New Jersey’s governorship is seen as the best job in Garden State politics, one that’s worth giving up virtually any other political post in order to win. Eleven candidates are running for the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial nominations this year, and many of whom already hold prominent political posts, which raises an interesting question: what happens to their seats if they win?
Seven of the candidates running, six Democrats and one Republican, currently hold elected office or a major union job that they’d have to give up to become governor. The terms on two of those jobs will run out before the next governor’s term begins anyways, but for the other five, a variety of different succession procedures will have to kick in.
The U.S. representatives: Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer
By far the most involved replacement process for any of the 11 gubernatorial candidates belongs to the two members of the U.S. House, Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), whose election as governor would trigger special elections for their North Jersey House seats.
Sherrill and Gottheimer both made the choice last year to run for re-election to Congress, even though it was widely expected that both would launch gubernatorial campaigns shortly afterward. That decision will allow them to continue serving as House members even if they lose this year’s race, but it has also meant that they’ve each missed a sizable amount of congressional business this year as they campaign in New Jersey.
And it means that, should one of them win, their seat in the closely divided House will be vacant for months. Unlike in the Senate, governors cannot appoint new House members in the event of a vacancy, and New Jersey’s election laws do not allow for an especially speedy special election process. (In last year’s special election for the 10th district, the first standalone House special election in New Jersey since 1950, new Rep. LaMonica McIver was elected in September after Rep. Donald Payne Jr. died in April.)
The next governor will take office on January 20, 2026. If Sherrill or Gottheimer is that new governor and issues a writ of special election that very day, the primary would take place between March 31 and April 6, with a general election between June 3 and June 9; the newly elected member would likely take office a short while afterwards.
That general election, though, could cause some scheduling headaches with New Jersey’s 2026 primary, which is set for June 2 (though that date could be changed). Putting the special election on the same day as the primary would mean that election officials would have to establish separate ballots for independent voters who want to vote in the special election but not register with a party for the primary; scheduling them on different days near one another, on the other hand, would lead to confusing overlapping voting timelines and potential shortages of voting machines.
Sherrill or Gottheimer could wait a little while to issue a writ in order to push the special election back and avoid those issues, and New Jersey law also gives them the option to not schedule a special election at all, letting their successor be elected on the usual June-primary-and-November-general schedule. That’s what happened when Jim Florio was elected governor in 1989, and when Bob Menendez was appointed to the U.S. Senate in early 2006; their seats were left vacant for nearly a year before Rob Andrews and Albio Sires were elected to take their place.
Sherrill said that she’d be interested in seeing reforms on a state level that could speed up the special election process, perhaps even implementing those reforms herself as governor. She also didn’t close the door to the possibility of resigning early if she wins the governorship in order to allow the special election to come earlier, saying that it would “be a discussion with Hakeem Jeffries” to determine when would be best to leave her seat behind.
Special elections for either seat would likely command substantial national attention, potentially serving as bellwethers ahead of the 2026 midterms. And Gottheimer’s 5th district seat in particular is not a surefire Democratic hold, since it swung dramatically to the right last year and only supported Kamala Harris by a 50%-48% margin; a talking point among supporters of other Democratic candidates has been that the House simply cannot afford to lose either Sherrill or Gottheimer while Republicans control Washington.
Sherrill, for her part, said that she’s confident Democrats will be able to hold her 11th district seat – which supported Harris 53%-44% last year – and that some local Democrats have already begun expressing interest in a campaign to succeed her. (One of them has even filed paperwork to do so.)
“I think we should hold this seat quite handily,” Sherrill said. “I’ve had several people, who I’m not going to name, come up to me and say, ‘I might be interested,’ so I know there’s a good group of candidates who are thinking about running here.”
Gottheimer declined to answer specific questions from the New Jersey Globe about the timeline for his departure and his thoughts on Democratic chances in a 5th district special election, but said generally that he’s committed to helping Democrats retain the seat if he’s elected governor.
“Josh will work tirelessly to elect a Democratic successor to his seat when he becomes Governor, and he’ll work with New Jersey Democrats and his colleagues in Congress to ensure the smoothest transition possible,” campaign spokesman Peter Opitz said.
(If Gottheimer or Sherrill lose the 2025 race in either the primary or the general elections, there may also be some speculation about whether they’ll run for the House again in 2026 – but if either of them do choose not to run for re-election, the race to succeed them would simply follow the regular House election schedule and not require a special election.)
The mayors: Ras Baraka and Steve Fulop
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop are also running in this year’s Democratic primary, potentially paving the way for new leadership in the state’s two largest cities.
