Off-year gubernatorial elections are often treated as major bellwethers for the next presidential or midterm elections. So there’s a lot of interest in this year’s contests in New Jersey and Virginia. Both states have leaned Democratic at the presidential level in recent years; Republicans last carried Virginia in 2004 and haven’t won New Jersey since 1988. But both states also have a recent history of swinging against the party controlling the White House in gubernatorial contests. The non–White House party has carried 11 of the past 12 governor’s races in Virginia and eight of the past nine in New Jersey. The exceptional winners were Democrats Terry McAuliffe in Virginia in 2013 and Phil Murphy in New Jersey just four years ago.

These states are not totally alike even though they of

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