Mikie Sherrill wins NJ gov race after making campaign all about Trump

Rep. Mikie Sherrill handily beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli Tuesday after making her New Jersey gubernatorial campaign all about President Trump.

The three-term North Jersey Dem began the general election contest as the clear frontrunner with a near-double-digit lead in most polling, but the contest narrowed dramatically in the closing weeks, prompting Democrats to pour cash into her campaign and dispatch their top stars.

The New Jersey governor’s race had been one of the closest-watched off-year elections of 2025. Once widely seen as a Democratic stronghold, Republicans have since made considerable gains there over recent cycles.

But tightening polls in the final months of the race unnerved national Democrats, and they were forced to inject $19 million into the contest.

Top Democrats such as former President Barack Obama, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), and more all stumped with Sherrill during the election homestretch.

Sherrill’s electoral triumph marks the first time in the modern era that her party will control Drumthwacket for more than two consecutive terms.

Before her victory, Republicans had been gaining ground in the Garden State.

In 2024, President Trump lost the state by about 6 percentage points, remarkably tighter than his 16-point loss four years prior. In the 2021 gubernatorial race, Ciattarelli overperformed the RealClearPolitics aggregate by about 5 points, losing to outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy by about 3 points.

Over the summer, Sherrill consistently notched near double-digit leads over Ciattarelli, including one shock Rutgers-Eagleton/SSRS survey that had her up by about 20 points. But that advantage slipped dramatically. In the final few weeks of the election, polls pegged the race as a dead heat.

On Tuesday morning, Sherrill had a 3.3 percentage point polling edge, according to the latest RCP aggregate.

Local issues such as soaring electricity prices and the growing affordability crisis dominated the race.

Sherrill, a three-term congresswoman, framed her campaign as a referendum against Trump and had a fixation on national issues.

Back in May, she suffered an infamous gaffe when she became flummoxed after being asked about the top piece of legislation she’d like to get done.

“That’s a really good question, ’cause there’s so many that are coming to mind right now,” she replied during the May interview, stalling for about 18 seconds before conjuring up a vague federal block grant program — something beyond the purview of the state legislature and governor.

Ciattarelli’s campaign later seized on the stumble and blanketed the airwaves with ads spotlighting that moment. Sherrill later clarified to the Philadelphia Inquirer last month that her top legislative priority is making “sure that we are building out the energy plan for the state.”

The GOP hopeful also bashed Sherrill as a carpetbagger, underscoring how the congresswoman had moved her family from Virginia to New Jersey in 2010. Sherrill gave him fodder on that front when she weighed into the pork roll/taylor ham debate.

“They brought Phil Murphy here from Massachusetts. This isn’t working out so well. My opponent’s from Virginia. She’s not from New Jersey. So I got a really simple idea. How about we elect the Jersey guy?” Ciattarelli proclaimed at a rally in Old Bridge, NJ, last week.

In September, Sherrill faced controversy over bombshell revelations that she was barred from walking with her graduating class from the Naval Academy due to her involvement in the 1994 cheating scandal, something she claimed was limited to her refusal to rat out her friends.

But multiple Naval Academy grads came forward with concerns that there was likely more to the story. Sherrill refused to release additional documents that would’ve shed more light on exactly what happened.

Last month, during their debate, Sherrill scolded Ciattarelli, alleging that he made his “millions by working with some of the worst offenders and saying that opioids were safe.”

“Tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died,” she further chided, referring to content a medical publishing company he co-founded, but has since sold, published.

Ciattarelli has since moved to sue Sherrill for defamation over the remarks, which had seemingly caught him off guard during their second debate.

Trump refrained from stumping with Ciattarelli in person during the election homestretch, but he did host multiple tele-rallies on his behalf, including one on the eve of Election Day. The president also endorsed Ciattarelli, despite snubbing Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in that state’s gubernatorial race.

Off-year elections can sometimes be a harbinger of what’s to come in midterm elections. The 2021 race, in which Ciattarelli beat expectations and Republicans flipped the Virginia governor’s office red, preceded a red wave in Congressional races.