New Jersey is a blue state, but Republicans may have a shot at winning the race for governor this year. GOP nominee Jack Ciattarelli is keeping the race close against opponent Mikie Sherrill, raising alarms among Democrats nationally.
Sherrill has made a “series of stumbles” in the race against Ciattarelli, said Axios. The fourth-term congresswoman “struggled to answer questions” about her family’s growing wealth in a May interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God, making her ripe for attacks. Polls show the two candidates are running “neck and neck,” which has caused some exasperation among Sherrill’s backers. Democrats will have a tough time nationally “if we are struggling to even win a N.J. governorship while Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the government and Constitution,” said Democratic strategist Irene Lin.
New Jersey gubernatorial races “always get a lot of national attention” because they are held the year after the presidential election, Kristoffer Shields, the director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor, said to Rutgers Today. That gives voters the opportunity to “register their feelings” about a new administration, while also giving political observers a preview of the next year’s midterms. Recent election cycles have shown a “pretty clear move to the right” in New Jersey, Shields said. “The stakes are fairly high for both sides.”
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Democrats need to win New Jersey “if November is to be a successful election” for the party, said Stuart Rothenberg at Roll Call. (Virginia is also holding a gubernatorial election, where Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger appears to be comfortably in the lead.) There are precedents for a Republican victory: The Garden State has elected GOP governors like Chris Christie and Christine Todd Whitman over the years, and Sherrill has “not yet turned her race into a slam dunk for Democrats.” The state’s voters seem unhappy with President Donald Trump’s performance so far, but Sherrill’s struggles signify that Democrats are “still finding their way after their 2024 losses.”
Ciattarelli’s loyalty to Trump is a “risky play in a blue state,” said Alexander Puri at MSNBC. One recent poll found the president has favorable ratings from just 41% of the state’s voters, but the GOP gubernatorial candidate “doesn’t seem to have received the memo.” He has instead begged off opportunities to “criticize or distance himself from the president.” Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is “good for all New Jerseyans,” Ciattarelli said at a recent debate. He will soon find out whether staying on “Trump’s good side was truly worth the cost,” said Puri.
What next?
The Sherrill-Ciattarelli race is “already the state’s most expensive ever” and is expected to cost more than $200 million before it is over, said NJ.com. The money is funding a “flood of attack ads” on both sides, the mounting costs a reflection of the close campaign. “There’s definitely a sense that either side can win,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.
