Democrat Mikie Sherrill elected governor of New Jersey, defeating opponent who aligned with Trump

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday was elected governor of New Jersey, shoring up Democratic control of a state that has been reliably blue in presidential and Senate contests but had shown signs of shifting rightward in recent years.

Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and four-term member of Congress, defeated Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, and quickly cast her victory late Tuesday as a referendum on the Republican president and some of his policies from health care to immigration and the economy.

“We here in New Jersey are bound to fight for a different future for our children,” Sherrill told her supporters gathered to celebrate her victory. “We see how clearly important liberty is. We know that no one in our great state is safe when our neighbors are targeted, ignoring the law and the Constitution.”

Ciattarelli called Sherrill to congratulate her on the results and said he “gave her my very best wishes in hopefully solving New Jersey.”

The start of voting on Tuesday was disrupted after officials in seven counties received e-mailed bomb threats later determined by law enforcement to be unfounded, said the state’s top election official, Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way. A judge granted a one-hour extension at some polling places after Democrats made a request for three schools that received e-mailed bomb threats earlier Tuesday.

Sherrill, 53, offers some reassurance for moderates within the Democratic Party as they navigate the path forward for next year’s midterms. A former prosecutor and military veteran, Sherrill embodies a brand of centrist Democrats who aim to appeal to some conservatives while still aligning with some progressive causes. She campaigned on standing up to Trump and casting blame for voters’ concerns over the economy on his tariffs.

Earlier at Sherrill's victory party, other Democrats were also framing the results Tuesday as a rebuke to the Trump agenda 10 months into his administration.

“Today we said no to Donald Trump and yes to democracy,” said New Jersey's Democratic Party chair LeRoy J. Jones Jr. to the people gathered.

She will be New Jersey’s second female governor, after Republican Christine Todd Whitman, who served between 1994 and 2001. Her victory also gives Democrats three straight gubernatorial election wins in New Jersey, the first time in six decades that either major party has achieved a three-peat.

Ciattarelli lost his second straight governor’s election after coming within a few points of defeating incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago.

New Jersey’s odd-year race for governor, one of just two this year along with Virginia, often hinged on local issues such as property taxes. But the campaign also served as a potential gauge of national sentiment, especially how voters are reacting to the president’s second term and Democrats’ messaging ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

In the closing weeks of the campaign, Sherrill lambasted the president’s threat to cancel a project to build new rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River to replace the aging, disintegrating tubes now used by trains headed to and from New York City. She also pledged to order a freeze on electric utility rates, which have recently soared.

Sherrill steps into the governorship role after serving four terms in the U.S. House. She won that post in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office, flipping a longtime GOP-held district in an election that saw Democrats sweep all but one of the state’s 12 House seats.

During her campaign, Sherrill leaned hard into her credentials as a congresswoman and onetime prosecutor as well as her military service. But she also had to defend her Navy service record after a news report that she was not allowed to participate in her 1994 graduation ceremony from the U.S. Naval Academy commencement in connection with an academic cheating scandal at the school.

Sherrill said the punishment was a result of not turning in some classmates, not because she herself had cheated. But she declined to release additional records that the Ciattarelli campaign said would shed more light on the issue.

For her part, she accused Ciattarelli of profiting off the opioid crisis. He is the former owner of a medical publishing company that made continuing education materials for doctors, including some that discussed pain management and opioids. Sherrill called it “propaganda” for drug companies, something Ciattarelli denied.

Sherrill will inherit a state budget that swelled under Murphy, who delivered on promises to fund the public worker pension fund and a K-12 school aid formula after years of neglect under previous governors, by high income taxes on the wealthy. But there are also headwinds that include unfunded promises to continue a property tax relief program begun in the governor’s second term.

Also on the ballot Tuesday were all 80 seats in the Assembly, which Democrats control with a 52-seat majority.

New Jersey hasn’t supported a Republican for U.S. Senate or the White House in decades. The governor’s office, though, has often switched back and forth between the parties. The last time the same party prevailed in a third straight New Jersey election for governor was in 1961, when Richard Hughes won the race to succeed Gov. Robert Meyner. Both were Democrats.