By Adrienne Vogt, Aditi Sangal, Melissa Mahtani, Melissa Macaya and Meg Wagner, CNN
From CNN's Dan Merica
Democrat Terry McAuliffe conceded the Virginia gubernatorial contest to Republican Glenn Youngkin on Wednesday morning.
"Congratulations to Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin on his victory. I hope Virginians will join me in wishing the best to him and his family,” McAuliffe said in a statement.
From CNN's MJ Lee
The morning after election day, New Jersey's Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has taken a narrow lead over his GOP opponent Jack Ciattarelli — and Murphy’s team says they expect to hold on to that lead until the moment the race is called for them.
“We don’t think that will flip again,” a Murphy adviser tells CNN.
They’ve been watching more returns get processed overnight and into the morning, and say they expect the majority of the outstanding votes to favor them. But they don’t have a great guess as to how quickly those remaining votes will be uploaded into the system, and whether we’re talking about minutes or hours.
The adviser billed the current moment as a “waiting game.”
One reminder of how much closer this race has been than the Murphy camp had hoped — it was around midnight last night that one Murphy aide was predicting that they would take the lead over Ciattarelli soon.
From CNN's Chandelis Duster, Lauren Dezenski and Rachel Janfaza
A number of candidates made history on election night Tuesday. Here's what you need to know about their historic wins:
Virginia lieutenant governor
CNN projects Winsome Sears to be Virginia's lieutenant governor, making her the first female and the first woman of color in the office in the commonwealth's 400-year legislative history.
"It's a historic night — yes, it is — but I didn't run to make history. I just wanted to leave it better than I found it," Sears said before a crowd of supporters early Wednesday morning.
A conservative Republican, Sears will serve alongside Republican Glenn Youngkin, whom CNN projected would win the Virginia gubernatorial race.
Sears, who was born in Jamaica, is the first Black Republican woman to be elected to the Virginia General Assembly.
Boston mayor
CNN projects Michelle Wu to be Boston's next mayor. She'll be the first woman and person of color elected to the top post in the city's history.
"From every corner of our city, Boston has spoken. We are ready to meet this moment. We are ready to become a Boston for everyone," Wu said to a crowd of supporters Tuesday night. "I want to be clear, it wasn't my vision on the ballot, it was ours, together."
City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, also a woman of color, conceded the Boston mayoral race with a large share of the vote still waiting to be counted.
From the beginning, this election was a remarkable departure from Boston's history. Uncontested mayoral races, where there is no incumbent seeking reelection, are hard to come by in Boston and often draw crowded primaries in the Democrat-heavy city. And in this year's unaffiliated primary, every serious contender was a person of color, and most of them were women.
Championing hallmark policies like a Green New Deal for Boston, Wu racked up support from high-profile Massachusetts progressives, such as Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren. Pressley, who represents a portion of Boston, also served on the Boston City Council with both Wu and Essaibi George.
Wu ran on a progressive platform, including calling for a fare-free transit system.
Pittsburgh mayor
Ed Gainey will be Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor, CNN projects.
Gainey, a Democrat, bested Republican Tony Moreno, a retired Pittsburgh police officer.
During the campaign, Gainey said he wanted to make Pittsburgh the country’s most “safe, affordable and diverse” city and touted police reform and affordable housing. He has represented Pittsburgh in the state legislature since 2013 and previously worked for Pittsburgh Mayors Luke Ravenstahl and Tom Murphy.
During an exchange over mayoral efforts to tackle violence in a recent debate, Gainey emphasized using a public health blueprint.
“The reality is, if it was that simple, it would be solved already,” Gainey said. “This is a real-life situation, and we will deal with it,”
In the Democratic primary, Gainey comfortably beat the current incumbent Mayor Bill Peduto in May — making him the first mayoral challenger to unseat an incumbent since 1933.
From CNN’s Mirna Alsharif
New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams said New Yorkers elected him because they felt a connection with his story.
"While others were attempting to be heard by New Yorkers, I wanted to be felt," Adams said in an interview with CNN. "I wanted people to know my story, being a dishwasher, having a learning disability, being arrested as a child, going to school at night, working in a mailroom. That was a story I wanted to send New Yorkers, and they felt me and because of that, I'm now going to become the mayor of one of the greatest cities on the globe."
Adams also said that after an election is over, it's important to stop debating and "get stuff done."
