Democratic US Rep. Mikie Sherrill walloped Republican Jack Ciattarelli in a stunning victory Tuesday after making her New Jersey gubernatorial campaign all about President Trump.
Despite Ciattarelli mounting an aggressive, well-funded campaign and polls showing the race neck-and-neck, he fell dramatically short on Election Day — marking a reversal from four years ago, when most polling significantly underestimated him.
Sherrill led by 12 points with 90% of ballots counted Tuesday night after the highest turnout in a Garden State gubernatorial election in over a decade.
Her electoral triumph marks the first time in the modern era that her party will control Drumthwacket for more than two consecutive terms.
But even in her victory speech, she spent more time on Trump and federal politics than she did on Garden State issues.
“We’re not going to give in to our darker impulses here in New Jersey; we know that this nation has not ever been, nor will it ever be, ruled by kings,” she declared in East Brunswick.
“We take oaths to a Constitution, not a king. We’ve chosen liberty,” she added, “and we’ve chosen prosperity necessary to create opportunity.”
The New Jersey governor’s race had been one of the most closely watched off-year elections of 2025. Once widely seen as a Democratic stronghold, Republicans made considerable gains in 2024.
But tightening polls in the final months of the race unnerved national Democrats, and they were forced to inject over $19 million into the contest.
Top Democrats including former President Barack Obama, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and more stumped with Sherrill during the election homestretch.
“We are waging a battle in this very moment for the future of our nation,” Sherrill declared during her rally with Obama in Newark on Saturday. “People across the nation look at me, fear in their spirit, their eyes, when they say, ‘Is New Jersey up for this moment?’”
Most of the Democratic talent Sherrill had stumping for her largely focused on Trump and made little to no mention of Ciattarelli.
“It’s hard to know where to start because every day this White House offers up a fresh batch of lawlessness and carelessness and mean-spiritedness and just plain old craziness,” Obama groused on Saturday.
For his part, Ciattarelli downplayed Sherrill’s recruitment of Democratic stars, telling The Post that “The candidate has to go out and win the race.”
“I know my opponent’s bringing in this person, that person. She could bring in the ghost of FDR. It’s not going to matter.”
Before her victory, Republicans had been gaining ground in the Garden State.
In 2024, Trump lost the state by about 6 percentage points, remarkably tighter than his 16-point loss four years prior. In the 2021 gubernatorial race, Ciattarelli overperformed the RealClearPolitics aggregate by about 5 points, losing to outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy by about 3 points.
Over the summer, Sherrill consistently notched near-double-digit leads over Ciattarelli, including one shocking Rutgers-Eagleton/SSRS survey that had her up by about 20 points. But that advantage slipped dramatically. In the final few weeks of the campaign, polls pegged the race as a dead heat.
On Tuesday morning, Sherrill had a 3.3 percentage-point polling edge, according to the latest RCP aggregate.
Local issues such as soaring electricity prices and the growing affordability crisis dominated the race.
Despite consistently polling as the front-runner, Sherrill faced her fair share of bumps during the campaign.
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Back in May, she made an infamous gaffe when she became flummoxed after being asked about the top piece of legislation she’d like to get done.
“That’s a really good question, ’cause there’s so many that are coming to mind right now,” she replied during the May interview, stalling for about 18 seconds before conjuring up a vague federal block grant program — something beyond the purview of the state legislature and governor.
Ciattarelli’s campaign later seized on the stumble and blanketed the airwaves with ads spotlighting that moment. Sherrill clarified to the Philadelphia Inquirer last month that her top legislative priority is making “sure that we are building out the energy plan for the state.”
The GOP hopeful also bashed Sherrill as a carpetbagger, underscoring how the congresswoman had moved her family from Virginia to New Jersey in 2010. Sherrill gave him fodder on that front when she weighed into the pork roll-vs.-Taylor ham debate.
“They brought Phil Murphy here from Massachusetts. This isn’t working out so well. My opponent’s from Virginia. She’s not from New Jersey. So I got a really simple idea. How about we elect the Jersey guy?” Ciattarelli proclaimed at a rally in Old Bridge, NJ, last week.
In September, Sherrill faced controversy over bombshell revelations that she was barred from walking with her graduating class at the Naval Academy due to her involvement in the 1994 cheating scandal, something she claimed was limited to her refusal to rat out her friends.
But multiple Naval Academy grads came forward with concerns that there was likely more to the story. Sherrill refused to release additional documents that would’ve shed more light on exactly what happened.
Last month, during their debate, Sherrill scolded Ciattarelli, alleging that he made “millions by working with some of the worst offenders and saying that opioids were safe.”
“Tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died,” she further chided, referring to content that a medical publishing company he co-founded, but has since sold, published.
Ciattarelli has since moved to sue Sherrill for defamation over the remarks, which seemingly caught him off-guard during their second debate.
Trump refrained from stumping with Ciattarelli in person during the election homestretch, but he did host multiple tele-rallies on his behalf, including one on the eve of Election Day. The president also endorsed Ciattarelli, despite snubbing Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in that state’s gubernatorial race.
Off-year elections can sometimes be a harbinger of what’s to come in midterm congressional elections. The 2021 race, in which Ciattarelli beat expectations and Republicans flipped the Virginia governor’s office red, preceded a red wave on Capitol Hill.
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