Statewide, both states swung significantly from the Democrats’ easy victories in the 2017 gubernatorial races: an 11.3-point swing in Virginia, and a 12.7-point swing in New Jersey. Bear in mind that I use “swing” here to compare the margins of victory: Thus, a swing from a five-point win to a five-point loss is ten points, although that actually represents just 5 percent of the electorate switching sides.

Of course, a partisan reaction against the party holding the White House has been a longtime trend in New Jersey, and an extremely pronounced one in Virginia, where McAuliffe’s victory in 2013 was the only time since 1973 that the party holding the White House won the gubernatorial race in Virginia.

As you can see from this chart, the partisan swing of Virginia against the party in the White House was comparatively muted in 2013 and 2017; the 12.5-point swing in 2021 from the state’s own presidential vote was typical of the double-digit swings in every race between 1977 and 2009.

New Jersey’s swing against the party in power — 14.5 points this year — was actually muted in 2017, with Murphy merely duplicating Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory against Donald Trump. That was also true during the George W. Bush years. The state has tended to react more strongly against Democratic presidents in the post-Reagan era, with double-digit swings against the Republicans only once (in 1989) but against the Democrats now four times (1997, 2009, 2013, and 2021). Of course, the unique political talent of pre-Bridgegate Chris Christie made a big difference in the 2009 and 2013 races.