As New Jersey’s raucous gubernatorial primaries enter their final week, there’s a new poll in town – but it doesn’t tell us much about who might win each party’s nomination.
The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of the advocacy group Education Reform Now, did not test a head-to-head contest, instead asking voters their opinions on most of the major candidates running for governor. 576 voters of all parties who are likely to vote in this November’s elections were asked for their thoughts; subsamples of those who voted for President Donald Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris last year serve as decent proxies for partisan affiliation.
According to the poll, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) just barely has the Democratic field’s best favorability rating among the general electorate at 41% favorable, 29% unfavorable; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) is at 36%-23%, a slightly better ratio but with fewer voters knowing who he is.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller have identical favorability ratings of 34%-31%, while Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and former State Senate President Steve Sweeney are each underwater at 28%-29% and 32%-34%, respectively.
The poll was intended in part to demonstrate Sherrill’s and Gottheimer’s electability, especially in contrast to Fulop and Baraka; the pro-charter school, left-leaning group Democrats for Education Reform blasted out the results in an email that promoted Sherrill’s numbers in particular and blasted Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli as a “MAGA Stooge.”
Among Harris voters, all six Democratic candidates unsurprisingly have much better favorability ratings, but Sherrill still narrowly comes out on top at 58%-17%. Spiller is at 51%-20%, Baraka at 50%-19%, Gottheimer at 48%-13%, Fulop at 41%-19%, and Sweeney at 40%-28%.
Between 30% and 42% of general electorate voters say they’re unfamiliar with each of the six candidates – certainly a lower number than was likely true at the beginning of this cycle’s campaign, but still notably high given how many millions of dollars each candidate has spent to raise their name recognition.
The poll only asked respondents about one Republican candidate: Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman who has Trump’s endorsement and is considered the clear frontrunner for the GOP nomination.
Ciattarelli has favorability ratings of 40%-36% among the broader electorate and 63%-19% among Trump voters – seemingly strong numbers, but since other GOP candidates like former radio host Bill Spadea or State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) weren’t included, there’s no way to see how they compare to his opponents. Just 25% of voters say they haven’t heard of Ciattarelli, the lowest of anyone in the field, likely thanks in part to Ciattarelli’s prior two runs for governor in 2017 and 2021.
Finally, the poll tested Trump himself, finding him to have a 44%-53% favorability rating overall. That’s a small decline from his 52%-46% loss in the state last year, and it’s worse than an Emerson poll from last month that put him just barely underwater – but it’s still far better than Trump’s first term, when the president’s desperate unpopularity in New Jersey led to widespread losses for state Republicans.
The SurveyUSA poll was conducted on behalf of Education Reform Now 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%.
This story was updated at 6:26 p.m., and again at 6:58 p.m., with more information about the poll’s sponsor.
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