Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli will face off in N.J. governor election

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli will go head-to-head in November in a closely watched race to be New Jersey’s next governor.

Ciattarelli won the five-way GOP primary with a commanding 65% of the vote, according to preliminary results.

Sherrill, 53, won the Democratic race with a plurality of nearly 32%, defeating five opponents in the competitive primary, in which she was the only woman.

If she wins in November, she will be the second female governor in the state’s history and the first to hold the office in more than two decades, succeeding term-limited Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy.

Ciattarelli, 63, a former state assemblyman and three-time candidate for New Jersey governor, beat out four opponents in the race with the backing of President Donald Trump. He lost the Republican primary in 2017 and then went on to win the nomination in 2021, coming within about three points of Murphy in 2021.

The election pits two candidates who offer starkly different visions for the Garden State in a race that will be seen as early test of both parties’ brands heading into 2026 midterms. New Jersey and Virginia are the only states with governor’s races this year, making them strong indicators of the national mood during the first year of Trump’s second term.

New Jersey Democrats hope to break a trend of the state alternating which party leads it — it has not elected a governor of the same party three terms in a row since 1961. And Republicans will hope to build on a promising showing by Trump in the fall to overcome a voter registration disadvantage.

At the Westin Governor Morris in Morristown, Sherrill celebrated with her husband and four teenage children by her side.

She compared the national moment, with Trump at the helm, to the Revolutionary War, saying America is in a “crisis … a fight for our future, for justice, for liberty, for opportunity.”

“It is New Jersey’s responsibility to lead this great nation,” she said.

In Monmouth County, Ciattarelli addressed a boisterous crowd with an eye toward the fall.

“We’re not done,” Ciattarelli said.

He told the cheering crowd that he won because his campaign was about “people, not politics; vision, and not division.” He asked people to join him as he plans a “safer, more prosperous, and affordable New Jersey.”

While Sherrill consistently polled at the top, the Democratic contest was seen as a bit of a toss-up given the size of the field and the fragmentation of the party. But early results Tuesday showed Sherrill winning in almost every county in the state — though some pockets of South Jersey were an exception.

A former prosecutor and Navy helicopter pilot, Sherrill got her political start after she flipped a red district in 2018, defeating a Republican opponent after the GOP incumbent retired.

The Montclair resident represents parts of Essex, Morris, and Passaic Counties. She campaigned on making New Jersey housing, healthcare, and utilities more affordable and standing up to the Trump administration.

Her opponents in the crowded primary were U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, New Jersey Education Association president Sean Spiller, and former state Senate President Steven Sweeney.

Baraka and Fulop appeared to have split the progressive vote with a combined vote total that was slightly bigger than Sherrill’s.

The four-term member of Congress had the most establishment support in the race, with 10 Democratic county committees endorsing her in the central and northern parts of the state.

Those machine endorsements were seen as a ticket to victory for decades until this year, when the county line ballot design was nixed.

While Baraka and Fulop ran toward the left, Sherrill struck a more center-left tone as she pitched her resumé and electability and benefited from significant North Jersey establishment support. She touted being able to attract a large net of supporters within the Democratic Party.

Sherrill was the first House Democrat in New Jersey or Pennsylvania to call on former President Joe Biden to step down from the 2024 presidential primary following a disastrous debate performance. She was also part of a group of freshman Democrats who called for Trump to be impeached during her first term in 2019 and twice declined to vote for U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), the longtime party leader, as speaker.

Sherrill would be the first Democratic woman to lead the state if she is successful in November. Christine Todd Whitman led the state as a Republican from 1994 to 2001.

At the polls on Tuesday, supporters of Sherrill said her background stood out in the crowded field.

“She was a member of the House of Representatives. She knows how the system works,” Ed Masarsky, 83, said after voting for her in Cherry Hill.

At the Gloucester Township Blackwood Rotary Public Library, Nicole Landis, 52, said she felt a connection to the mother of four.

“She just clicked with me,” Landis said. “[She] speaks to the kind of person I am.”

