FDL Review

The clean Democratic sweep in the 2025 elections came as no surprise to FDL Review: On November 3, we correctly predicted that Democrats would win the races for New Jersey governor and for Virginia governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. But we underestimated Democrats’ performance by an average of 6.25 percentage points. This article assesses where we went right and wrong in our 2025 predictions, concluding with recommendations for how Republicans can fare better in 2026. New Jersey: Our model predicted that Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill would defeat Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli by 2.55 percentage points. Current results show that we were directionally correct but that we underestimated the magnitude of Sherrill’s win by 10.96 points—the single worst error in FDL modeling history. Two factors contributed to our Garden State blunder. First, the governor-elect massively outperformed pre-election polls. Bad polling is nothing new for New Jersey, which a recent W...

Two Democratic-leaning states—New Jersey and Virginia—are holding statewide elections in 2025. The FDL Review election model predicts that Democrats will sweep these elections, retaining the governorship of New Jersey and flipping the governorship, lieutenant governorship, and attorney generalship of Virginia. The races for New Jersey governor and Virginia attorney general are, however, exceedingly close. Our model considers public polling (adjusted for past accuracy), state fundamentals, and voter enthusiasm for each candidate. New Jersey: Our model predicts that Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill will narrowly defeat Republican former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli in the Garden State’s gubernatorial race, winning by 2.55 percentage points. Boosting Sherrill’s chances of victory, New Jersey’s fundamentals favor Democrats. It is a solidly blue state where 38% of voters are Democrats and only 25% are Republicans. Indeed, it last elected a GOP governor in 2013 and hasn’t voted for ...