For the first time since 1961, a political party in New Jersey has won the governor’s office for a third straight time. Democrat Mikie Sherrill made it look easy with a surprising 13-point win over Jack Ciattarelli, who lost his bid for that office for a third time.
Sherrill garnered 1.8 million votes compared to Ciattarelli’s 1.3 million, or 56.2% of the votes to 43.2%. Some polls had predicted a dead heat as Election Day approached; others saw a Sherrill victory. But no polls were predicting this level of win.
In the end Sherrill, a moderate Democrat, got a big boost from the progressive wing of her party. All the Democratic infighting was over, all of the progressive suspicions of the moderate Sherrill were put aside. It was time to keep the Garden State blue, and Democrats and a large swath of independents responded.
For some pundits the answer to how this happened was an easy one. Media Butler of Mercury Public Affairs phrased it simply: “Trump is the gift that keeps giving.” While others would not be so casual, a consensus was building quickly the day after the unexpectedly big win that the anti-Trump vote in New Jersey was much bigger than the anti-Murphy vote that Republicans tried to turn to their favor.
Five counties that Trump won last year turned back to the Democrats. The voters sent a message last year to one party, and now they’ve sent one to the other.
For Nancy Solomon, founding managing editor of New Jersey Public Radio, one element in the “secret sauce” of mending fences for Sherrill with the progressive wing of the party was Sen. Andy Kim, who made an impassioned speech about what was at stake in this election, speaking of Ciattarelli’s embrace of Trump and the president’s subsequent endorsement of the Republican candidate. For Solomon, Kim was instrumental in bringing progressives out for Sherrill.
The likelihood is that an appearance by former President Barack Obama in Newark helped as well. A cooling of the relationship of African Americans and the state party was also put aside in the consolidated effort to defeat the Republican candidate.
A Democratic victory in the Virginia governor’s race, the passage of Proposition 50 in California and the victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York all appeared to counter the claim by Trump on Truth Social that the Democrats won because “Trump was not on the ballot.” It is much more likely that in the minds of many New Jersey voters, the president was on the ballot.
Putting aside the Democratic euphoria over the size of the win, the question quickly becomes, can Sherrill now hold onto the pieces of the party that came together in the election? Can she lead in a way that can allow her a chance to implement some of the campaign promises she made?
All chief executives, be they governors or presidents, promise more than they will have the power to deliver. Sherrill will have the continued Democratic control of both legislative chambers. There are still some races that need to be called in the 80-seat Assembly, but Republicans lost some seats there, and when the dust settles the Democrats will most probably have an even greater advantage than the 52 to 28 edge they have now. No Senate seats were on the ballot, so the current 25-15 Democratic control remains.
With this election New Jersey remains one of the 15 states where Democrats control the governor’s office and both chambers of the state legislature.
In Cape May County voters showed why the county is often out of step with much of the state. Here Ciattarelli pulled 59% of the vote to Sherrill’s 41%. A strong turnout for a non-presidential election saw 57% of the county’s registered voters casting a ballot.
Cape May County was one of just seven of the state’s 21 counties that went for Ciattarelli. The others were Salem, Monmouth, Ocean, Warren, Hunterdon and Sussex.
In Cape May County’s 127 voting districts, Sherrill won only 14, showing the strength of the Republican ticket in the county.
The issues that dominated in the campaign were not much different in Cape May County than they were in the rest of the state. They were headed by concerns over affordability and high energy costs. The impact of the shutdown of the federal government on the election results is not clear.
Trump on Truth Social blames the shutdown for the Democratic wins, yet he claims the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown.
CNN exit polls suggested that part of Sherrill’s big win was not just due to the Democratic edge in registration. Those polls found that independents went for Sherrill by 55% to 43%.
Sherrill even had the endorsement of New Jersey’s only other woman governor, Christie Whitman, a Republican who has since left the party over Trump.
With an edge in registration, strong turnout usually helps, and it seems it did so for Sherrill. In the 2021 gubernatorial election 2.6 million New Jerseyans went to the polls. This year that number, with 95% of the vote counted, stands at 3.15 million. It is not the same turnout as the state produces when a presidential race is in the offing, but it is a historically sizable turnout for a governor’s race.
Another question at the top of the list as the state digests this result is what does it mean for the midterms next year? All 12 of the state’s House seats are up for grabs next year, as is the Senate seat occupied by Cory Booker.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
