{"id":343116,"date":"2025-10-30T12:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T12:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/343116\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T12:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T12:35:13","slug":"mikie-sherrill-braces-for-landing-in-new-jersey-governors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/343116\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikie Sherrill Braces for\u00a0Landing in\u00a0New Jersey Governor\u2019s Race\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost a\u00a0year ago, I wrote\u00a0\u201cA Very Rough Day in Jersey\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in these pages about Donald Trump\u2019s surprisingly strong showing in the Garden State in the 2024 presidential race. It became the second most viewed article at the\u00a0Washington Monthly\u00a0in the past 12 months, which surprised me, until it\u00a0didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why\u00a0the\u00a0broad\u00a0audience? It may have been the\u00a0mysterious workings of the Google algorithm<\/a>. Still, I think the Democratic near-death experience in New Jersey,\u00a0where Kamala Harris won by only 6 percent in a state<\/a>\u00a0that has been solidly Democratic in presidential elections for over a generation, was painfully emblematic of Trump\u2019s 2024 triumph. I happened to write it in a way that\u00a0resonated,\u00a0with a lot of history and personal reflection as a Jersey native.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That Harris\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0win a swing state was one thing; that she almost lost fuckin\u2019 Jersey was jaw-dropping.\u00a0In 2020, Joe Biden won New Jersey by nearly 16 points over Donald Trump,<\/a>\u00a0and in 2016, Hillary Clinton beat the star of\u00a0The Apprentice\u00a0by 13 points as she lost nationally.\u00a0Barack Obama topped Mitt Romney by 18 points in 2012.<\/a>\u00a0Like in the Rio Grande Valley and the South Bronx, Trump had made considerable gains with Blacks and Hispanics,\u00a0and New Jersey is the most Hispanic state east of the Mississippi, save Florida.\u00a0In Jersey, Trump\u00a0held Republicans and chipped away at young voters. No state had a more dramatic blue-to-red shift.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that gloomy-for-Democrats piece last year,\u00a0I did see some light on the horizon for the party: Rebecca Michelle Sherrill<\/a>, who had been called Mikie since she was a little girl growing up in Alexandria, Virginia. Her photo adorned the page. I wrote:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

In the hothouse atmosphere of 2025, when Trump will be in the throes of his first year, it could be a promising contest for U.S.\u00a0Representative Mikie Sherrill<\/a>, a Navy\u00a0veteran, moderate, bipartisan Democrat who proved\u00a0a very good\u00a0crossover candidate. The state has only elected one woman governor, [Christie Todd] Whitman, and none to the U.S. Senate, but\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0put money on Sherrill to take the nomination and the race if she runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I turned out to be right about Sherrill\u00a0getting the nomination. It was more than a hunch.\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0followed Sherrill closely for some time. First, she represents my hometown, South Orange, in the U.S. House, and second, she seems to be one of the most politically talented members of the very gifted House class of 2018 elected during Trump\u2019s first term.\u00a0A former Navy helicopter pilot who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy<\/a>, the now-53-year-old was a federal prosecutor and\u00a0mother of four who seemed like she was created in a political consultant\u2019s lab as a symbol of change, but not scary change. Having flipped a Republican district in 2018, she seemed smart, nimble, and brave.\u00a0She was just the seventh member of Congress to call for Biden to step aside after his June 2024 debate disaster<\/a>, when most members were sitting tight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I thought Sherrill was the best-equipped candidate to take on the GOP and could win what was sure to be a tough nomination fight. The state\u2019s two U.S. Senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim,\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0going anywhere, so the line to run for New Jersey governor was long. (And\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0an excellent\u00a0job; political scientists have long noted\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0the most powerful governorship in the country since no other official is elected statewide.\u00a0The Lieutenant Governor\u00a0runs\u00a0on a\u00a0joint\u00a0ticket.)\u00a0Still, Sherill trounced\u00a0a very competitive\u00a0field, including\u00a0Representative Josh Gottheimer,<\/a>\u00a0an aerobic centrist and prodigious fundraiser, as well as the mayors of Newark and Jersey City,\u00a0assorted state pols, and the head of the state\u2019s teachers\u2019 union, because, hey, you might as well cut out the\u00a0middle man.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

With just a few days left in the 2025 gubernatorial race, Democratic professionals\u00a0are everywhere\u00a0cautiously\u00a0predicting that\u00a0Sherrill\u00a0is likely to\u00a0pull this out in modest single digits. New Jersey reporters that I know allow a larger possibility that she could\u00a0blow\u00a0it.\u00a0Call it a hard landing, not the easy touchdown I pictured. I still\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0help but wonder if her Republican opponent,\u00a0Giacchino Michael \u201cJack\u201d\u00a0Ciattarelli,\u00a0a businessman\u00a0who was expected to lose by double digits in 2021 to Governor Phil Murphy but only lost by 3 points, and is once again the GOP gubernatorial nominee, is\u00a0under polling.\u00a0\u00a0But early voting is going her way, with Democratic voters outpacing their vote-by-mail turnout in the 2021 gubernatorial race.<\/p>\n

