After last year’s election, when Republicans made significant inroads in the state, New Jersey voters will cast ballots in an off-year, unpredictable gubernatorial race that voters and experts say feels different from any in recent memory.
Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a former navy pilot and federal prosecutor who represents New Jersey’s 11th congressional District, is facing Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a businessman and former state lawmaker, who is making his third bid for governor, this time with Donald Trump’s endorsement.
With early voting under way, the contest on Tuesday – one of only two gubernatorial races this year – is drawing national attention as a potential preview for what’s to come in the 2026 midterms and an early gauge of Trump’s standing with voters.
“This is the first big opportunity for voters to go to the polls and register their feelings about the new presidential administration,” Kristoffer Shields, the director of the Eagleton Center on American Governors, said in October.
The current Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, has served for two terms and is term-limited. While the state tends to reliably support Democrats in federal elections, it has a history of flipping between parties in its gubernatorial contests. Experts point out that no party has held the office for three consecutive terms since 1961.
Adding to the unpredictability of the race, Republicans have made gains in New Jersey in recent years. In 2021, Ciattarelli lost to Murphy by only three points. And in 2024, the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, carried the state by just 5.9 points, down from Joe Biden’s 16-point margin in 2020.
“The Republican party is feeling energized in New Jersey, specifically after two close showings here in the state,” said Daniel Bowen, an associate professor of public policy at the College of New Jersey.
Recent polls show a tight race, with Sherrill leading Ciattarelli by single digits.
A Ciattarelli win, Bowen said, would be “huge for the Republican party” and it would show that “the Maga brand of politics can win in a place like New Jersey, highly educated, wealthy, not rural, urban state.”
By contrast, a Sherrill win, Bowen said, could signal a rejection of Maga politics and point to a “broader blue wave response across the country to what the Trump administration has been doing as we think forward to the 2026 midterm elections.”
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In Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Wednesday, Sherrill met with about 100 people at the O’Donnell Dempsey senior citizen center to discuss affordability, housing, healthcare, immigration and stopping Trump.
Among those in the room was 71-year-old Evelyn Velez, who said she was backing Sherrill because there “has to be somebody that’s going to stand up to the administration that’s in Washington DC right now”.
“We need somebody that’s gonna fight for the working class, who’s gonna fight for health insurance, lower taxes, and I think she is the best candidate,” Velez, a lifelong New Jersey resident, said.
Another supporter, Kim Nesbitt Good, 69, said she felt confident that Sherrill would win and supported her because she was “not about hate, she’s positive, and that’s what we need, somebody that’s positive, someone that’s interested in the country, and the people in this country”.
While both candidates have focused much of their campaigns on local issues like cost of living and taxes, national politics and Trump have loomed large.
A recent poll found that 52% of New Jersey voters said Trump was a “major factor” in their choice for governor. Sherrill has frequently sought to tie Ciattarelli to Trump and his policies, while Ciattarelli has made efforts to link Sherrill to Governor Murphy, who, according to recent polling, has a 34% approval and 50% disapproval rating in the state. By comparison, the same survey found that Trump holds a 45% approval rating in the state.
The contest has drawn millions of dollars in spending and endorsements from national political figures. Ciattarelli has campaigned with Trump allies, including the Florida representative Byron Donalds and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump himself also recently spoke for about 10 minutes at a virtual “tele-rally” for Ciattarelli.
On the Democratic side, former president Barack Obama, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Maryland governor Wes Moore, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg have all been campaigning for Sherrill.
In a recent interview, Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, told Politico that he wasn’t focused on whether Democrats “overperform or underperform” in this race. “What I care about is making sure we win,” he said. “At the end of the day, we know that the Republicans are feeling very bullish about their chances in New Jersey.
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In Morris county, one of the five New Jersey counties that flipped from blue to red in the 2024 election , about 20 people gathered at a cafe on Wednesday morning to meet the county sheriff, Jim Gannon, Ciattarelli’s pick for lieutenant governor.
Among them was Mike Lombardi, 35, who said his top concerns were “electric bills, crime, immigration”. He said he believed that Ciattarelli and Gannon were the “ideal candidates to lead New Jersey”.
Lombardi, who said that he had been involved with voter outreach for Ciattarelli, said this year’s race felt different because of the “energy around the Ciattarelli campaign”.
Another supporter, 45-year-old Nick Steenstra, nodded in agreement and said that Ciattarelli was the change that New Jersey needed.
Still, Steenstra recognized the challenge ahead. “There are a lot more registered Democrats in the state,” he said, adding that to win, Ciattarelli needed to turn out not just Republicans but also the unaffiliated voters in the state, of which there are more than 2 million.
One thing that experts are closely watching in this race is voter turnout. In 2021, only 40% of eligible voters participated in New Jersey’s gubernatorial election.
“Which side is more motivated to vote is probably going to ultimately decide this,” Shields said, noting that the race “may be defined by how energized Democratic voters are or are not”.
Whatever the outcome, analysts say that the implications will probably extend beyond New Jersey.
On the Republican side, Shields said people were watching “what the impact of the Trump administration, what the impact of the sort of national politics are on the Republican candidate in a state that tends to vote blue federally”.
And on the Democratic side, Shields said “there are a lot of questions about the Democratic party nationally and unifying the Democratic party between the more progressive side and the more moderate side” so they will be watching to see “how Sherrill tries to unify the Democratic party, and is it successful?”.
Brigid Harrison, professor of political science and law at Montclair State University, agreed and said that a Ciattarelli victory would be a boost for Republicans heading into 2026.
But if Sherrill wins, Harrison said, “it’s a much different and kind of nuanced narrative”.
“You see this ongoing tension in the Democratic party between the more moderate Democrats who are saying: ‘Look, we need to get the folks that migrated to the Republican party back on board’ and progressives who are saying: ‘We need to come at this from a more radical agenda,’” she said.
A Sherrill win, Harrison said, could be viewed as “a shot in the arm for those moderates who will want to claim the mantle, saying how we move forward as a party is through policies that are middle of the road.”
