Abigail Spanberger wins Virginia governor’s race, AP projects
The Associated Press projects Democrat Abigail Spanberger has won the Virginia governor’s race, defeating Republican Winsome Earle-Sears.
It’s a lightning-fast call in the closely watched race as polls closed just over an hour ago.
All 100 of the seats in Virginia’s House of Delegates are also up for grabs tonight. Democrats currently hold a 51-48 majority in the chamber.
Virginians cast more than 1.1m early in-person votes and nearly 330,000 mail-in ballots before election day, according to AP tallies.
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Yemeni cafes and beer gardens across Astoria, a neighborhood in Queens, are at capacity as New Yorkers await the results of Tuesday’s mayoral election.
Long lines formed outside of Ayat, a Palestinian bistro that just opened a location in Astoria, that was holding a free community dinner in honor of Mamdani.
ShareAdam Gabbatt
I’m at Andrew Cuomo’s election night watch party, at the Ziegeld Ballroom in midtown Manhattan. In its own words, Ziegfeld Ballroom is a “luxury event venue built on Broadway’s golden era”. I do not know what that means.
There are no supporters here yet – they’re due to arrive at 8.30pm. They will be greeted by two bars. I have just confirmed that the booze is free. There are circular tables dotted around the edge of the room, each clad in a long black table cloth, and each with three lit candles in the middle. It’s like they’re preparing for a mass seance.
When I arrived the song Sending Out An SOS was playing. Is the campaign sending out secret messages through music? If it is, the messages are confusing: Blame It on the Boogie was on next.
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Polls close in slate of states with closely watched races, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania
It’s just after 8pm eastern time, meaning polls have now closed across many states, including New Jersey, where a tight race for governor is under way, and Pennsylvania.
Polls are also now closed in Georgia, Maine and Michigan, and for one race in Texas to fill the seat of the late congressman Sylvester Turner.
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Updated at 20.13 EST
Abigail Spanberger wins Virginia governor’s race, AP projects
The Associated Press projects Democrat Abigail Spanberger has won the Virginia governor’s race, defeating Republican Winsome Earle-Sears.
It’s a lightning-fast call in the closely watched race as polls closed just over an hour ago.
All 100 of the seats in Virginia’s House of Delegates are also up for grabs tonight. Democrats currently hold a 51-48 majority in the chamber.
Virginians cast more than 1.1m early in-person votes and nearly 330,000 mail-in ballots before election day, according to AP tallies.
ShareChris Stein
As we wait for results from the Virginia gubernatorial race:
At Abigail Spanberger’s watch party in downtown Richmond’s convention center, attenders are watching MSNBC’s election coverage, which shows the Democratic gubernatorial candidate outperforming Kamala Harris in many key counties across Virginia.
The crowd just erupted into an enormous cheer when the network announced that Spanberger had won.
The Associated Press, which is what we rely on for race results, still has not called the race.
Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/ShutterstockShare
Updated at 20.04 EST
Anna Betts
The Mamdani election party is just kicking off at the Brooklyn Paramount as the final ballots are cast.
An empty podium stands at the election night watch party for Zohran Mamdani. Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty ImagesShare
New Jersey Democrats file suit to keep polls open an extra hour in county with unfounded bomb threats
Democrats in New Jersey have filed a lawsuit to extend polling for one more hour in Passaic County after multiple unfounded bomb threats earlier today.
The Passaic County Democratic party has asked for polls to be extended until 9pm eastern time, with a court hearing expected on the matter imminently, the AP reports.
The county has 340,000 registered voters. It’s the only county not in California where the Justice Department sent election monitors.
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We’re entering poll closing crunch time over the next few hours, with the final votes coming in for a slate of key races across the country.
At 8pm eastern, polls will close for New Jersey governor, the three Pennsylvania supreme court justices up for retention, as well as mayoral races in Atlanta, Detroit and Pittsburgh.
At 9pm eastern, polls close for the New York City mayoral race.
And at 11pm eastern, California will finish voting on Proposition 50, the effort to draw new congressional districts.
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Polls close in Virginia
Polls have closed in Virginia, where Abigail Spanberger, the former Democratic congresswoman who is the party’s nominee for governor, and the Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, are locked in a competitive race.
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Updated at 19.41 EST
Tuesday is a big night for California’s term-limited governor who has not been coy about his presidential ambitions.
The Republican-Democratic redistricting fight has catapulted Newsom on to the national stage, and observers believe his political fortunes are tied to the success of the initiative. Here’s our dispatch below:
Gavin Newsom, the California governor, is on the verge of a potentially massive political victory that, just a few months ago, didn’t exist.
In August, a group of Texas Democrats fled their state to block Republicans from approving a rare mid-decade gerrymander to redraw congressional districts at Donald Trump’s urging. Altering the maps in the GOP’s favor would make it even harder for Democrats to take back control of Congress in the midterm elections next year. The Texas Democrats hoped their standoff would be a national call to action.
Newsom answered that call. He and his allies raced to introduce a retaliatory gerrymander, pushing the new congressional maps through the state legislature before sending them to the ballot for a high-stakes special election on Tuesday.
“It took a lot of courage for Governor Newsom to actually push for this,” said Texas state representative Nicole Collier, a leader of the Democrats’ summer walkout. “He worked with his delegation and now they’re taking it to the people and that’s what it looks like to be your brother’s keeper.”
Gavin Newsom at a campaign event in San Francisco on Monday. Photograph: Gabrielle Lurie/APShare
Updated at 19.07 EST
Chris Stein
Voters trickled in and out of the main public library branch in Virginia’s state capital Richmond on Tuesday afternoon, with several saying that they view the state’s elections as a way to send a message to leaders in Washington.
“Voting is one of the ways we can comment on the system, and this is how we can say, hey, we want change,” said voter Rich G, 32. He had voted entirely for Democratic candidates, including Abigail Spanberger, the former congresswoman who is the party’s nominee for governor.
“I think when it comes down to it, people are looking for a lot more competency,” he said, noting he’d like to see more state investments in public housing and education.
In addition to the governor’s race, Virginians are voting for lieutenant governor, attorney general, and members of the house of delegates, among other positions.
Miki Edwards, a 30-year-old anesthesiologist, described a feeling of “uncertainty” with the economy and the direction of the state that pushed her to come out and vote.
“It’s hard to invest right now, it’s hard to set money aside,” she said, adding that she didn’t like to travel abroad any more because of how Americans were being viewed.
An independent who had voted for Republicans in the past, she voted only for Democrats today as a way to send a message to Washington.
“I think most of us are hoping that we’re voting for someone that will stand up for their constituents,” she said. “It does seem like a scary time right now.”
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Updated at 18.42 EST
Trump renominates Musk ally to lead Nasa
Donald Trump has announced he is re-nominating Jared Isaacman, an ally of Elon Musk, to head Nasa months after initially pulling his nomination after a “thorough review” of the private astronaut’s “prior associations”.
“This evening, I am pleased to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut, as Administrator of NASA,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, TruthSocial. “Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era.”
Isaacman, a tech billionaire who has led two private spaceflights, was pulled from consideration earlier this year after a fallout with Musk, who had led the White House’s controversial Doge effort to downsize the US government.
At the time, the White House did not specify what it mean by “prior associations,” though there was some suggestion it was a reference to donations he made to Democrats.
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Updated at 18.30 EST
