Representative Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday won the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for governor of New Jersey, capping a hard-fought primary that featured a large field of prominent and well-funded candidates.
With about 90 percent of the estimated vote reported, Ms. Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who represents New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, was outpacing five other candidates by a wide margin, according to The Associated Press.
She is now expected to compete in November’s general election against Jack Ciattarelli, the winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary. Mr. Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman, is running his third race for governor and is backed by President Trump, who has made clear his goal of helping to propel a Republican to the State House in Trenton after eight years of Democratic control.
Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark was in second place, just ahead of Mayor Steven Fulop of Jersey City, according to results tallied by the A.P., which are likely to change somewhat after ballots mailed by Election Day are fully counted.
The three other candidates carved up the balance of the total vote: Representative Josh Gottheimer, of New Jersey’s Fifth Congressional District; Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association; and Stephen Sweeney, a former State Senate president.
“I’m going to protect our rights — including a right to an abortion,” Ms. Sherrill told supporters gathered in Morristown, N.J., to celebrate her victory. As for Mr. Ciattarelli, she said, “I am ready to shake up the status quo, and Jack is the status quo.”
She added, “He’s not change, he’s a rerun.”
Ms. Sherrill, a lawyer and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who worked for about four years for the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, was among the 101 congressional newcomers — 42 of them women — who took office in 2019 during Mr. Trump’s first term as president, flipping the House from red to blue. She won a seat held for nearly a quarter century by a Republican who did not run for re-election.
This year, Ms. Sherrill, 53, was the only woman running for governor in either party’s primary, and she stuck closely to a carefully curated message in which she presented herself as a mother and a veteran trained to run “toward the fight.” Two of her four children will enter the Naval Academy later this month, a detail she shared with voters.
Ms. Sherrill’s supporters gathered for an election night victory party were jubilant.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Robert Rodríguez, a field organizer with the Laborers’ International Union of North America’s Eastern region, which knocked on about 19,000 doors on her behalf. “She’s about the working class, about job opportunities. She’s going to make sure contracts are extra set in stone.”
Immigration, and each Democrat’s plan to try to blunt the impact of Mr. Trump’s policies in Washington, were prominent campaign themes in a state that is home to an estimated 440,000 undocumented immigrants.
Then, last month, immigration became even more central to the debate, after Mr. Baraka made national news for days after being arrested outside a migrant detention center that is key to the president’s goal of increased deportations. Federal prosecutors dropped the charge within two weeks. And last week, Mr. Baraka, 55, filed a lawsuit against Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, that claimed malicious prosecution, false arrest and defamation.
As a candidate, Ms. Sherrill, who until 2023 was a member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition in Congress, focused on her support for abortion rights and her plan to increase affordable housing near transit hubs and in dilapidated cities like Trenton.
To win, she overcame a barrage of negative television and print advertising paid for by several opponents, who spotlighted donations she had accepted from employees of SpaceX, the technology company founded by Elon Musk, and the rapid growth in her family’s net worth since she entered Congress.
She was also branded a “milquetoast” candidate by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a national group that last week endorsed two of her left-leaning opponents, Mr. Baraka and Mr. Fulop.
Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat and former Goldman Sachs executive who has led New Jersey since 2018, was barred by term limits from running for re-election.
Only New Jersey and Virginia are holding races for governor this year, and Mr. Trump and his divisive policies have factored heavily in both. New Jersey Democrats are hopeful that Mr. Ciattarelli’s alliance with Mr. Trump will fuel turnout by voters dismayed by the president’s leadership as large cuts to Medicaid loom, wars rage in Gaza and Ukraine and new tariffs have contributed to increased consumer costs.
The Democrats will be competing to do what neither party has done in New Jersey since 1961: hold on to the governor’s office for a third consecutive term.
There are about 800,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey, but both candidates will need to appeal to the 2.4 million voters who are not registered with either party. According to polls, New Jersey’s high cost of living remains a top priority for voters. Steep increases in the cost of electricity and a 3 percent jump in New Jersey Transit fares are set to take hold this summer, further straining household budgets ahead of the election.
Republicans are confident that Mr. Trump’s stronger-than-expected showing in New Jersey in last November’s presidential race will help Mr. Ciattarelli’s odds among voters dissatisfied by Mr. Murphy’s leadership and concerned about state spending. The proposed state budget this year is more than $58 billion, up from about $33 billion in 2020.
“Make no mistake. Mikie Sherrill is Phil Murphy 2.0,” Mr. Ciattarelli told supporters gathered in Holmdel, N.J. “It’s time for a change.”
In a cinematic twist, Ms. Sherrill’s former roommate in Washington, Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who represented Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District, is running for governor of Virginia.
Ms. Spanberger, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who entered Congress with Ms. Sherrill in 2019 but did not run for re-election to the House last year, was born in Red Bank, N.J.
Ms. Sherrill nodded toward military history and New Jersey’s role in the Revolutionary War as she looked ahead to November.
“You know what, you probably can’t do better than to quote George Washington in this moment,” she said.
“Fix the bayonets,” she added, echoing a line attributed to General Washington in 1776. “I’m resolved to take Trenton.”
