It’s Election Day, again. As Americans around the country head to the polls, our writers and editors share what they’ll be watching closely. Plus:

This year is an off-cycle election, so it’s sapped of some of the drama. Still, plenty of interesting races will be decided today, and the results could hold clues to the country’s political future. We asked seven editors and writers to tell us what they’ll be watching closely tonight—a theme, a race, or a particular moment—as the results come in.

1. Looking for the next Democratic leaders

Every pressing question about the Democrats hinges on who their next generation of leaders will be. It has taken an excruciatingly long time for them to emerge. But on Tuesday, three new candidates are getting their auditions. Abigail Spanberger is running for governor in Virginia; Mikie Sherrill is the nominee for governor in New Jersey; and Zohran Mamdani has led in polling in the race for mayor in New York City. They suggest different versions of the Party’s future. Spanberger is a former C.I.A. officer and Sherrill is a military veteran; both are moderates. Mamdani, on the other hand, got into politics because he was inspired by Bernie Sanders. Can they win, and, if so, how much of a coalition can each pull behind them? What will they say in their victory (or concession) speeches? For the Democrats, it’s out with the old and (however belatedly) in with the new.

— Benjamin Wallace-Wells, staff writer covering politics and society

2. Zohran Mamdani’s Election Night speech

I’ll be at Mamdani’s Election Night party in New York City. If he wins, as he’s expected to, I’ll be watching for how he frames this political moment in his speech, and how in particular he addresses the powerful and well-financed factions in city politics that did not support him. The end of the campaign was ugly. Mamdani was slimed as a communist, a jihadist, an outsider. Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo laughed along with a radio host who said that Mamdani would cheer if there were another 9/11. How does Mamdani turn the page, and turn toward governing a city where, even if he wins big on Tuesday, with the other candidates splitting the votes, most people won’t have voted for him.

— Eric Lach, staff writer who profiled Mamdani earlier this year

3. The Virginia governor’s race

How early will the race be called? Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic former congresswoman, is expected to win fairly easily. Virginia gubernatorial elections are usually legible as responses to the previous year’s race for the White House; only once in the past half century has the President’s party won the governor’s mansion in Richmond. I’ll be watching for the size of Spanberger’s margins in northern Virginia and in Hampton Roads, where huge numbers of federal workers and contractors have lost work thanks to the Trump Administration. (I will also be keeping an eye on a much more competitive contest down the ballot: the attorney-general race, featuring the Democrat Jay Jones, who was found to have sent text messages in 2022 advocating violence against a Republican former colleague.)

— Gabriel Debenedetti, a reporter who recently wrote about Spanberger

4. The New Jersey governor’s race

In 2024, Donald Trump lost New Jersey by less than six points. It was the closest a Republican Presidential candidate has come to winning the state in decades. This year’s race for the state’s highest office could tell us whether that rightward shift has held since the President took office. The contest between the Democrat Mikie Sherrill and the Republican Jack Ciattarelli has gotten closer in the lead-up to Election Day, with Sherrill leading in most polls by less than ten points. The Democrats have sent some of their biggest names, including Barack Obama, to stump for Sherrill in the race’s final days. And, on social media, Trump has called Ciattarelli a “good man” who “WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.” Sherrill has been running with a decidedly anti-Trump message, and her performance tonight might reveal how effective that strategy is nine months into a second Trump Presidency.