The physics of the race\u00a0are\u00a0in Sherill\u2019s favor. This state has a huge 800,000-person Democratic registration edge, although\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0down from a million.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0an off-year election, meaning that more affluent and educated voters make up a larger proportion of the electorate, which helps Democrats and Sherrill, who hails from the famously integrated suburb,\u00a0Montclair, home of Stephen Colbert<\/a>. Plus, Trump is hugely unpopular in the state, and Sherrill has done all she can to yoke\u00a0Ciattarelli, a former legislator and businessman, who didn\u2019t back Trump in 2016<\/a>\u00a0but has, like so many Republicans, gone MAGA<\/a>, to the 47th president. For what\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0worth, New Jersey\u00a0Dems are outpacing Republicans in early voting<\/a>, although that could be because Trump has returned to\u00a0dissing early voting<\/a>\u00a0after briefly embracing the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ciattarelli, 63, is also\u00a0disadvantaged\u00a0compared to successful Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey.\u00a0The last Republicans to win the governorship in Trenton did so the year after a new Democratic president\u2019s popularity\u00a0faltered,\u00a0and the\u00a0sitting Democratic governor of New Jersey was\u00a0really\u00a0unpopular.\u00a0For instance,\u00a0Christie Todd Whitman won in 1993 as Bill Clinton struggled in his first year, and the state\u2019s Democratic Governor\u00a0Jim Florio was hugely unpopular over taxes and one of those state education funding equalization<\/a>\u00a0crises that inflames suburban and racial passions.\u00a0In 2009, Chris Christie beat the unpopular Democratic Governor Jon Corzine<\/a>, as Barack Obama floated around 40 percent approval. Ciattarelli is not in such\u00a0an advantageous\u00a0position.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The government shutdown\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0help him either. Voters tend to blame Trump and the GOP for the shutdown. While New Jersey ranks among the states with the fewest per-capita federal employees, the woes caused by the shutdown,\u00a0such as overwhelmed\u00a0Social Security offices, TSA delays, and other problems, can\u2019t\u00a0be good for Ciattarelli.\u00a0Trump also wants to scuttle the massive\u00a0Gateway Tunnel\u00a0project to create a new rail line to New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But\u00a0Sherrill\u00a0has some handicaps. No party has held the governor\u2019s mansion,\u00a0the stately\u00a0Drumthwacket<\/a>, for three terms in over 60 years.\u00a0New Jersey Governor Murphy\u00a0(like Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs C-suite denizen) has only a modest approval rating. One poll had his popularity lower than Trump\u2019s as Jersey residents face\u00a0not\u00a0only\u00a0higher costs\u00a0like\u00a0Americans,\u00a0but\u00a0also,\u00a0in this,\u00a0the most densely\u00a0populated\u00a0state,\u00a0particularly steep\u00a0auto insurance and housing\u00a0bills. Republicans have been out registering Democrats of late, suggesting a late surge of interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New Jersey\u2019s electorate is also elastic, according to the experts. Blue states like Virginia and New York tend to stay within specific parameters, as do\u00a0Red\u00a0ones like Alabama or Idaho, while Jersey can swing more wildly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For 40 years, in the post-World War II era, New Jersey was\u00a0almost solidly\u00a0Republican in presidential contests except for the 1964 Lyndon Johnson landslide and 1960, when John F. Kennedy edged out Richard Nixon by less than 1 percent. It went for Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman, twice for Dwight Eisenhower over Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon over Hubert Humphrey\u00a0and George McGovern. It went for Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter,\u00a0and George H.W. Bush over Michael Dukakis.<\/p>\n

But starting in 1992, it went Democratic and never looked back.<\/p>\n

Elasticity was seen in the\u00a0governor\u2019s races, where Florio\u2019s popularity careened from a high winning in 1989 to his collapse in 1993. Christie had both the highest and lowest approval ratings for a New Jersey governor. Coming into office, he was perceived as a straight talker and, in 2012, as a competent manager after Superstorm Sandy. He was a pariah by the time of Bridgegate when he left\u00a0office in 2018.<\/p>\n

