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MONTCLAIR, N.J. – Both major party candidates in New Jersey’s competitive and raucous race for governor are eyeing victory as voters head to the polls on Election Day.
“We’ve seen, you know, rallies with thousands of people. The early vote, the vote by mail is very, very good,” Democratic nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill told reporters after casting her ballot at a school in this northern New Jersey township. “I think I’m going to do quite well today.”
Republican rival Jack Ciattarelli, who is making his third straight bid for governor and who came close to upsetting Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago, was confident.
“If we replicate or do better than we did back in ’21 with the Election Day voting, we’re gonna be celebrating a victory,” Ciattarelli said Monday night in an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
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And at a rally in Neptune City, New Jersey, a couple of hours earlier, Ciattarelli told supporters: “I got really great news. In about 28 hours, we’re declaring victory, we’re winning this race.”
New Jersey, along with Virginia, are the only two states to hold contests for governor in the year after a presidential election. Their gubernatorial races typically receive outsized national attention and are seen as a key barometer ahead of next year’s midterms, when the GOP will be defending its slim House and Senate majorities. And this year they’re seen as the first major ballot box test of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented agenda.
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In a state where registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans despite a GOP surge in registration this decade, Ciattarelli appeared to be closing the gap in recent weeks with Sherrill.
Both candidates touted the early in-person and vote-by-mail numbers ahead of Election Day.
“We’ve surpassed the firewall we wanted to put in place today, the blue firewall, which is, the numbers are looking good. So, we just are going to run through the tape and continue getting out every vote,” Sherrill said on Tuesday.
And Ciattarelli told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that “we’re in good shape. We accomplished all of our goals with the vote by mail ballots, and with the nine days of early voting, we’re right where we need to be.”
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Trump made major gains in New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, losing the state by only six percentage points, a major improvement over his 16-point deficit four years earlier.
The president headlined two tele-rallies for Ciattarelli in the final stretch of the campaign in hopes of energizing MAGA supporters, many of whom are low-propensity voters who often skip casting ballots in non-presidential election years.
“We appreciate what the president is doing to get the base excited, and remind them that they got to vote, as do all New Jerseyans. The future of our state hangs in the balance. Get out and vote,” Ciattarelli told Fox News Digital on Monday after a campaign stop in this northern New Jersey borough.
But in a blue-leaning state where Trump’s poll numbers are underwater, Sherrill has regularly linked Ciattarelli to the president, charging that her GOP rival “has really gone in lockstep with the president, giving him an A.”
The race in New Jersey was rocked earlier this autumn by a report that the National Personnel Records Center, which is a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, mistakenly released Sherrill’s improperly redacted military personnel files, which included private information like her Social Security number, to a Ciattarelli ally.
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But Sherrill’s military records indicated that the United States Naval Academy blocked her from taking part in her 1994 graduation amid a cheating scandal.
Sherrill, who was never accused of cheating in the scandal, went on to serve nearly a decade in the Navy.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill exits a voting booth after casting her ballot on Election Day in Montclair, N.J. (Paul Steinhauser / Fox News Digital)
The showdown was jolted again during last month’s final debate after Sherrill’s allegations that Ciattarelli was “complicit” with pharmaceutical companies in the opioid deaths of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans, as she pointed to the medical publishing company he owned that pushed content promoting the use of opioids as a low-risk treatment for chronic pain.
New Jersey traditionally elects a governor from the party out of power in the White House, which this year favors the Democrats.
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But Garden State voters haven’t elected a governor from the same party in three straight elections in over a half century, which would favor the Republicans.
One of those political trends will be busted in the election Tuesday.
Fox News’ Ben Florance, Mark Meredith and Adriana James-Rodil contributed to this report.
