What’s at stake for Biden and Trump ahead of Tuesday’s elections

As voters in a handful of states head to the polls Tuesday for the 2023 off-year elections, much will be at stake not just for the respective races but also for implications that could affect the 2024 presidential cycle.

Abortion access, a race for the state Supreme Court, and control of state legislatures will be on the ballot in various states on Tuesday, and it could affect President Joe Biden‘s reelection campaign as well as indicate lessons for former President Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign, as he dominates the GOP primary field.

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Chief among the contests is control of Virginia’s 40 state Senate seats and 100 state House seats which Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) is banking on to help enact abortion legislation and other key conservative priorities next year. If Youngkin is successful Tuesday night, it will likely propel him for a future presidential run. Republicans currently control the House of Delegates, which they flipped in 2021, and are hoping to flip the state Senate from Democratic control. Democrats have argued that if Republicans win both chambers, Virginia will lose its status as the last Southern state that hasn’t limited abortion access since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.

Youngkin has championed enacting a 15-week abortion ban, which several 2024 GOP candidates also support, if the GOP does gain control of the legislature. Virginia has long been seen as a bellwether race, and if Youngkin gets his wish of Republicans controlling the state legislature, much will be made about the GOP finding a counternarrative to Democratic attacks on abortion. Depending on black voter turnout in Virginia and elsewhere, there could be more hand-wringing over Biden’s ability to turn out his party’s mostly loyal voting bloc.

Youngkin could face even more pressure to jump into the 2024 race and challenge Trump for the GOP nomination depending on what happens Tuesday. If he did enter the race, the Virginia governor would face a steep climb given that some deadlines to file for primaries and caucuses have already passed. Youngkin has already missed the cutoff dates to appear on the ballot in three early nominating states: Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

But there are some experts who are cautious. “If he has complete control over the legislature, that will spark some conversation about him running in the race next year, but it’s so late now,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “On the other hand, if that happens, it definitely makes him a presidential contender in 2028. It’s no doubt about that.” Bannon also said that if Republicans flip the Senate, it would be by a narrow margin, making it slightly harder to pass the 15-week abortion ban.

Plus, the path to Republicans eking out a win in both chambers may be harder than Youngkin’s 2021 gubernatorial run, other experts warn. “Youngkin’s goal this cycle has been to retain GOP control of the House of Delegates while wrecking Democrats’ ‘brick wall’ in the Senate,” wrote J. Miles Coleman and Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “But to achieve their trifecta, Virginia Republicans will likely have to match — or even exceed — Youngkin’s numbers in an environment that does not appear as favorable as that of 2021.”

In addition to Virginia, two other state legislatures are up for grabs, Mississippi and New Jersey, with Republicans in New Jersey hoping to control at least one chamber. But it will be tough to do.

Although the Garden State is a reliably blue state, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) narrowly won reelection by 3 percentage points in 2021, the same year Youngkin flipped control of the governor’s mansion in Virginia. Republicans are hoping a rough national environment for Democrats can help them claw back power in the state legislature despite Democrats having held control for two decades.

“Basically, the American voters have soured on Joe Biden and the ideological direction of the Democratic Party, especially when it comes to education,” said Ford O’Connell, a Florida-based GOP strategist, citing new polling. “And what’s happening is that American voters are making Democrats aware of that a year ahead of the presidential election.”

Recent New York Times/Siena College polls showed Trump leading Biden in five out of six key battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania — that will determine control of the presidency next year. The polls also offered a warning sign for Biden’s support with black voters, which O’Connell said could help Trump and Kentucky Republican gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron. Almost a quarter, 22%, of black voters in the six battleground states said they would support Trump in next year’s election and 71% said they would support Biden.

“Chances are Trump is not going to get 22% of the African American vote,” said O’Connell. “That said, what they’re telling you straight up is that there’s nothing that is going to change a lot of folks’ minds. They may just stay home, a lot of folks, and then if it becomes about enthusiasm Republicans are in much better shape.”

The Florida strategist pointed to an Emerson College poll of Kentucky voters before the election that showed Cameron and incumbent Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) tied at 47% each. Cameron saw a 14 percentage point increase since the last poll from 33% to 47%. “I think that if Cameron pulls this out in Kentucky, this will be a big moment just because he was so far out and frankly Beshear is one of the more popular Democratic governors,” O’Connell added.

Mississippi’s gubernatorial race between incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) and Democrat Brandon Presley could come down to black voter turnout. Presley is hoping a strong turnout among black voters would help him defeat the unpopular Reeves. However, Reeves has the advantage of Mississippi’s Republican stronghold and incumbency that will likely help him win reelection.

Coleman, the University of Virginia editor, pointed to a recent pattern of Democrats struggling to maximize black voter turnout, citing North Carolina Democrat Cheri Beasley’s 2022 senatorial loss and Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey performing better in some counties with high black populations last year. “Presley has done a better job of, at least trying to reach out to black voters,” Coleman said. Yet, “One of the big electoral trends we’ve seen over the past few cycles are basically Democrats not getting the black turnout that they need in a lot of the South.”

“They’re going to have to really kind of go against the broader trend of kind of weak Democratic turnout in the South,” he added about Presley’s campaign.

Elsewhere, Ohio voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion into the state’s constitution when they vote on the Issue 1 ballot measure, and the results could further show if abortion is still a losing issue for the GOP. The overturning of Roe last year may have been a Republican achievement, but it helped Democrats minimize losses during the 2022 midterm elections.

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Voters will decide on a new Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, and while this won’t tilt the tide of the Democratic-controlled court, abortion is one of the issues that the court could decide on later. Republican Carolyn Carluccio, who is facing off against Democrat Daniel McCaffery, has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and faced attack ads from Planned Parenthood’s political committee.

Bannon, the Democratic strategist, claimed that Tuesday’s results may lead to a murky outlook for 2024.

“What you’re looking for is for one of the two parties to make a clean sweep in all these competitive elections. And if one party makes a clean sweep, then you’re talking about that could be a major indicator of what happens in 2024,” he said. “If it’s kind of spotty and the parties split the competitive races that are on the ballot, that’s more murky of an indicator for what happens in 2024.“