Phil Murphy skated to the NJ governor's mansion. Mikie Sherrill might not have it so easy.

Yahoo

a day ago

Rep. Mikie Sherrill was the vanguard of the anti-Trump backlash in 2018.
Just months after the political unknown declared her Democratic candidacy for Congress and began raising money at a fast clip, the 24-year Republican incumbent bowed out rather than face the first competitive general election of his career. Sherrill easily won what had long been a safe Republican district in a blue wave election that flipped the House.
Now, Sherrill stands as Democrats' bulwark against a red tide after winning the party nomination for New Jersey governor Tuesday night.
With Democrats out of power in Washington and trying to chart a path in the second Donald Trump presidency, Sherrill's campaign to lead a reddening New Jersey may present a road map.
During her victory speech Tuesday night, the former Navy helicopter pilot compared the fight against Trump to the American Revolution.
''Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,'' Sherrill said, quoting Thomas Paine. 'And as always, New Jersey rose to the challenge. By December, General Washington led his daring crossing of the Delaware and turned the tide at Trenton and Princeton. And here we are nearly 250 years later and New Jersey once again stands at the front lines.'
But Sherrill likely won't be able to skate into office the way Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy did eight years ago. Back then, Murphy had the state and national political winds at his back: Republican Gov. Chris Christie was ending his two terms as the most unpopular governor since the advent of polling, and Trump was deeply unpopular in New Jersey.
Since then, Trump has made gains in the typically blue state. He lost New Jersey by just 6 points last year, and Republicans are optimistic that the GOP nominee, Jack Ciattarelli, can win back the governorship. He nearly defeated Murphy in 2021, and he won the nomination Tuesday night with a whopping 68 percent of the vote and Trump's backing.
'What Mikie won with Tuesday night wasn't just anti-Trump,' said Dan Bryan, a Democratic strategist who worked for Murphy. 'It's: We're going to stand up for New Jersey. Jack Ciattarelli is going to stand up for Donald Trump.'
It's not clear whether the same anti-Trump message from Sherrill will have the same resonance, with recent polls showing either that Trump is mildly unpopular in New Jersey or that voters are split down the middle on him.
Ciattarelli — whose endorsement by Trump last month made his nomination a fait accompli — anticipated as much in his own Republican victory speech. 'If this campaign were a drinking game and you took a shot every time Mikie Sherrill says 'Trump,' you're going to be drunk off your ass every day between now and November 4th,' he said.
Bob Hugin, the Republican state chair, said he anticipates Trump will even come to New Jersey to campaign for Ciattarelli.
'He was toxic in 2018. Now he's a positive force for change,' Hugin said in a phone interview.
Ciattarelli on Wednesday immediately headed to voters who have long been part of the Democratic base, visiting a bakery in heavily Hispanic Dover, in Morris County, as his first stop. In the 2024 election, Hispanic voters in North Jersey drove much of the state's shift toward Trump.
Even prior to Sherrill's win on Tuesday, Ciattarelli has attempted to get ahead of Democratic messaging that focuses on the president.
'Last time I checked, what does Donald Trump have to do with our property taxes?' Ciattarelli said at a recent town hall. 'I'm going to make sure that this spotlight stays on New Jersey issues. … We're not going to let them get away from Phil Murphy's failed record. That's all we're going to talk about for the next five months.'
New Jersey consistently ranks as having the highest property tax rates in the nation, and Republicans see Democratic vulnerabilities in rising energy bills and the struggles of NJ Transit.
Sherrill faces another unique challenge that Murphy did not have in 2017 during his first campaign: having to differentiate herself from the Democratic incumbent. It has been decades since Democrats have won the governorship three terms in a row in the Garden State.
She has pushed back on accusations that she is 'Murphy 2.0,' as Ciattarelli called her in his Tuesday night victory speech. After a Democratic debate during the primary, Sherrill told reporters that her background and experience is 'completely different' from Murphy, and her 'vision for the state is very distinct.'
Murphy at times has also taken more of a conciliatory approach toward Trump.
And polls don't show Murphy to be the same kind of albatross on Democrats that Christie was for Republicans.
'He's not going out with a bang, but he's not going out with people hating him. It's more a sense of getting a little itchy for change,' said pollster Patrick Murray of StimSight Research. 'The question is whether change necessarily has to be the other party.'
Democrats argue that messaging about Trump is still potent and can help them articulate the case against Ciattarelli. LeRoy Jones, the state Democratic chair who backed Sherrill through the primary, said Democrats will be able to hit Republicans on pocketbook issues thanks to the Trump administration's tariffs.
'Those core kitchen table issues, as well as the infringements on people's constitutional rights, will loom large in this election,' he said.
Throughout the primary, Democrats also used Elon Musk, the former head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency who has since been on the outs with the administration, as a foil in their messaging. Sherrill's opponents sought to take her down by linking her to Musk — pointing to previous donations she took from his company's super political action committee — but those attacks were ultimately unsuccessful.
Even though Musk is not involved much at the moment, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin argued that the approach of going after the Trump administration is still the right move.
'Musk may be out of the picture, but the bad policies and bad practices that he and Trump pushed in the first place are still around, so none of that changes,' Martin said. 'The message is still the same, which is, Donald Trump promised he was going to improve people's lives on day one. He has refused to do that.'