Sherrill vs. Trump-Backed Ciattarelli: N.J. Governor Race Heats Up

Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill will face Republican former state representative Jack Ciattarelli in the New Jersey governor’s race this fall in a national bellwether for voters’ views in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Sherrill prevailed in a crowded Democratic primary in which candidates vowed to bring down costs and stand up to the White House. A former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor who flipped a Republican-held seat in 2018 and touted her bipartisan bona fides in Congress, she pitched herself as a foil to both Trump and his billionaire donor, Elon Musk. She vowed in ads to “fight the Trump-Musk madness” and warned that her Republican opponent would replicate their cuts to the federal government and “DOGE New Jersey.”

Ciattarelli easily won the Republican nomination with Trump’s endorsement. The business executive and former state representative — who came within three percentage points of defeating Gov. Phil Murphy (D) four years ago — was once critical of Trump but has embraced him this year, even as he tries to frame the governor’s race around state-level issues.

Both candidates were projected to win their respective nominations less than an hour after polls closed Tuesday night, the Associated Press reported. With most of the vote tallied Wednesday morning, both had wide leads over their competitors.

The general election will be closely watched this fall as one of two governor’s races — along with Virginia’s — that will provide snapshots of national trends one year into the new administration. Democrats are eager to make the race a referendum on the president and accuse Ciattarelli of cozying up to Trump for political gain.

Republicans hope to make it a referendum on liberal leadership in New Jersey — but they have also aligned closely with the president and are eager to build on Trump’s overperformance in the state last year.

New Jersey has not backed a Republican for president in more than 30 years, but control of the governor’s mansion flips back and forth. National Democratic strategists say they are not taking the state for granted and plan to invest heavily in the general-election campaign. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said Tuesday night that the party would be “all hands on deck.”

The race has already drawn more than $88 million in ad spending, according to the company AdImpact, becoming the fourth-most-expensive non-presidential primary on record. Most of that money came from Democrats, who touted their plans to lower the cost of living — and combat Trump. More than 70 percent of broadcast ad airings in the primaries mentioned the president, AdImpact found .

Sherrill was viewed as the slight favorite in the Democratic race heading into Tuesday. Rivals sought to undermine her anti-Trump message in the final stretch of the race, underscoring Democrats’ belief that they needed to harness voters’ anger at national politics in the primary.

Attack ads from Democratic opponents and their allied groups accused Sherrill of “abandoning her seat in Congress just when we need her to stand up to Trump” and of taking money from “Elon Musk’s campaign fund,” because a political group affiliated with Musk’s company SpaceX supported Sherrill in a previous election.

Musk’s role as a Democratic bogeyman could wane as he has stepped away from government and started feuding with Trump, though some in the party expect him to be an enduring focal point. But Trump will be center stage, and other candidates have been showcasing their opposition.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey), a moderate who has chaired the bipartisan “Problem Solvers Caucus” in Congress, depicted himself literally boxing with Trump in his first TV commercial . Newark Mayor Ras Baraka highlighted his arrest this spring at an immigration detention facility reopened by the new administration, arguing in one ad that “there is only one candidate for governor who’s not just talking but actually doing something to stand up to Trump.”

Baraka — a staunchly liberal candidate who supports universal health care and said “equity” would be his “north star” — drew national attention last month when Trump’s Justice Department charged him with trespassing at a privately run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark. Trump’s former lawyer and now interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Habba, said Baraka defied warnings to leave as he and several members of Congress tried to inspect the site; Baraka pointed to video that showed him leaving the facility on his own after a heated conversation, then getting handcuffed.

Federal prosecutors soon dropped the case and instead charged New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver, who also clashed with authorities at the facility.

The mayor last week sued Habba over the arrest, saying she was motivated by politics, and called throughout the campaign for a more forceful response to Trump.

“This kind of idea that we should moderate ourselves at this moral moment is wrong,” he said in the final Democratic debate.

Other Democratic candidates included Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, former state Senate president Stephen Sweeney and Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association.

On the Republican side, Ciattarelli smoothed his path to the nomination by securing Trump’s endorsement.

The two men weren’t always on good terms: Ciattarelli called Trump a “charlatan” when he first ran for president, and Trump complained last year that Ciattarelli kept his distance when he ran for governor in 2021.

“This guy never came to ask for my support,” Trump said on the radio show of another GOP gubernatorial candidate, Bill Spadea. “And you know what? When MAGA sees that, they don’t like it, and they didn’t vote for him.”

But Ciattarelli took a different approach this year, meeting with the president at his Bedminster golf club.

“Jack, who after getting to know and understand MAGA, has gone ALL IN, and is now 100% (PLUS!),” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, in May.

Ciattarelli touted the endorsement in the primary and extended an open invitation for the president to come campaign with him. But he is also trying to frame the race around state issues. “What does Donald Trump have to do with our property taxes?” he said at a recent campaign stop. “What does President Trump have to do with the rise of crime?”