Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) is projected to win a decisive victory against Jack Ciattarelli (R) in New Jersey’s race for governor, one of two closely-watched gubernatorial contests this year. The win leaves Democrats two for two after Abigail Spanberger won her race in Virginia earlier Tuesday evening.
The AP called the race at 9:23 p.m. ET. With 61% of the vote counted, Sherrill led Ciattarelli 56.9% to 42.5%.
Sherrill, a former Navy pilot and assistant U.S. attorney, was only slightly favored in the polls ahead of Election Day — worrying Democrats in what is normally considered a comfortably blue state. The consistent Democratic outcome in presidential contests has not always held true in gubernatorial elections, however: Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion, has stayed in a single party’s hands for no more than two terms since the 1960s. That pattern has now been broken.
Ciattarelli, a businessman and former state legislator, has run for governor — and, now, lost — three times, and in 2021 came too close to defeating current Governor Phil Murphy for many Democrats’ comfort.
His career tracks that of many once-moderate Republicans. A state and local politician from central New Jersey, he once derided Trump as “a charlatan who is out of step with American values” and “not fit to be President of the United States.”
“Sitting silently and allowing him to embarrass our country is unacceptable,” he said in 2015.
Ciattarelli shifted slowly over the last decade. Running again in 2021, in the wake of Jan. 6, he sought to largely avoid the topic of the then-former president. “I do think Trump’s rhetoric is what led to the riot that took place,” he said during a debate. Ciattarelli lost to Murphy 51 to 48, a strong showing that was among the biggest surprises in U.S. politics that year.
The politics of 2025 are very different, with Trump again in the White House. And Ciattarelli was different too. This year, he fully embraced Trump. Asked to explain the shift, he applauded Trump’s second administration — it deserved an “A” grade, he said — and shrugged off his change of heart with a gesture toward JD Vance, whose comparison of Trump to Adolf Hitler does in fact make such insults as “charlatan” appear tame.
“JD Vance said things a whole lot worse,” Ciattarelli said. “And today he’s the vice president.”
Trump, too, has let bygones be bygones. He endorsed Ciattarelli in the Republican primary and has campaigned for him, holding events and working him into various Truth Social missives. “Jack Ciattarelli is a good man, who understands business, and who will bring down Energy, and other costs, by 50%, and even more,” he declared in one post, denouncing “the unusually named Mikie.” Trump continued campaigning for Ciattarelli through the afternoon of Election Day.
Democrats can, now, breathe a sigh of relief that 2021’s squeaker will not be repeated. The race will inevitably be interpreted as a rebuke to the president via a candidate who bear-hugged him.
Executive branch chaos intruded into the race during a bizarre September episode in which the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released Sherrill’s almost entirely unredacted military record, including her Social Security number, to a Ciattarelli campaign ally as Republicans’ dug for oppo research. NARA told CBS News, which broke the story, that the release was inadvertent, and that a technician at the National Personnel Records Center did not follow standard operating procedures. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee called for an investigation, which the acting inspector general for NARA opened that month.
