Democrat Mikie Sherrill won the 2025 New Jersey governor’s race, defeating Republican Jack Ciattarelli by roughly 14 points. Sherrill took about 56.9% of the vote to Ciattarelli’s 42.5%, or roughly 1.9 million votes to his 1.42 million.1NJ Spotlight News. How Municipalities Voted for New Jersey Governor The Associated Press called the race at 9:23 p.m. on election night, November 4, 2025,2New Jersey Monitor. Mikie Sherrill Wins New Jersey Governor Race and Sherrill was sworn in as the state’s 57th governor on January 20, 2026, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.36ABC. Democrat Mikie Sherrill Sworn In as New Jersey’s 57th Governor
The Margin and the Map
Sherrill carried 14 of New Jersey’s 21 counties, including Democratic strongholds like Essex, Hudson, and Camden, and the suburban battlegrounds of Bergen, Morris, and Somerset. Ciattarelli held Monmouth, Ocean, Hunterdon, Sussex, Warren, Cape May, and Salem.4The New York Times. Results: New Jersey Governor
Every county in the state shifted more Democratic compared to the 2024 presidential election, with the largest swings in Hudson (23 points), Passaic (19 points), and Middlesex (18 points), all counties with large Hispanic populations that had moved toward Donald Trump the year before.4The New York Times. Results: New Jersey Governor
At the municipal level, Sherrill won 300 towns to Ciattarelli’s 262, flipping 94 municipalities that Ciattarelli had carried in his 2021 run against Phil Murphy. She reclaimed traditionally blue towns like Clifton, Passaic, Kearny, and Garfield that had drifted to Republicans in recent cycles, and won 57 municipalities that had voted for Trump in 2024.1NJ Spotlight News. How Municipalities Voted for New Jersey Governor
Who Mikie Sherrill Is
Sherrill came to the race from New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, where she had served three terms. A 1994 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, she spent nearly a decade in the Navy flying Sea King helicopters on missions in Europe and the Middle East, then worked as a Russian policy officer handling nuclear treaty obligations.5National Governors Association. Governor Mikie Sherrill After the military she earned a law degree from Georgetown and served as an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, prosecuting federal cases including illegal gun possession.6Georgetown Law. Rep. Mikie Sherrill on Career Flexibility and Public Service Values She flipped a historically Republican House seat in 2018 and held it through two more cycles before running for governor.
Her win carried several firsts. She is the second woman to serve as New Jersey’s governor after Republican Christie Whitman in the 1990s, the first Democratic woman to hold the office, and the first female military veteran elected governor of any U.S. state. The result also marked the first time one party has held the New Jersey governorship for three consecutive terms since 1961.7NJ.com. 11 Big Things You Need to Know About Mikie Sherrill
Who Jack Ciattarelli Is
Ciattarelli was making his third run for governor. A certified public accountant with degrees from Seton Hall, he served on the Raritan Borough Council, as a Somerset County freeholder, and in the New Jersey Assembly starting in 2012.8WHYY. New Jersey Elections: Jack Ciattarelli, Republican He finished second in the 2017 Republican gubernatorial primary, won the 2021 nomination, and lost the general election to Phil Murphy by roughly three points. That near-miss made him the immediate frontrunner heading into 2025, and he dominated the June Republican primary, taking 68% of the vote and winning all 21 counties.9New Jersey Monitor. GOP Voters Pick Ex-Assemblyman as Nominee for New Jersey Governor
What the Race Turned On
Affordability sat at the center of both campaigns. Sherrill pledged to declare a “state of emergency on utility costs” on her first day to freeze rate hikes, and backed expanding the state’s child tax credit to as much as $1,000 per child, growing the Earned Income Tax Credit, and reinstating a back-to-school sales tax holiday.10NJ Spotlight News. Republican and Democratic Nominees for NJ Governor: Different Visions Ciattarelli ran on cutting and capping property taxes, freezing them for seniors over 70, reducing state spending by 30%, and creating a “Department of Government Efficiency” to audit state positions.8WHYY. New Jersey Elections: Jack Ciattarelli, Republican He also vowed to repeal the state’s Immigrant Trust Directive on day one and prohibit sanctuary city declarations.11Fox 29. Jack Ciattarelli Platform: Taxes, Immigration
Abortion was a sharp dividing line. Sherrill supported enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution with no gestational limit and proposed requiring insurance plans to cover all reproductive health services, including contraception and IVF.12NJ Spotlight News. NJ Governors Race: Sherrill and Ciattarelli on Abortion, Gun Rights, Vaccines Ciattarelli opposed the state’s 2022 Reproductive Freedom Act and called for banning elective abortions after 20 weeks, requiring parental notification for minors, and redirecting public funds from Planned Parenthood to antiabortion pregnancy centers.13New Jersey Monitor. NJ Governors Race: Abortion
Trump loomed over the general election. He endorsed Ciattarelli during the Republican primary in May 2025 and held a tele-rally for him in October, but did not appear in the state for any general election events.14New Jersey Monitor. Republican Governor Election: Donald Trump Sherrill’s campaign worked to tie Ciattarelli to the president, pointing to a debate in which Ciattarelli gave Trump an “A” grade. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll found that 52% of New Jersey voters considered Trump a “major factor” in their gubernatorial choice.15The Guardian. New Jersey Governors Race After the election, Republicans pointed to the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, which suspended food stamp benefits and allowed federal health care subsidies to lapse, along with the cancellation of funding for the Gateway tunnel project, as drags on the ticket.