If elected, Sherrill would follow in a line of recent governors from North Jersey. The state has not elected a governor from South Jersey since 1989.

Sweeney, the sole South Jersey candidate in the Democratic race, finished at the bottom of the field despite support in Gloucester and Salem Counties.

During a campaign stop in South Jersey earlier this month, Sherrill said that while residents in the southern part of the state seemed more concerned with public transportation shortcomings and North Jerseyans more focused on failing infrastructure, she had a plan for all 21 counties.

“Not a North Jersey plan,” she said, acknowledging that some South Jersey voters feel as if they have not gotten as much attention as the rest of the state. “A statewide plan.”

And as she celebrated her win Tuesday night, she paid homage to the things that unite New Jerseyans, like Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, cannoli, and Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese.

“I love that you can hike our mountains in the morning and hang out down the Shore in the afternoon,” she said.

“I mean, we really love this state,” she said. “Guys, I could write a book on the odes to people’s favorite Shore towns and diners.”

As he celebrated with supporters at Bell Works in Holmdel, Monmouth County, Ciattarelli said he wanted to thank an important part-time New Jersey resident: “Thank you, President Donald J. Trump.”

Ciattarelli, a resident of Somerville, Somerset County, previously served in the state Assembly for a little over six years. He defeated former conservative radio host Bill Spadea, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac, contractor Justin Barbera, and State Sen. Jon Bramnick.

He benefited from name recognition in the state and an established base.

With 96% of the vote counted, Ciattarelli had received more than 308,000 votes, a hefty improvement on the 167,000 votes that won him the primary in 2021.

Trump’s endorsement this year gave Ciattarelli an edge in a race wherein the White House played an outsize role, with the president coming up often in debates, candidate ads, and with conversations with voters. Ciattarelli and Spadea had a bitter rivalry throughout the race, and often bickered about who was more loyal to Trump. Both men had been critical of the president in the past.

The former Assembly member went from being a never-Trumper in 2015 to avoiding the subject during his 2021 run while trying to reach both moderates and Trump supporters, to full-on embracing the president this time around. Trump had criticized Ciattarelli on Spadea’s radio show last year for not seeking his support in 2021, but said in his endorsement announcement that Ciattarelli “has gone ALL IN.” Trump said on a tele-rally for Ciattarelli last week that Jersey is “ready to pop out of that blue horror show” with Ciattarelli.

Ciattarelli had support from political operative and former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, who was in Trump’s ear about Ciattarelli’s campaign and supported attack ads focused on discrediting Spadea.

Ciattarelli has said he would end the state’s Immigrant Trust Directive — known as the state’s sanctuary policy — on his first day in office and would threaten state funding for sanctuary cities.

At his victory party in Holmdel, supporters hugged, slapped MAGA hats onto their heads, and joyously declared victory. “Here we go!” a man yelled. “Right to Trenton.”

Ciattarelli, in his victory speech, reached out to moderate Democrats who feel abandoned by an “ultraliberal party more interested in pronouns than property taxes, a party that says it knows best how to raise your children, and give illegal immigrants handouts.”

He added that he would work to establish a Republican-led state legislature. “It’s time for Republicans to be the majority,” he said.

At the polls on Tuesday, Republican voter David Roy, 68, of Woolwich, had trouble pronouncing Ciattarelli’s name, but said he voted for him because of the Trump endorsement.

“I voted for Trump, so voting for this guy made sense,” said Roy, a retired computer-science engineer. “Trump saved Republicans from extinction.”

David Barg, 55, said he voted for Ciattarelli because he thought he had good “values.” He called him a “terrific America First candidate.”

A longtime Republican, Barg said that despite New Jersey’s blue lean, he thinks a Republican could break through and win in November, given Trump came within six points of winning it in 2024.

“Trump almost won this state,” Barg said. “The rational people of New Jersey can make the right choice.”

Graphics editor John Duchneskie and staff writers Nate File and Denali Sagner contributed to this article.