It’s 2025, and Governor Phil Murphy must step down as he has already served two terms—the maximum amount a governor can serve in the Garden State. That means that Democrats and Republicans must once again vie for control of New Jersey’s most powerful position.
Before the race between the parties had started, each party had to partake in its own elections to pick their candidate. Each party had numerous candidates, and party members voted for the one who they think best represented them. Hence, Mikie Sherrill had to beat Ras Baraka, Steve Fulop, Josh Gottheimer, Sean Spiller, and Stephen Sweeney in order to win, as reported by Ballotpedia. Similarly, Jack Ciattarelli had to beat Bill Spadea, Jon Bramnick, Mario Kranjac, Justin Barbera, and Hans Herberg, also reported by Ballotpedia. But the race is not still not that simple, though: not only are there the opposing candidate to worry about, there are also the oft forgotten third party candidates. However, Vic Kaplan and Joanne Kuniansky do not have a significant presence in the media and the polls (being absent from the gubernatorial debates themselves as well!), so it is unlikely that they would make a significant enough splash in this election.
Democrats face the additional problem of choosing and developing a good enough candidate who would be able to point out the failures of their own allies but convince people that they are still better than their opponents. In fact, Democrats did not quite have a strong show of unity in the primaries compared to Republicans.
“Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill [had] won the New Jersey Democratic primary for governor with just 34% of the vote [but…] the Republican field had a clear frontrunner throughout the campaign [with Jack Ciattarelli], who ultimately won with 68% of the vote,” Camila Rosario of Fair Vote reported.
Ciattarelli was an obvious pick for the Republicans. He had run three times for governor before, coming the closest last election— he lost to Murphy by only three points. He frequently points out the fact that he and his lineage were born and raised in New Jersey, with each generation finding business success.
His campaign website, Jack4NJ, states, “[Ciattarelli] has served at every level of government, including the Raritan Borough Council, the Somerset County Freeholder Board, and the State Assembly… and then voluntarily term-limiting himself.” He additionally maintains that regarding his numerous government office tenures, he has never taken the accompanying paycheck.
Finally, he is a successful businessman at heart, which reflects capability, rationale, and success. With “affordability” literally at the top of his website’s “issues” list, he intends to directly cut taxes for New Jersey, “[make] energy policy more affordable [by promoting] an all-of-above energy policy… end any rejection or limitation of health insurance coverage for pre-existing medical conditions,” according to his website. Outside of affordability, the rest of the issues he focuses on mainly pertain to legal protection of residents.
On the other hand, Mikie Sherrill prides herself on her military career as a navy helicopter pilot as well as her political career as a Congresswoman. A statistic that Ciattarelli often states during debates is the fact that her net worth significantly increased during her Congress tenure, a fact that she attempts to avoid.
Sherrill’s take on making New Jersey more affordable is to “lower income taxes for New Jerseyans by expanding the state-level Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit… increase the use of state properties to host solar projects — such as on closed landfills, NJ TRANSIT facilities, rooftops, and carports,” and “increase access to preventative/primary healthcare services, especially through innovative delivery models like mobile clinics and partnerships between health systems and schools,” according to her website.
To attack Ciattarelli, she repeats the idea that “the president himself called Jack 100% MAGA, and he’s shown every sign of being that,” as reported by Paul Steinhauser of Fox News, seemingly referring to President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Ciattarelli.
However, Ciattarelli has pushed back, publicly disagreeing with and promising to fight Trump regarding his “[‘termination’ of] billions of federal dollars for the Gateway Project,” Steinhauser additionally writes. On the other hand, one of the main controversies that Sherrill faces is regarding why she was not allowed to walk in her navy graduating ceremony. After it leaked, she was forced to state that it was because she did not tell on her classmates for cheating on a test as reported by abc7 Eyewitness News.
While Ciattarelli uses this to question her trustworthiness, she responds by claiming that he had “illegally [obtained them],” Adeja Shivonne of Fox 5 New York reported.
The race indeed is contentious and is forecasted to be close. Most of the recent polls report Sherrill leading by a small margin, as noted by The New York Times. New Jersey’s future will be heavily impacted by this race, regardless of the result.
You can find their platforms here: Jack For New Jersey and Mikie Sherrill for New Jersey.