Plus, Sherrill has made missteps of her own.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0fair to say\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0underperformed. Some errors have been widely noted, like the poor answer\u00a0Sherrill gave about the millions her family made to the podcaster Charlamagne tha God<\/a>, who\u00a0asked her if she made millions from stock trades.\u00a0\u201cI, I\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0\u2026 I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0believe I did,\u201d The truth was and is on Sherrill\u2019s side. She\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0trade individual equities and seems to have seen her family\u2019s net worth rise the way most Americans have since 2019, through a rising stock market and home prices. (Her husband is a banker and fellow USNA alum.)\u00a0That she was unprepared for such a question feels like candidate\u00a0malpractice, especially since her primary opponents had nibbled at\u00a0her finances.\u00a0In general,\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0been underwhelming on the stump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sherrill has\u00a0probably overemphasized\u00a0her\u00a0exceptional\u00a0Naval service,\u00a0for which she received multiple commendations.\u00a0She\u2019s\u00a0to be applauded for it,\u00a0and Ciattarelli never served.\u00a0But as with John Kerry in 2004, you can overdo it. I sat in amazement at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in the Massachusetts Senator\u2019s hometown of Boston,\u00a0watching\u00a0the RNC oppo team\u00a0turn\u00a0elated,\u00a0as Kerry devoted most of his\u00a0acceptance speech\u00a0to\u00a0his\u00a0decision to join\u00a0the Navy during the Vietnam War and his admirable opposition to the conflict.\u00a0Responding to focus groups and polling showing Congress in ill repute, Kerry\u00a0largely elided\u00a0a distinguished career in the U.S. Senate to be seen as a better commander-in-chief than his Republican opponent, George W. Bush. When the scurrilous\u00a0Swift Boat attackers\u00a0went after Kerry\u2019s Naval service on the rivers of Vietnam, he was caught unawares.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Likewise, Sherrill seemed ill-prepared for the even more scurrilous and likely\u00a0illegal leaks about her not walking at graduation with her\u00a01994\u00a0class at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, which was embroiled in a cheating scandal<\/a>.\u00a0Sherrill didn\u2019t cheat, but she didn\u2019t turn in cheaters<\/a>, which cost her a spot at the ceremony. Not\u00a0ratting out\u00a0friends violated USNA code, but it has a certain Jersey appeal, as any\u00a0Sopranos\u00a0fan knows. But Sherrill\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0addressed the matter in a forthcoming way and was caught off\u00a0guard,\u00a0but\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0have been. If you put Naval symbols all over your campaign and are constantly filmed in a flight suit, being ready for\u00a0a blemish on your sterling record\u00a0would seem like due diligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally,\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0probably overdone\u00a0linking Ciattarelli to Trump. I can understand the impulse.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0driven by what might be called the tyranny of focus groups. Trump tests poorly. You tell people Ciattarelli backs Trump and Trump loves Ciattarelli, and it feels like a winning issue, which it is. But as with the Navy, it only gets you so far.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

An example:\u00a0<\/p>\n

On September 21, New Jersey\u2019s gubernatorial candidates met at Rider College for their first debate. Sherrill did well enough, but I remember an interview with a young Black man,\u00a0presumably a\u00a0student there, who said he was going to vote for Sherrill and thought on balance she won the debate, but complained that she talked too much about Donald Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I agreed. Yoking your opponent to the omnipresent and unpopular\u00a0Trump\u00a0makes total sense, up to a point. Voters know that the governor\u2019s job is\u00a0not the same as\u00a0a member of Congress and that while the 47th president and his wrecking crew stand astride the political landscape, attacking the MAGA posse is not enough. Sherrill, of course, has plenty of positions, but listening to her, the Trump bashing became repetitive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course,\u00a0Ciattarelli, who tries to project as an everyman and looks like about 50 guys I knew in Essex County,\u00a0has had his share of boneheaded moments. Asked by a reporter about pursuing\u00a0Black and Hispanic voters, he said, \u201cNext question.\u201d\u2014a particularly\u00a0dumb move given Trump\u2019s inroads with said groups. His running mate for Lieutenant Governor said he was open to tax hikes on everyone but millionaires.\u00a0\u201cTaxes are on the table, but I\u2019d be careful of millionaire taxes,\u201d said James Gannon. \u201cThey\u2019re\u00a0employing us \u2026 what\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0saying, the millionaires, we\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0just beat up the millionaires. The millionaires, sometimes, are employers;\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0employing us.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The best thing Sherrill has going for her is that no one inside the campaign thought this would be\u00a0easy, and\u00a0now\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0had enough\u00a0scares\u00a0that\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0not taking anything for granted.\u00a0The wind\u00a0may finally be\u00a0at Sherrill\u2019s back, but as a helicopter pilot,\u00a0she knows it can shift.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost a\u00a0year ago, I wrote\u00a0\u201cA Very Rough Day in Jersey\u201d\u00a0in these pages about Donald Trump\u2019s surprisingly strong showing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":343117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[84561,9124,168998,168999,133986,133987,169000,50,169001,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-343116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-2025-elections","10":"tag-democratic-party","11":"tag-garden-state","12":"tag-gubernatorial-race","13":"tag-jack-ciattarelli","14":"tag-mikie-sherrill","15":"tag-new-jersey-politics","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-trump-era","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115463152472643084","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}