What Virginia and New Jersey reveal about 2018 elections

The midterm elections are more than one year away. But in one week, two gubernatorial races will give us an early window on how both parties will do when a third of the Senate and all 435 House seats are up for election in 2018.

Elections in Virginia and New Jersey don't always foreshadow the midterm results. But you can find examples in which they have, dating back to at least 1993. That year, Virginia's George Allen and New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman ran as tough-on-crime tax cutters who supported welfare reform and won. A year later, Republicans took control of both houses of Congress, including their first House majority in 40 years.

This year, Virginia has more of a potential to be a bellwether than New Jersey. It has become a battleground state at the presidential level, and control of the governorship has swung back and forth between the parties. And Virginia is the more competitive of the two contests this year.

Now, after months of being overshadowed by a series of special elections, the Virginia governor's race has finally taken center stage. And the battle for Richmond could offer a treasure trove of clues to 2018 and how it might unfold, far beyond anything revealed in the specials.

Those contests were held on thoroughly Republican turf, and with electorates that were politically, demographically, and geographically homogenous. The outcomes rested on only a few variables.