Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) raised an astronomic $783,000 in the second quarter of this year, boosting her campaign warchest to over $1.6 million for her bid to win a fourth term in New Jersey’s 11th district.
“New Jersey Democrats are fired up to beat Trump and I am so grateful to my supporters for putting their trust in me to fight for everything at stake, whether it’s abortion rights, lower costs, or our democracy itself,” Sherrill said. “What I’ve heard across New Jersey is a hunger for leadership that puts people and country first — and that’s always been my commitment to the people I serve.”
Sherrill, who is mulling a run for the Democratic nomination for governor next year, has raised more than $3.2 million so far this cycle, and almost $24 million since entering politics in 2017 in a bid to unseat House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen.
Her fundraising haul this quarter marks a 42% increase in fundraising over the first quarter.
It was Sherrill’s early fundraising prowess – she had raised more than $1.2 million by the end of 2017 – that helped frighten Frelinghuysen, a twelve-term incumbent, out of the race. With roughly $1 million, Frelinghuysen announced his retirement weeks after Sherrill announced her own fundraising numbers.
A former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutors, Sherrill won her House race by 46,262 votes, 57%-42%, flipping a seat held by Republicans for 34 years. In 2020, she defeated Republican Rosemary Becchi, a former U.S. Senate Finance Committee tax counsel, by 29,150 votes, 53%-47%.
Her Republican opponent is Joseph Belnome, a building inspector from Belleville and an avid supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign who was present outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Redistricting in 2022 traded heavily Republican towns in Sussex and Passaic counties for Democratic strongholds in Essex, including Maplewood, Millburn, and South Orange. Joe Biden would have carried the new lines by 17 points – almost as significant as his margin in the less competitive 6th and 9th districts. In 2022, Gov. Phil Murphy, who struggled in the well-off suburbs where Biden did best, won the 11th district by four points.
She defeated Paul DeGroot, a former Assistant Passaic County Prosecutor, by 51,484 votes, a 19-point victory.