New Jersey’s primary election season has been over for fewer than 24 hours – and, with a new poll now being released by a national Democratic group that’s supporting Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), the general election has already begun.
Democrats for Education Reform, a left-leaning group focused on education policies and charter schools, commissioned a SurveyUSA poll prior to the election testing Sherrill and former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville) in a then-hypothetical general election matchup. Now that primary voters have affirmed that matchup, DFER is publicly releasing the poll, which shows its preferred candidate with a solid lead.
According to the poll, Sherrill has a 13-point advantage over Ciattarelli, 51%-38%, among likely voters. Twelve percent of respondents said they were undecided between the two candidates, both of whom have been spending millions of dollars on the airwaves over the last few months. (Both have run for prominent offices before, too: Sherrill first flipped a GOP-held congressional seat in 2018, while Ciattarelli was also his party’s nominee for governor in 2021.)
DFER had already released partial results from the poll, which was conducted from May 28 to May 30, before the primary election. That earlier release found that Sherrill and Ciattarelli were each viewed favorably by around two-fifths of the electorate, though Ciattarelli had higher unfavorable numbers; President Donald Trump was underwater in the poll 44%-53%.
The results of DFER’s poll – the first in what is likely to be a long series of polls on the road to the general election – are, of course, positive for Sherrill. Given New Jersey’s typical blue lean and the fact that a Republican sits in the White House, Democrats are generally seen as at least slight favorites to hold onto the governor’s mansion, even though that would represent the first time since 1965 that either party wins the governorship more than twice in a row.
But the numbers also come with several caveats. For one, any poll coming from a campaign or a group supporting a particular campaign has to be treated with some caution, since they have a vested interest in making their candidate look good and might include turnout models or assumptions that fit their narrative. (Then again, Sherrill’s own internal polling of the Democratic primary wasn’t too far off the final results.)
And for another, pollsters have consistently struggled in recent years to nail down New Jersey’s electorate in general elections, usually at the expense of Republicans. In the state’s last two statewide elections, the 2024 presidential & Senate races and the 2021 governor’s race, polls routinely underestimated Republicans by a large margin; in 2021, a number of polls showed Ciattarelli losing by double digits, but Gov. Phil Murphy ended up only beating him 51%-48%.
Beyond the governor’s election, SurveyUSA’s poll also asked likely voters for their thoughts on other issues facing the state.
Asked whether they thought “young people today will be better off or worse off financially than previous generations of Americans,” respondents were generally pessimistic. 7% said a lot better off, 22% said a little better off, 36% said a little worse off, and 29% said a lot worse off – a 29%-65% advantage for worse off overall.
And asked about what issues elected officials should focus on to make young people better off, 64% said lowering inflation and costs; 32% said reducing the cost of health care; 31% said improving public schools; 25% said making college more affordable; and 21% said stopping jobs from being outsourced and automated. (Respondents could choose up to two options out of the five.)
Besides the brief mention of improving public schools, nowhere in the poll do DFER’s own specific policy goals – promoting educational reforms, backing charter schools, and sometimes tussling with teachers’ unions – come up.
But the group did have a stake in yesterday’s Democratic primary, preferring Sherrill, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), or former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) – the more moderate half of the Democratic field, broadly speaking – rather than Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, or New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller.
“Last night’s primary results and this general election poll shows that voters across New Jersey are seeking a results driven leader like Mikie Sherrill,” DFER CEO Jorge Elorza said in a statement accompanying the poll. “Whether in education or the economy, voters are hungry for someone who is relentlessly focused on delivering results like Mikie Sherrill, and we’re excited to help elect her as the next Governor of New Jersey this November.”
It’s notable that DFER felt confident enough in Sherrill and Ciattarelli victories to commission a survey testing a matchup that wasn’t guaranteed to ever exist. Then again, both had led in every publicly released poll of their respective primary contests; Sherrill, in fact, began airing ads attacking Ciattarelli weeks ago, skipping ahead to the general election long before either of them knew for certain that they would be their party’s nominee.
The SurveyUSA poll was conducted on behalf of Democrats for Education Reform between May 28 and May 30 with a sample size of 576 New Jersey voters likely to vote in the November 2025 elections and a margin of error of +/- 6.1%.