"I think it's imperative that we have a discussion, we debate, we have conversations pre-election, but once that election is over, post-election, you have to become a GSD elected — get stuff done," he said. "... To continue to debate after the election is just a failing solution for the people on the ground," he said.
The national Democratic Party "can't be so philosophical and theoretical that we just simply giving out and throwing out terms instead of looking on the ground, what people need,” Adams said.
"That's what I'm hoping the party that I love, the Democratic Party, realize," he said. "We must get back on the ground and impact the things that are important to people."
Adams also said a lesson to Democrats around the country is "practical is progressive," talking about closing jail buildings and disbanding police departments "when crime is increasing" is not progressive.
On the topic of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers, Adams said he encourages outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio to sit down and talk to leaders of police and firefighter unions to come to a resolution.
“I reached out to some of the union leadership late last night. They stated that ... we want to sit down. We have not been able to sit down with the mayor. Listen, they are the credible messengers. If we are going to get through this Covid crisis, we get through it by communicating with the credible messengers, to speak to their rank and file,” Adams said.
"If he doesn't, if this is still going into January, I'm going to sit down with them and we're going to get this resolved," said Adams. "We have to defeat Covid and make sure we don't have crime turning our city."
Watch:
From CNN's Eric Bradner
Republican Glenn Youngkin celebrated his win in the Virginia governor’s race early Wednesday morning, taking the stage in Chantilly to Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” at 1:05 a.m. ET after waiting for the major television networks to call the race.
Youngkin delivered a shortened version of his stump speech, discussing his agenda for his first day in office in January — starting with education, the topic that animated many of Youngkin’s crowds.
“On day one, we’re going to work,” he said. “We’re going to restore excellence in our schools.”
He said he would seek the largest education budget in Virginia’s history for teacher raises and would launch an expansive school choice program, including new charter schools.
“We’re going to embrace our parents, not ignore them. We’re going to press forward with a curriculum that includes listening to parents, as well as a curriculum that allows our children to run as fast as they can, teaching them how to think, enabling their dreams to soar. Friends, we are going to re-establish excellence in our schools,” he said.
He did not mention critical race theory, even though in his stump speech during the campaign’s closing weeks he frequently said he would ban critical race theory from Virginia’s schools.
He also repeated his plans to eliminate Virginia’s grocery tax, suspend the most recent increase in the gas tax and double standard deductions on income taxes.
The crowd in the Westfields Marriott ballroom had been watching Fox News all night, and erupted in a huge cheer at 12:41 a.m. ET when the network projected — minutes after CNN and other networks had done so — that Youngkin had won the race.
Youngkin was introduced by his wife, who described the day he had told her he wanted to quit his job as chief executive of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group the next day and run for governor.
She said her first reaction was, “Clearly, you’re having a midlife crisis.” But she said Youngkin felt a “call on his heart” to public service.
“A defining moment together started with two people on a walk,” Youngkin said. “And a defining moment that is now millions of Virginians walking together — walking together, sharing dreams, hopes.”
From CNN's Eric Bradner, Gregory Krieg and Dan Merica
Republican Glenn Youngkin's projected win in the Virginia governor's race Tuesday erased any doubt: Democrats' slim congressional majorities are in grave danger in next year's midterm elections.
Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe had hoped former President Trump's continuing unpopularity would halt the pendulum swing against a new president and his party that nearly always takes place in Virginia and often continues in the following year's midterms.
Instead, Youngkin drafted a playbook for Republicans to navigate around Trump — keeping the former President's base energized while also winning back a share of suburbanites who had fled the party during Trump's tenure.
While the New Jersey governor's race remains unsettled, with ballots left to count, its neck-and-neck status through the night Tuesday was another shocker for Democrats who expected Gov. Phil Murphy to coast to reelection. The close New Jersey race, which received much less national attention than the Virginia contest, might be an even more ominous indicator for Democrats that the political environment, at least for the moment, has shifted hard in Republicans' favor.
And in cities across the country, Democrats dominated mayoral races, according to CNN projections — but offered mixed messages on the direction of the party, with progressives securing historic wins in Boston and Pittsburgh, while a moderate champion was crowned in New York City.
Minneapolis rejected a measure to overhaul its police department in a closely watched vote that showed the backlash against a protest movement that followed the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020.
Read eight takeaways from the 2021 elections here.