With another big voting season coming up next November—the midterm elections—voters may be wondering about questions such as: why do they need to vote? Does their vote matter? These questions don’t just apply to these elections, but every election, including primaries and more local elections, like for mayor.
Election day is November 3, 2026, for midterms, and November 4, 2025, for the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey. The biggest race happening in New Jersey this year is the race for governor, with the incumbent governor being term-limited. A local election going on that most people have probably heard about is the mayoral election in Hoboken. Midterm elections are for voting on senators and members of the US House of Representatives, and some states hold elections for different in-state positions during midterms as well.
Voting for the policies you deem important is showing the government what you care about as a voter and citizen. Voting is like a big group project everyone has to participate in to get the grades (policies) you want. It’s also your chance as a citizen to help make changes to not just the American government, but to your local and state governments as well.
According to the Center for American Progress, from 1976 to January 5, 2021, more than 85 US Senate elections were decided by less than 3% of all votes cast, as well as in the year 2016 alone, more than 340 state office elections were decided by fewer than 500 votes. More than 85 of those were determined by fewer than 100 votes. Just these two statistics show how important every single vote is to determining the future of different parts of the government.
Voting is something that affects you and your community, from the big things to the small, so you should sign up to vote as soon as possible to be able to make a difference.
