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On November 4, 2025, New Jersey and Virginia will be electing new governors. Republicans' chances of victory in those races are particularly slim given Trump's dismal approval ratings.

That's according to Decision Desk HQ's Jeffrey Skelley, who told The New Republic (TNR) on Tuesday that Trump's influence on both races wasn't doing Republicans any favors. Skelley told TNR's Perry Bacon that New Jersey Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli was in a particularly tough bind after seeking and winning Trump's endorsement in the GOP primary, and he currently trails Democratic candidate Mikie Sherrill by anywhere from four to eight percentage points.

"[Y]ou’ve got Donald Trump in the White House — he’s not terribly popular in New Jersey," Skelley said. "And given the sort of backlash we tend to see in elections after the presidential race Sherrill has a lot of the environmental factors going for her right now."

Skelley observed that in a typical election, Ciattarelli would be in a much better position to win given that he's running against an unpopular incumbent party, with term-limited Governor Phil Murphy (D) leaving office in 2025. And he reminded Bacon that Ciattarelli nearly won against Murphy, with Murphy only winning reelection in 2021 by three percentage points. But Skelley said that Trump's second term has soured the electorate against Republicans. Trump has also injected himself in the race, joining a tele-rally for Ciattarelli last week in which he heaped insults on Sherrill.

"I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sherrill’s allies at the Democratic Governors Association have run an ad, for instance, that said Ciattarelli wants to be ‘Trump in Trenton,'" Skelley said. "So it’s a very clear effort here by Democrats to try to connect Ciattarelli to Trump as much as possible."

In Virginia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger is leading Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears by eight to 10 points. Earle-Sears, who is the incumbent lieutenant governor, has run a campaign with rhetoric aimed at Trump's MAGA base. Even though Virginia has an incumbent Republican governor (who is unable to run for a second consecutive term under the Virginia constitution) Skelley said that it would be "very surprising" if Republicans prevailed in the Old Dominion State, and that Republicans' fate in Richmond was sealed after last November.

"[Earle-Sears] may have just lost the day that Trump won the presidency," Skelley said.

Click here to read the full interview between Bacon and Skelley in the New Republic.