Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill will be New Jersey’s next governor after defeating Republican Jack Ciattarelli to become only the second woman to lead the Garden State.
Sherrill was leading Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman, 57 percent to 43 percent, when The Associated Press called the race about an hour and half after polls closed.
Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, is currently in her fourth term representing New Jersey’s 11th District. She will succeed term-limited Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy, who defeated Ciattarelli by a little more than 3 points four years ago.
Speaking at her campaign victory party in East Brunswick, Sherrill invoked the New Jersey motto “Liberty and Prosperity” while taking a shot at President Donald Trump.
“As the president is backing away from this ideal, cutting SNAP, ripping away health care, terminating [the Gateway tunnel project], we here in New Jersey are bound to fight for a different future for our children,” Sherrill said.
“Liberty alone is not enough if the government makes it impossible for you to feed your family, to get a good education or to get a good job,” she added. “I am determined to build prosperity for all of our citizens.”
Her victory is a big one for the New Jersey Democrats in part because it’s the first time a party has won three straight gubernatorial elections since the 1960s. And Democrats are also celebrating another gubernatorial win Tuesday, with former Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, Sherrill’s onetime roommate in Washington, flipping the governor’s office in the commonwealth.
“Mikie’s historic win is a roadmap for how Democrats can overcome precedent and win in deeply competitive races when we stay laser-focused on our positive vision to address the biggest issues impacting families in their daily lives,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, said in a statement.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said Tuesday’s wins by Sherill and Spanberger represented “the beginning of our Democratic resurgence.”
Sherrill is the first woman to win election as New Jersey governor since Republican Christine Todd Whitman won a second term in 1997. Whitman, a critic of President Donald Trump who left the GOP in 2022, endorsed Sherrill shortly after she claimed the Democratic nomination in June.
Whitman told NBC News she was “delighted” by Sherrill’s win, quipping, “It finally means that we’ll stop introducing me as the first and only female governor of New Jersey.”
A Ciattarelli win could have been a harbinger of trouble for Democrats nationally in 2026, but he ultimately ran significantly behind his margins against Murphy in 2021.
It was his third straight run for governor; he also lost a bid for the GOP nomination in 2017. While Ciattarelli had a reputation as a more moderate Republican during his time in the state Assembly, he did not shy away from embracing Trump throughout this year’s race. The president endorsed him ahead of the Republican primary and he joined a tele-rally for Ciatterelli last month.
The Sherrill campaign used her rival’s Trump support against him, including in blasting the decision by the administration to freeze funding for the Gateway Project, a key railway initiative for the Northeast Corridor generally and the Garden State’s many New York City commuters in particular.
“If I saw Mikie’s name on the caller ID, I knew what she was calling to talk about,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said while campaigning with Sherrill last week. “While Trump illegally rips away billions from New Jersey for spite, Mikie won’t hesitate to stand up for the hundreds of thousands of residents in this state who rely on public transit to get home from work and see their kids, to meet their friends, or even just to go to a game.”
A pair of revelations rocked the gubernatorial race in late September. A CBS News report found that a branch of the National Archives had released a mostly unredacted copy of Sherrill’s military records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from a Ciattarelli ally. The documents included her Social Security number, home addresses for her and her parents and life insurance information.
In a letter to Sherrill, the National Personnel Records Center apologized for the incident, citing a failure to follow proper procedure, while Sherrill’s campaign accused the Trump administration of illegally releasing the files.
Ciattarelli’s campaign opted to focus on another revelation. CBS News and the New Jersey Globe reported that Sherrill did not walk at the Naval Academy’s 1994 commencement ceremony, which followed a cheating scandal that implicated more than a hundred midshipmen. Sherrill, who went on to serve for nearly a decade in the Navy, said her name did not appear in the commencement program because she “didn’t turn in” some of her classmates.
Sherrill won a hotly contested Democratic primary in June, prevailing over a crowded field that included fellow Rep. Josh Gottheimer and the mayors of the Garden State’s two largest cities.
She first won election to the House in 2018, when she was part of a freshman class that included several Democrats with defense and national security backgrounds. That list included Spanberger and fellow New Jerseyans Andy Kim, now the state’s junior senator, and Tom Malinowski, who lost reelection in 2022.
Sherrill’s election as governor will trigger a special election to succeed her in New Jersey’s 11th District, now a safe Democratic seat that Sherrill won by nearly 15 points in 2024.
Malinowski, who represented a nearby district before losing to Republican Thomas H. Kean Jr., three years ago, could headline a long list of Democrats interested in Sherrill’s seat. Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill and Passaic County Commissioner John Bartlett have also been mentioned as potential candidates for the special election.
Mary Ellen McIntire contributed to this report.
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