Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill was elected on Tuesday to be the 57th governor of New Jersey, defeating Jack Ciattarelli, a former state representative and Republican, in a race that suggested the resilience of the party after Donald Trump’s return to office.
The Associated Press called the race for Sherrill, a 53-year-old congresswoman from New Jersey’s 11th congressional district, just two hours after polls closed.
“I hear you, Jersey,” Sherrill said Tuesday night at her election party in East Brunswick, after walking out to a cheering crowd and Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. “Good government doesn’t just manage problems, it solves them.”
The contest – one of only two gubernatorial races this year – drew 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.
In June, New Jersey Democrats held a competitive primary that tested whether progressive candidates like Newark mayor Ras Baraka or longtime party stalwarts like former state senate president Steve Sweeney could capture the party’s energy. But voters chose Sherrill, a moderate former prosecutor and navy helicopter pilot who was elected to Congress in 2018’s blue wave to represent a suburban district.
Sherrill’s nomination provided a stark contrast to the upset win across the Hudson by Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, highlighting two potential paths forward for the party during the second Trump administration.
Ciattarelli, meanwhile, was the Republican nominee for the second time, after running in 2017 but losing the nomination to former lieutenant governor Kim Guadagno, and surprising pollsters in 2021 with a closer-than-expected loss to governor Phil Murphy. While Ciattarelli’s last attempt for the governor’s mansion was more in line with New Jersey’s history of moderate Republicans, this time, he won Trump’s endorsement and attempted to balance a campaign about affordability with culture war messaging focused on gender identity and immigration.
Earlier in the day, in Colts Neck, a bucolic town near the Jersey shore that voted for Ciattarelli in 2021 and Trump in 2024, at least one voter was bucking the local trend. Two miles from a golf course owned by the president, retired federal worker John Stolz, 74, said he was voting for Sherrill for governor because, as a gay man, “the Republicans are going to hurt me”.
In October, Politico reported that a Ciattarelli campaign ally advocated for a ban on same-sex marriage in the Garden state. Ciattarelli reaffirmed his support for marriage equality, but did not condemn the comments. As a state assemblymember in 2012, Ciattarelli voted against a state bill legalizing same-sex marriage.
Marriage equality was legalized in New Jersey by a court ruling in 2013 and was later codified into law in 2022 by Phil Murphy, the governor.
But affordability was likely the main issue for voters across the state in a race marked by drama. Recent polls had showed razor thin margins between the candidates. At times, the campaign broke down into outright scandal, including the leaking of Sherrill’s military records by a Ciattarelli ally and threats of a defamation suit from Ciattarelli against Sherrill after she accused him during their final debate of “killing tens of thousands” of people in connection with the opioid crisis.
“A lot of people made fun of the helicopter,” said Leroy Jones, the New Jersey Democratic party chairman, referencing Sherrill’s campaign logo. “But guess what? It landed here today!”
