupted Spanberger, the Republican gubernatorial candidate called on her Democratic rival to tell Jones to end his bid for attorney general.

“Jay Jones’ comments are absolutely abhorrent,” Spanberger said during the debate. But she neither affirmed nor withdrew her support for Jones.

Earle-Sears kept the pressure on.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, left, and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, faced off last week in the only debate before next month’s election. (Pool/Getty Images)

“Abigail Spanberger should have been the first to call for Jay Jones’ resignation. Instead, she doubled down, because deep down, she agrees with what he said,” Earle-Sears argued Monday in a social media post.

But a prominent Virginia-based political scientist isn’t sure the controversy will be enough for Earle-Sears to close the gap with Spanberger.

“It definitely woke everyone up and made Spanberger take a stand,” David Richards, chair of political science at the University of Lynchburg, told Fox News. “That might hurt him a little.”

But Richards noted that the story broke well after early voting began in Virginia.

“The early voting was off the charts. I think the race is kind of cooked right now,” he said.

But with Virginia’s attorney general’s debate scheduled for later this week, the furore over the texts is sure to remain in the political spotlight for a while longer.

New Jersey

Sherrill on Monday doubled down on his claim that Ciattarelli was “complicit” with opioid companies in the deaths of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans.

Sherrill spoke at a news conference about the Garden State’s opioid epidemic, accusing Ciattarelli of “looking for ways to help people access the drugs that were killing them” through his ties to pharmaceutical industry-backed training programs.

“So you heard it, Jack made millions,” she said. “Opioid companies made billions and thousands of New Jerseyans were dying.”

“I think we presented the argument that Jack is complicit with these opioid companies, in league with these opioid companies,” Sherrill said.

Sherrill first claimed Ciattarelli contributed to the opioid epidemic during last week’s second and final gubernatorial debate.

New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill, right, and Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, on stage at the start of their second and final debate October 8, 2025 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News Digital)

“As for everything she just said about my professional career supporting my family, that’s a lie. I’m proud of my career,” Ciattarelli responded during the debate.

And Ciattarelli’s campaign fired back the day after the debate, pledging to file a defamation suit against Sherrill.

On Monday, Ciattarelli charged during a campaign stop that Sherrill had “lied about me left and right.”

And Chris Russell, chief strategist for the Ciattarelli campaign, said in a statement that if Sherrill “had any decency, she would retract her slanderous comments and apologize.”

Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and certified public accountant who started a medical publishing company before entering politics and winning election as a state lawmaker, is making his third consecutive campaign for governor of New Jersey. Four years ago, he gained national attention as he came close to antagonizing Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

It was during his 2021 campaign that Ciattarelli’s ties to opioid manufacturers first surfaced. Ciattarelli sold his company, which published content promoting the use of opioids as a low-risk treatment for chronic pain, in 2017.

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At a post-debate press conference last week, Ciattarelli claimed that Sherrill’s attack was “a desperate tactic by a desperate campaign on behalf of a desperate candidate.”

The race in New Jersey was rocked three weeks ago by a report that the National Personnel Records Center, which is a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, mistakenly disclosed Sherrill’s improperly redacted military personnel records, which included private information like his Social Security number, to a Ciattarelli ally.

But Sherrill’s military records indicate the U.S. Naval Academy barred her from participating in her graduation in 1994, amid a cheating scandal that rocked the U.S. Naval Academy three decades ago.

Sherrill claimed Ciattarelli was embarking on a “witch hunt” to raise questions about his possible involvement in the cheating scandal.

Ciattarelli and his campaign have repeatedly asked Sherrill, who later flew helicopters during her military career after graduating from the Naval Academy, to release her military records to explain why she was not allowed to attend her graduation ceremony.

And Sherrill, her campaign and allies have called for an investigation into the improper disclosure of her records and accused the Ciattrelli campaign “of breaking the law by attacking a veteran.”

Despite viral moments in recent weeks during the Ciattarelli-Sherrill matchup, Fairleigh Dickinson University polling director Dan Cassino said “we haven’t seen big changes in this race.”

Most polls indicate Sherrill holds a single-digit advantage, with some polls suggesting the race is a stalemate.

Cassino noted that Sherrill’s latest accusations seemed to distance Ciattarelli from his message. “This is not what they want to talk about three weeks before the election,” he said.

And Cassino predicted that “turnout in the race should be low. People don’t pay attention to it. Turnout in New Jersey elections is normally pretty low. We expect it to be abysmally low this time.”