It’s Jack versus Mikie, as voters deliver resounding victories for N.J. gov frontrunners

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville) entered tonight’s primaries for New Jersey governor as frontrunners. They left them as winners.

Both Sherrill, a congresswoman since 2019, and Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman and the GOP’s nominee for governor in 2021, won resounding victories over crowded primary fields filled with similarly ambitious and impressive members of their parties. They’re now headed for a November general election matchup that’s likely to be expensive, consequential, and closely watched around the nation.

But further down the ballot, some unusual primary results promise to change the makeup of state politics come 2026. A handful of Democratic incumbents and party-backed candidates for the State Assembly have fallen to insurgent challengers, and a whole bunch more on both sides of the aisle came closer than expected to losing, potentially the state’s new normal now that the county line ballot system has gone the way of the dodo.

It all comes together for an Election Night that’s tough to summarize – and one that will have ripple effects for years to come.

Sherrill beats a fractured Democratic field

With a lead in every publicly released poll of the race and the backing of most (though not all) of the state’s most influential Democratic Party leaders, few disputed that Sherrill was the favorite for the Democratic nomination. The question was, could any of her five opponents, especially Newark Mayor Ras Baraka or Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, pull off the upset?

Voters said no, and not by a close margin. Sherrill currently has 34% of the vote, while Baraka has 20% and Fulop has 16%. Finishing even further behind are Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) with 12%, New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller with 11%, and former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) with just 7%.

While each candidate had their own regions where they did better, it was ultimately a cross-state coalition that elected Sherrill; the congresswoman leads in fifteen of the state’s 21 counties, even those like Atlantic and Warren where the local Democratic organizations supported someone else. (One of the six exceptions: Sherrill’s home county of Essex, where Baraka leads due to his support from Black voters.)

Declining to take the kind of strident ideological positions that some other Democrats made the basis of their campaigns, Sherrill’s campaign was always predicated around the idea that voters liked her and what she stood for: a former Navy helicopter pilot, a popular congresswoman, a mom of four. Sherrill’s opponents griped that she didn’t get into specifics enough, but that was likely too esoteric of a complaint for voters simply concerned with finding a compelling nominee who could beat Jack Ciattarelli and stand up to Donald Trump.

Baraka came the closest to finding a strategy that worked against Sherrill, focusing heavily on Black voters with a poetic, deeply progressive message. It certainly worked in the state’s Black communities, propelling Baraka to a second-place finish, but it failed to make much headway in many whiter parts of the state, and Black turnout wasn’t high enough to compensate.

Fulop, meanwhile, had a grand vision for reform across New Jersey, recruiting dozens of State Assembly candidates to run on his “Democrats for Change” slate and pushing ambitious plans on development, transit, and good governance. It was a message, though, that proved to have a rather narrow audience; Fulop had extremely enthusiastic supporters, but they turned out to be a distinct minority of state Democrats, and he didn’t win a single county.

Gottheimer and Sweeney, both moderates with an affordability-focused message, ended up being heavily regional candidates: Gottheimer only did well in his home of Bergen County, while Sweeney failed to break out anywhere besides his own legislative district in the state’s far southeastern corner. (The former legislative leader may be on track to lose four South Jersey counties where he had party support.)

Finally, there’s Spiller, whose strategy revolved around tens of millions in spending from a super PAC funded by his own union. It certainly worked at getting his name out there, propelling him to a better finish than some expected, but in a race with so many talented Democrats running, his super PAC’s rather generic messaging struggled to make a dent. The race on both sides cost more than $120 million overall, a staggering sum that eclipsed any prior primary for governor.

That’s simply one attempt at a postmortem of tonight’s results; many more will surely be coming, some of them with the clarity that a fuller count and detailed town-by-town results will provide. But any way you slice it, Mikie Sherrill is the big-time winner.

Trump-endorsed Ciattarelli dominates

The Republican primary essentially ended when President Donald Trump gave Ciattatrelli his “complete and total endorsement” last month, and Republican voters have now simply affirmed the president’s choice.

Even before Trump’s endorsement, though, Ciattarelli already had a dominant lead in polls and fundraising. It may have been that Ciattarelli’s goodwill from his prior runs – he famously came three points away from unseating Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021 – and his savvy primary campaign this year simply weren’t beatable.

Ciattarelli currently has 68% of the vote, a whopping percentage for a non-incumbent in a five-way race, while former radio host Bill Spadea has 22%. State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) has 6%, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac has 3%, and contractor Justin Barbera has 1%.

From the beginning of the campaign, Ciattarelli knew that he was vulnerable on his right flank thanks to past criticism of Trump and his moderate stances from prior campaigns. Thus began a concerted effort by the Ciattarelli camp both to mollify Trump and to bring Ciattarelli more in line with the average GOP primary voter, who by now is fully sold on the president and his right-wing stances.

It worked magnificently, to such an extent that Spadea was left with almost no breathing room. Spadea ran to Ciattarelli’s right when he could, taking an aggressively conservative approach to immigration and LGBT issues, but faced with a better-known candidate repeating much of Trump’s own rhetoric, there wasn’t much he could do. (Spadea ended up failing to carry a single county, even the two where he had the sole party endorsement; he did best, relatively speaking, in the Central Jersey counties where his radio show’s signal was strongest.)