Turnout and the Coalition
Roughly 3.6 million people voted, about 54% of registered voters. That was the highest gubernatorial turnout in more than two decades and the largest raw vote count for a non-presidential New Jersey election in state history. The 2021 Murphy-Ciattarelli race, by comparison, drew about 2.6 million voters at roughly 40% turnout.16New Jersey Monitor. New Jersey Governor Voter Turnout Every county saw participation rise by at least four percentage points over 2021.17WHYY. 2025 New Jersey Election Voter Turnout
Exit polls showed Sherrill winning women 62% to 37% while men split almost evenly. Voters under 45 backed her by roughly two-to-one. College graduates, 55% of the electorate, went for Sherrill 62% to 38%; white voters without a college degree went for Ciattarelli 63% to 37%. Black voters supported Sherrill at 94%, Latino voters at 68%, and Asian voters at 82%. Independents, 31% of the electorate, broke for Sherrill 56% to 43%.18CNN. 2025 New Jersey Exit Polls
Down-Ballot Results
Democrats expanded their State Assembly majority from 52 seats to at least 55, restoring a veto-proof two-thirds supermajority for the first time since 2019. With two close races trending their way, the final count reached 57 seats to Republicans’ 23.19New Jersey Monitor. New Jersey Democrats Assembly Elections Notable flips included the 21st District in Union County, where Democrats Andrew Macurdy and Vincent Kearney unseated two Republican incumbents, and the 8th District in Burlington and Camden Counties, where Democrats won both Assembly seats for the first time since 1973.20NJ Spotlight News. Democrats Boost Majority Control in State Assembly In the 25th District, Democrat Marisa Sweeney edged out Republican incumbent Christian Barranco by 664 votes, flipping a Morris County seat Republicans had held since 1977.21New Jersey Globe. Democrat Marisa Sweeney Wins Assembly Seat in 25th District The State Senate was not on the ballot and remained under Democratic control, giving New Jersey a full Democratic trifecta.
What Sherrill Has Done Since Taking Office
Sherrill was inaugurated on January 20, 2026, alongside Lieutenant Governor Dale Caldwell, who also took on the role of secretary of state.22State of New Jersey. Lieutenant Governor Dale Caldwell On her first day she signed six executive orders. One declared a state of emergency on utility costs and used state funds to offset scheduled electricity rate increases. Another invoked the Disaster Control Act to fast-track solar and battery storage development and created a Nuclear Power Task Force. The remaining orders established a chief operating officer position for state government, set ethics standards for her administration, launched a permitting streamlining initiative, and created an Office of Youth Online Mental Health Safety and Awareness.23State of New Jersey. Governor Sherrill Signs Six Executive Orders
In February 2026 Sherrill signed Executive Order No. 12, barring federal immigration officers from accessing nonpublic areas of state property for civil immigration enforcement absent a judicial warrant.24State of New Jersey. Executive Order No. 12 The Trump administration’s Department of Justice sued the state and Sherrill on February 23, 2026, arguing the order violated the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and obstructed federal immigration enforcement. The 21-page complaint was filed in federal court in Newark.25U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against New Jersey Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said the state “looks forward to defending the order in court.”26Politico. Trump New Jersey Lawsuit: ICE Ban
In late March 2026 Sherrill introduced a $60.7 billion budget for fiscal year 2027, her first. The plan included nearly $2 billion in spending cuts, $4.2 billion in property tax relief across six programs, record K-12 education funding of $22.5 billion, and a full $7.3 billion pension contribution, which she described as the first by a first-year governor in decades. The budget also allocated over $100 million in state funds to backstop federal SNAP and Medicaid support in anticipation of continued federal cuts.27State of New Jersey. FY2027 Budget in Brief Additional executive orders issued in her first months directed NJ Transit to produce a plan for improving rider experience and established an interagency Housing Governing Council to tackle housing affordability.28State of New Jersey. Executive Order Archive