Mikie Sherrill will win N.J.’s red hot governor’s race on Tuesday

Tom Martello writes a regular column about the 2025 race for New Jersey governor.

Have you ever seen a Democratic candidate for Jersey governor who has caused more agita, more handwringing, more worry, scorn and sheer panic among members of her own party than Mikie Sherrill?

Milquetoast, they say. Not exciting. Robotic. Too D.C. No real plan for New Jersey.

Not authentic to people of color who may vote the other way. Not progressive enough.

Should be killing it because the other guy has Donald Trump wrapped around his neck. Simply a bad campaign with a flawed candidate.

We’ve heard all this and more about Sherrill and her campaign — by fellow Democrats, no less. I’ve written about a lot of these complaints since launching this column nine months ago.

And yet …

Here we are just days from The Election Watched ‘Round The World and nobody will be shocked if Mikie Sherrill raises her arms to declare victory over Republican Jack Ciattarelli Tuesday night.

The pre-election refrains go like this: This is down-to-the-wire, a close one mostly within the margin of error, anybody’s ballgame. Mikie’s in the lead in all those polls (even the Republican ones) but hedge those bets. She could be caught because, well … she’s played it safe for most of the campaign, and we’ve seen that backfire before.

Sound familiar? We were saying the same thing about Sherrill just a few months ago, right before that hard-fought Democratic Primary. And then AP said she’d won only 39 minutes after the polls closed. It was over before our election night pizza got cold.

As Yogi said …

To quote the late Yogi Berra, who lived in Mikie’s hometown of Montclair for five decades, Sherrill is hoping Tuesday will be “déjà vu all over again.”

It won’t be easy. Ciattarelli is a tough customer, and Democrats are terrified those like-minded but ambivalent voters won’t show up as Republicans are famous for getting their fervent supporters to the polls.

But Sherrill came into the race with some built-in advantages, and there have been turning points that transformed the campaign from lackluster to lively.

Her best buddy in this race has been Trump, who declared Ciattarelli “100% MAGA” when endorsing him in the primary and recently charged that she’d ruin New Jersey and has a “unusual name.” Sherrill instantly gained votes from New Jersey’s substantial anti-Trump crowd, including progressives who will hold their noses and vote for her just to stick it to the president.

The government shutdown and Trump’s decision to “terminate” Jersey’s big Gateway tunnel project (and Jack’s halting response) gave her even more late-campaign ammo.

But there have been other pivotal moments. Lambasted by Republicans and Democrats for refusing to say three consecutive words that did not include the president’s name, her campaign realized Mikie could not live on Trump alone.

So she opened the fall by going all in on making Jersey more affordable, which for months had been Ciattarelli’s exclusive turf.

The campaign coupled her vow to freeze your energy bills with an attack on Jack by claiming he will raise taxes. Many voters may see through this, but the ads aim at the ones who won’t, sowing doubt about what had been Ciattarelli’s biggest strength.

The late stages showed a campaign that could be more mean than milquetoast, with one set of ads even suggesting Jack voted for pedophiles and rapists.

Fighting back

And she fought back when it looked like Ciattarelli had the perfect opening to attack her signature bio point as a Navy helicopter pilot, when news broke that she couldn’t walk at her Naval Academy graduation because she wouldn’t dime out cadets caught in a massive cheating scandal.

She refused Jack’s call to release her disciplinary records, then aggressively turned the tables, accusing him of “killing thousands” hooked on opioids because of the messaging by a medical publishing company he once owned. Over the top, yes, and Jack says he’ll sue her for defamation.

But it neutralized the Republican’s attempt at questioning her character.

So now it comes down the Democrats’ greatest strength in any big Jersey race: their numbers. Republicans have been making gains in voter registration. Trump only lost by just six points here last year, and Jack came within three points of becoming governor four years ago. But it’s still an 800,000 registered voter advantage over Republicans. And Jack’s quest to convince just enough Democrats and independents to go his way remains an open question days before the election.

If Sherrill prevails, some critics will declare she ran the worst winning campaign in Jersey history. Others may admit they underestimated her. But knowing Jersey’s political class, far more – including those seeking jobs in her new administration – will say they knew she had it in the bag all along.

Editor’s note: This column is the first in a two-part series, designed to emphasize that — after covering the campaign all year — we still have no no idea who is going to win this tightest New Jersey gubernatorial race in history. You can read Part 2 here.