As for Bramnick, the longtime state legislator ran a pointedly moderate, frequently anti-Trump campaign that was always going to heavy lift in a Republican primary. If nothing else, Bramnick’s loss is proof that the appetite for Trump-skeptical stances in the New Jersey GOP is, truly, near-zero.

Ciattarelli now gets the fight he wanted in the first place: an open-seat general election after eight years of single-party Democratic rule. He and Sherrill are about to find out how tough the other truly is.

Assembly races get wacky

Thanks to the rise of office-block ballots in place of the county line, and the general chaos surrounding the governor’s race, this year’s Assembly races were always going to be more competitive than usual. But the degree of competition throughout the state still came as a substantial surprise, especially to Democratic incumbents.

There were a few races that everyone knew would be close, like the primaries for three districts in Hudson County – more on that later – and the Democratic contest for two seats in the Paterson-based 35th district, where Newark Corporation Counsel Kenyatta Stewart has won one seat running solo while two party-backed candidates duke it out for the other seat.

But there were plenty of other districts where seemingly long-shot primary challengers became real threats once votes started rolling in. Bordentown Mayor Eric Holliday in the 7th district Democratic primary, Rich Castaldo in the 13th district Republican primary, Piscataway school board member Loretta Rivers in the 17th district Democratic primary, former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybooks in the 34th district Democratic primary – all of them and more came within a few percentage points of unseating an incumbent.

In one district, the Elizabeth-based 20th district, an insurgent candidate is actually ahead. There, former Elizabeth municipal official Ed Rodriguez leads Union County Commissioner Sergio Granados (D-Elizabeth), the party’s choice for an open seat, by 188 votes.

There’s also the 28th district, where Assemblywoman Garnet Hall lost re-election, but that was more of an expected result; she had failed to get party support, and ran instead on Fulop’s ticket against the party ticket of Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker and attorney Chigozie Onyema.

(Not every potentially competitive race, though, ended up being extremely close; Assemblymen Bob Auth and John Azzariti easily dispatched Frank Pallotta in the 39th district GOP primary, while Assemblywomen Shama Haider and Ellen Park won by a solid margin in a six-way Democratic race for the 37th district.)

All in all, at least a handful of members of the Assembly next year are going to have won their primaries without party backing, and often in direct opposition to the party. That’s a sea change from the 2023 legislative elections, when all 120 legislators won with the explicit support of their local parties.

This year may have been unusual in how many contested primaries there were, but the fact that voters were more amenable to renegade challengers than in past years is a massive flashing warning light for every legislator and party boss in the state. Most of the country has long had a system where if voters grew tired of a legislator, they have a real mechanism to elect someone new; the end of the county line means that New Jersey may finally be joining that club.

The Hudson War comes to an end

Thanks in part to Steve Fulop’s gubernatorial campaign and in part simply to long-simmering local rivalries, Hudson County was at the center of this year’s Democratic primary battles, featuring three major legislative primaries and a battle for the county sheriff’s office. The end result? A mixed bag.

The good (from the perspective of the Hudson machine): Sherrill, the county party’s endorsed candidate, beat Fulop countywide; Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis unseated incumbent Sheriff Frank Schillari, albeit by a small margin; and in the 33rd legislative district, the Assembly slate affiliated with State Sen./Union City Mayor Brian Stack demolished the slate allied with North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco, who’s on the outs with the county organization.

That first point is especially important; if Sherrill wins in November, she’ll have all of the county parties that supported her in the primary to thank, and Hudson Democrats – who successfully pushed her past one of their own – will be at the top of that list.

The bad: the organization has fully lost control in the 32nd district, where independent candidate Katie Brennan won one seat and the second seat is still wavering between Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla (Brennan’s running mate) and Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (a Fulop ally). Hudson Democrats have been at risk of losing sway over downtown Jersey City and Hoboken for years, and this year the dam finally broke.

The unclear: in the 31st legislative district, party-backed Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker (D-Jersey City) has won one seat, but the battle for the second seat is a three-car pileup among Assemblyman William Sampson (D-Bayonne), the party’s other pick, and Assemblywoman Barbara McCann Stamato (D-Jersey City) and Bayonne Councilwoman Jacqueline Weimmer, the Fulop ticket.

But of course, in a county where the local party has grown accustomed to winning without even really trying – the county’s entire legislative delegation got overhauled in 2023 and no one batted an eye – any losses at all are bad news, even when accompanied by wins elsewhere.

Now what?

Get some rest!

Or, not really. There’s still a state budget due in a few weeks’ time. And the state’s two members of Congress who just ran for governor, whether they won or lost, will have votes that need voting and committee hearings that need hearing back down in Washington D.C.

But when it comes to the primary results, now that the dust is settling in all but a few races, it will be worth thinking long and hard about what they mean. New Jersey is not just going to get a new governor and a new State Legislature at the beginning of next year; it’s also on the frontier of a new style of elections, and perhaps a new style of politics.

Sherrill’s and Ciattarelli’s wins, following tried-and-true playbooks, are proof that the old system is far from dead. And unpredictable Assembly results around the state show that the new way of doing things is arriving fast. We’ll soon see who can keep up.