Takeaways from Tuesday's elections: Bad omens for Democrats  —  The off-year elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey tend to receive outsize attention, and the results are mined for deeper meaning about what they portend for the midterm elections the following year that determine which party controls Congress.

Virginia Results: Giving Up on Rural America Is Proving a Nightmare for Democrats  —  Margins matter.  —  About a year ago I wrote about the big “trade” that had taken place in our politics.  Democrats were picking up former Republican “red dogs” who live in the suburbs.

How McAuliffe Lost Virginia  —  An uninspiring candidate with no big ideas and terrible messaging.  —  Going into the 2021 gubernatorial election in Virginia, a state that Joe Biden won by ten points, former governor Terry McAuliffe likely reasoned that he had a good chance of repeating his remarkable feat from eight years earlier:

POLITICO Playbook: Let the Democratic freakout begin  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  THE NAIL BITER — New Jersey's gubernatorial race is still too close to call as you wake up this morning.  With 88% of the expected vote in, incumbent PHIL MURPHY is trailing Republican JACK CIATTARELLI by just over 1,000 votes.

U.S. Blacklists Israeli Cyberarms Firms NSO, Candiru for Harming ‘National Security and Interests’  —  NSO Group and Candiru developed and supplied spyware ‘to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers,’ the U.S. Commerce Department said in a statement

Dem disaster: Did they lose ... *New Jersey*?  —  Joe Biden won New Jersey by sixteen points one year ago.  Polls had incumbent Democrat governor Phil Murphy ahead outside the margin of error.  Challenger Jack Ciattarelli jumped out to a lead in early vote counting, but everyone knew Murphy …