Key off-year elections dominated by Trump, ongoing cost-of-living concerns

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Closely watched off-year elections in several states will offer the first major opportunity for voters to weigh in at the ballot box since President Donald Trump began his second term — with cost-of-living, an area of Catholic social concern, once more playing a role.

The elections — statewide races in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as the New York City mayoral race and the California redistricting referendum — will also come the same day the federal government shutdown will break a record for the longest shutdown, if it is not ended before then.

John White, a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, told OSV News that although Trump is not on the ballot, the races, particularly Virginia’s gubernatorial race, have largely become a referendum on the president.

Virginia Governor candidates Republican Winsome Earle-Sears and Democrat Abigail Spanberger are pictured in a combination photo. (OSV News photo/Hannah McKay/Leah Millis, Reuters)

“On the Democratic side, Abigail Spanberger is offering herself as an alternative to Trump,” he said. “Trump is extremely unpopular in Virginia and the layoffs of government employees since the start of his term have only made him more unpopular. The Republican candidate, Winsome Earle-Sears, is running a campaign along the Trump 2024 model: focusing on cultural issues,” such as gender policy and abortion.

Both White and Kenneth Craycraft, a professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology in Cincinnati and author of “Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America,” also noted that a scandal surrounding text messages sent by the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general, Jay Jones, has had an impact on the Virginia elections. Jones’ messages contained violent rhetoric toward Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert, saying Gilbert should get “two bullets to the head.”

“Those messages are appalling and disgusting,” White said, adding they have given the campaign of the Republican candidate, Jason Miyares, “a new lease on life.”

Spanberger condemned the messages, but stopped short of calling on Jones to exit the race, Craycraft noted. Polls suggest that Jones is trailing his Democratic counterparts.

White said, “Jones seems to be a classic case of political suicide, but we will know that for sure on Election Day.” He noted that should Spanberger win and Jones lose, Virginia would differ from other Democratic-led states in joining blue state lawsuits against the Trump administration.

In New Jersey, Republican businessman Jack Ciattarelli and Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill are polling neck-and-neck.

White cited cost-of-living issues — an area of concern for Catholic social teaching connected to a preferential love for the poor — as one that seems to be motivating voters.

“Both these gubernatorial races and the NYC mayoral race are focused on the issues of affordability,” he said. “The lesson from Zohran Mamdani is voters want to be heard and want candidates to focus on the issues that bother them most. It’s always the consumer who is right — in this case, the voters. In Mamdani’s case, democratic socialism is secondary to what the voters want.”

According to the U.S. affiliate of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice foundation, which was established by Pope St. John Paul II to promote and defend the church’s social doctrine, the impact of inflation is an issue of justice for wage earners, particularly “the poor whose incomes fail to keep up with rising prices,” and so demands “the government focus on inflation as it harms the least among us most.”

Craycraft said while “off-year elections have been a barometer of current sentiment,” they are not “a predictor of the next national elections.”

He also noted that candidates in both parties have taken some policy positions at odds with Catholic teaching.

For example, Spanberger has sought to expand access to abortion and physician-assisted suicide, while Earle-Sears has stated her support for the death penalty.

“We Catholics should see this election, yet again, as evidence that we must orient our own political and policy positions outside the left/right continuum of American liberalism,” Craycraft said.

“Both conservative and progressive liberals advocate policies and positions that cannot be squared with Catholic moral life,” he said. “We can hold our noses only so long before we suffocate from the extreme partisanship of the major parties.”

Election day is Nov. 4.