Virginia, New Jersey governor races both hit by October surprises

With Election Day 2025 fast approaching, only two states holding showdowns for governor this year have been rocked by October surprises.

In Virginia, explosive revelations that the GOP is aiming to gain an advantage up and down the ballot in Virginia’s attorney general race have shaken up the governor’s race, forcing Democratic Party candidate former Rep. Abigail Spanberger to return to the defensive in a race where most polls show her with a lead over her Republican rival, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

And in New Jersey, just weeks after the controversy over Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s Naval Academy admissions sent shockwaves through his gubernatorial fight with Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, the race was shaken up again last week following allegations that Ciattarelli was “complicit” with pharmaceutical companies in the opioid deaths of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans.

Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states to hold gubernatorial showdowns the year after a presidential election, and the contests traditionally attract great attention and are viewed as political barometers ahead of the following year’s midterm elections.

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Here’s the situation in both races with three weeks until Election Day.

Virginia

Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general, has been in crisis mode since his controversial texts were first reported by National Review a week and a half ago.

Jones apologized for messages he sent in 2022 in which he likened then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert to mass murderers Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot, adding that if he were given two bullets, he would use them both against the GOP lawmaker, shooting him in the head.

But he faces calls from Republicans to drop out of the race.

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Earle-Sears did not waste the opportunity to connect Spanberger to Jones.

During last week’s chaotic and lone gubernatorial debate in which Earle-Sears repeatedly interrupted Spanberger, the GOP gubernatorial candidate called on his Democratic rival to tell Jones to terminate his tenure as attorney general.

“The comments Jay Jones made are absolutely disgusting,” Spanberger said during the debate. But he neither confirmed nor retracted his support for Jones.

Earle-Sears kept up the pressure.

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

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

But a prominent Virginia-based political scientist is unsure whether this debate will be enough for Earle-Sears to close the gap on Spanberger.

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

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

“Early voting is unorthodox. I think the race is kind of heating up right now,” he said.

However, with the Virginia attorney general debate planned for this weekend, it is certain that the excitement about the texts will remain on the political agenda 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 opioid epidemic in the Garden State and accused Ciattarelli of “seeking ways to help people access the drugs that kill them” through his ties to medication-assisted education programs.

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

“I think we’ve established that Jack was complicit and in cahoots with these opioid companies,” Sherrill said.

Sherrill first made her allegations that Ciattarelli contributed to the opioid epidemic during last week’s second and final gubernatorial debate.

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

“With everything he said about my professional career, he gave me this: [for] My family, this is a lie. I’m proud of my career,” Ciattarelli responded during the debate.

And Ciattarelli’s campaign responded the day after the debate by promising to sue Sherrill for defamation.

On Monday, Ciattarelli claimed Sherrill was “lying left and right about me” during a campaign visit.

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

Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and certified public accountant who founded a medical publishing company before entering politics and winning election as a state lawmaker, is running for a third consecutive term for governor of New Jersey. He drew national attention four years ago as the Democratic Gov. came close to upsetting Phil Murphy.

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

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

The race in New Jersey was rocked three weeks ago by a report from the National Personnel Records Center, a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, that Sherrill had mistakenly disclosed improperly redacted military personnel files containing private information such as Social Security numbers to an ally of Ciattarelli.

But Sherrill’s military records show that a cheating scandal that rocked the U.S. Naval Academy three decades ago prevented him from attending the United States Naval Academy’s 1994 graduation.

Sherrill claimed he went on a “witch hunt” to raise questions about Ciattarelli’s possible involvement in the cheating scandal.

Ciattarelli and his campaign have repeatedly called on Sherrill, who piloted a helicopter throughout his military career after graduating from the Naval Academy, to release his military records to explain why he was prevented from attending the graduation ceremony.

And Sherrill, his campaign and allies called for an investigation into the improper release of his records and accused the Ciattrelli campaign of “violating the law by attacking a veteran.”

Despite the viral moments in the Ciattarelli-Sherrill matchup over the past few weeks, “we haven’t seen major shifts in this race,” said Dan Cassino, polling director at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

While most polls show Sherrill with a single-digit advantage, some polls suggest the race is a dead heat.

Cassino noted that Sherrill’s latest accusations dissuaded 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 is expected to be low. People aren’t paying attention. Turnout is normally pretty low in New Jersey elections. We expect it to be very low this time.”