Democrat Abigail Spanberger won Virginia's election for governor on Tuesday, the first of several contests that will serve as an early gauge of how Americans are responding to President Donald Trump's tumultuous nine months in office.

Spanberger, 46, a former congresswoman and CIA officer, will be the first woman to serve as Virginia's governor after easily defeating Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey's gubernatorial contest, Decision Desk HQ, a nonpartisan forecaster, projected that Democrat Mikie Sherrill would defeat Republican Jack Ciattarelli. Other news outlets had yet to name a winner.

Across the river in New York City's mayoral race, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, faced 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who ran as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the primary. The campaign laid bare the Democratic Party's generational and ideological divides as it seeks to rehabilitate its damaged brand.

In California, voters were deciding whether to give Democratic lawmakers the power to redraw the state's congressional map, expanding a national battle over redistricting that could determine which party controls the US House of Representatives after next year's midterm elections.

Democrats were watching Tuesday's results carefully, with the party locked out of power in Washington and struggling to find consensus on the best way to oppose Trump, a Republican, and find a path out of the political wilderness.

Spanberger will succeed outgoing Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who could not run for consecutive terms under state law. Her campaign combined an emphasis on lowering the high cost of living with plenty of criticisms of Trump, whose assault on the federal bureaucracy has had an outsized impact in Virginia, adjacent to Washington and home to many government workers.

Turnout appeared high across the board.

In New York City, nearly 1.75 million ballots including early voting had been cast as of 6 pm local time, according to the board of elections, the most in a mayoral race in more than three decades. Early vote totals in Virginia and New Jersey also outpaced the previous elections in 2021.

The New Jersey race was the most hotly contested campaign, with the contest shattering spending records after both national parties poured millions of dollars into advertising.

In New York, Mamdani, who was a little-known lawmaker in New York's state legislature before his surprising rise, has led by double digits over Cuomo, with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, 71, a distant third in most opinion polls.

California's ballot measure, Proposition 50, which would install a new Democratic-backed congressional map that aims to flip five Republican seats in response to a similar move by Texas, was also widely expected to pass. (Reuters)