The following stub of the article, “Can These Two Women Turn It Around for Democrats?” by Thomas B. Edsall, is cross-posted from The New York Times:

One thing is clear: If either Mikie Sherrill or Abigail Spanberger loses her bid to become governor in November, the Democratic Party is in trouble heading into the 2026 congressional elections. Both Democratic nominees would appear to be ideally suited to capture majorities in the centrist electorates of New Jersey and Virginia.

Sherrill and Spanberger, both elected to Congress in 2018, are moderates, even if they don’t always appear to be on the campaign trail. Together with their fellow Democrats Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Elaine Luria of Virginia, the four were known in the House of Representatives as the mod squad, in contrast to the group of very progressive members of Congress aligned with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez known simply as the squad. Other nicknames for the mod squad included the badasses caucus and, in more formal recognition of their military, security and C.I.A. backgrounds, task force sentry.

Sherrill and Spanberger have relatively unusual resumés for contemporary Democrats: Sherrill as a Naval Academy graduate, helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor; Spanberger as a postal inspector and C.I.A. officer.

Recent polls show Sherrill leading her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, a former member of the New Jersey General Assembly who lost a bid for governor in 2021, by a cumulative average of four percentage points, with the race tightening recently. Spanberger is ahead of Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee and Virginia’s lieutenant governor, by 6.2 points.

While both Democrats are ahead, Republicans have been making gains in New Jersey and Virginia, and each candidate faces what would ordinarily seem to be majority electorates whose commitment to the party has frayed since the 2024 election.

“Both gubernatorial contests are tests of the brand that Democrats believe is best suited for their comeback,” Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia and editor in chief of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, wrote by email:

The brand Democrats are selling this year is moderate-liberal, national security-experienced politicians who are known more for policy preferences than fiery rhetoric. No Mamdani-like nominee in either state. If this centrist brand can’t sell well in two modestly Democratic states when a G.O.P. polarizer like Trump is in the White House, then Democrats will have to move on to some other brand for 2026.

Given an unsteady, probably declining economy and Trump’s divisiveness, with strong Democratic distaste for almost everything associated with this administration, the Democratic nominees ought to be elected handily. To me a solid victory is upper single digits or low double digits (though the latter may be expecting too much).

In addition to testing voters’ perception of the Democratic Party, which remains deeply negative despite growing disapproval of President Trump, the two contests for governor will test the enthusiasm of the MAGA electorate. White working-class voters turned out in strength in both states in the 2021 governors’ races and in the 2024 presidential contest, sending a wave of anxiety through the ranks of party leaders and strategists.

Read more here.