Fulop has already prepared for that eventuality; he’s not running for re-election this year, setting up a competitive nonpartisan race in November to succeed him regardless of whether he’s elected as governor. If Fulop does indeed win the governorship, there still won’t be any succession issues in Jersey City, because he’d leave office there on December 31 but wouldn’t take office as governor until three weeks later.
Things could get more complicated in Newark, however. If Baraka is elected governor, City Council President C. Lawrence Crump would automatically become the acting mayor; the city council would then vote on a longer-term replacement, presumably – but not assuredly – choosing to keep Crump on.
Newark’s nonpartisan 2026 mayoral election will arrive four months after the new governor is sworn in, so the race to lead the city would already be well underway by the time Baraka arrives at the governor’s mansion. (Baraka has not said whether he means to seek a fourth term as mayor if his gubernatorial campaign doesn’t succeed.)
Back in 2013, Newark faced a similar choice after then-Mayor Cory Booker was elected to the U.S. Senate. The council had been riven by internal fighting for a year and was down a member thanks to the election of Donald Payne Jr. to Congress, leading to frequent deadlocks along racial lines (the council had four Black members and four Hispanic or Portuguese members); still, the eight remaining councilmembers were able to agree to unanimously elect Luis Quintana, who had ascended to the council presidency after Payne’s House win, as mayor. Quintana didn’t run for a full term the next year, and Baraka was elected to succeed him.
This year features some eerie similarities: the council is once again down to eight members after McIver was elected to Congress to succeed none other than Payne, and since McIver had been council president leading up to her House campaign, Crump is new to the job like Quintana was in 2013. But if Baraka is indeed elected governor, the council should be back up to nine members when it comes time to choose his successor, since the special election to fill McIver’s seat will happen this November.
The legislator: Jon Bramnick
Unlike in the case of congressional special elections, legislative special elections have very set rules and occur fairly frequently in New Jersey, meaning that it’s not hard to game out what would happen if State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) is elected governor.
Between 7 and 35 days after Bramnick departs his legislative post, local Republicans in Union, Somerset, Morris, and Middlesex Counties would meet for a convention to fill his State Senate seat in the 21st district. The new senator’s term would run through the end of 2026, and they’d have to run in a special primary and general election synced up with the 2026 midterm elections in order to keep their seat beyond that (and then run in the regularly scheduled 2027 elections for a full term).
If Republicans choose one of the district’s two assemblywomen, Nancy Muñoz (R-Summit) or Michele Matsikoudis (R-New Providence), to take Bramnick’s place, then that would necessitate another special convention to replace them in the Assembly. (The two conventions could theoretically be combined, as happened in a Passaic County legislative seat earlier this year.) The new assemblymember would then run alongside the new senator in the 2026 special election.
Given that the 21st district is the bluest district currently held by GOP legislators, Republicans may struggle to hold the seat in a federal midterm environment. Then again, if an unabashedly anti-Trump Republican like Bramnick is able to win both a primary and general election for governor, then all bets are off as to what’s possible in New Jersey politics.
The union leaders: Steve Sweeney and Sean Spiller
The two other Democratic candidates, former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford), both gave up their elected posts prior to this year’s campaign. But both hold notable jobs in major unions: Spiller as the president of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) and Sweeney as a general vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers.
Spiller’s term as NJEA president is ending this September anyways, so if he wins the Democratic primary he’ll already be out of the job by the time the general election rolls around. (If he’s not the Democratic nominee by then, he could return to the job that led to his rise in the NJEA: Wayne high school science teacher.)
And his successor has been clear since 2017: NJEA officers almost always cycle through the union’s three main offices – secretary-treasurer, vice president, president – so when now-Vice President Steve Beatty was elected secretary-treasurer eight years ago, it essentially locked him into becoming president in 2025. (The current #3, Petal Robertson, will ascend to vice president in September, with NJEA government affairs chair Tina Dare becoming secretary-treasurer.)
The process to replace Sweeney is less clear; Sweeney is the Iron Workers’ third-in-command, but the union also has a number of other general vice presidents who might be in line to take his place.
Everyone else
The remaining four Republican candidates – former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville), radio host Bill Spadea, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac, and contractor Justin Barbera – don’t currently hold any public offices. Ciattarelli left the Assembly nearly eight years ago to embark on his first gubernatorial run; Kranjac didn’t seek re-election in his small Bergen County town in 2023; and Spadea and Barbera have never won an election before.
There is an interesting wrinkle with Spadea, however. In order to run for governor, Spadea departed his job hosting New Jersey 101.5’s morning drive show; longtime broadcaster Eric Scott has taken the role on an interim basis, and 101.5 will conduct a search for a new full-time host if Spadea wins the governorship. If Spadea loses, however, a clause in his contract states that he’ll be able to return to the same hosting position he held before.
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