Democrat Mikie Sherrill has defeated Republican’s Jack Ciattarelli to become the next governor of New Jersey.
Sherrill’s win robs Republicans of the party’s best chance of an upset this election night.
Sherrill, a member of the House of Representatives, ran primarily against President Donald Trump’s economy.
She and her D.C. roommate, Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger – who won the Virginia governor’s race earlier Tuesday night – both cruised to victory, which will give the Democratic party a much-needed ego boost after last year’s political setback.
Sherrill was elected to Congress in 2018 in an effort to restrain President Donald Trump during his first term, with voters in the Garden State sending a similar message to the White House Tuesday night.
Exit polls showed Sherrill winning a majority of independents, who will play an important role in next year’s midterm elections.
Trump never physically campaigned alongside Ciattarelli, though appeared more invested in the race in its final hours.
Taking to Truth Social several hours before polls closed, the president implored that ‘ALL PATRIOTIC CITIZENS OF THE GREAT STATE OF NEW JERSEY’ vote for Ciattarelli, urging them to get in line before the 8 p.m. deadline.
Trump claimed that 32,000 Orthodox Jews from New Jersey were backing the Republican, asking students at Jewish schools to follow suit.
At the White House Monday night, Trump hosted a tele-rally, where the president made clear that he thought Ciattarelli had a better shot of winning his race than Virginia’s GOP gubernatorial candidate, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.
The president never mentioned Earle-Sears by name, with her loss in Virginia called early.
‘You need to go out and vote for Jack Ciattarelli, who’s a great guy, a friend of mine, a great guy, a very successful man, who wants to put all of his efforts now into really saving New Jersey, making it great again, saving it,’ Trump said. ‘And he’s going to do it. He’ll be able to do it. The polls are looking really good.’
The final polls showed a narrowing in the race, but no poll ever had Ciattarelli ahead.
Ciattarelli, for his part, earned Trump’s endorsement in May, but had to walk a fine line since he was running in a blue-ish state.
At the same time, Trump’s absence from the campaign trail suggested that he didn’t think Ciattarelli could pull it off, as New Jersey voters typically select a governor from the opposite party of the president.
The one time in recent history when they didn’t do that was when Ciattarelli was also on the ballot, against incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago.
Ciattarelli lost to Murphy despite Democratic President Joe Biden being in the White House.
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