Democrats turned to former president Barack Obama to help deliver their closing pitches on the final Saturday before this year’s elections, while Republicans appealed to voters with President Donald Trump notably absent from the campaign trail. Marquee elections Tuesday include the mayoral election in New York, two gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, and a ballot proposition in California backed by Democrats intended to counter likely Republican gains in House seats as a result of redistricting.
Voters are going to the ballot box one year after Trump was elected to the presidency for a second term. Democrats, who hold the advantage in many of the major races, are hoping the election delivers a decisive rebuke of Trump, whom they criticized on Saturday.
Republicans warned their supporters at campaign stops of what they cast as the dire consequences of losses. Though several candidates face long odds in this offseason election, at least two in prominent races are running close campaigns.
In the New Jersey gubernatorial race, polls show Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli remains narrowly behind his Democratic competitor. In Virginia, Republican Jason Miyares, the incumbent attorney general, has seen a boost in the polls since his Democratic challenger, Jay Jones, was ensnared in a scandal over violent texts he sent two years ago.
2 Democrats make their final pitch with Obama at their side
Obama, who was last in office in 2017, sought to cast Mikie Sherrill, who faces a very tight race in New Jersey, as a governor “who will do the right thing.”
“In a time when our politics feels just so broken, we need leaders like Mikie, public servants who are in it for the right reason,” he said at a rally in Newark.
Obama also criticized Ciattarelli, the Republican in the race, and tied him to the president.
“Donald Trump called Mikie’s opponent ‘100 percent MAGA’ — not a great endorsement,” he said.
Mona Krook, 55, a Sherrill supporter from Spring Lake, New Jersey, said the Newark event was the first political rally she had ever attended.
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