New Jersey was supposed to be last night’s tough race for Democrats.
An unpopular incumbent Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, combined with Trump’s 2024 over-performance, particularly with Hispanic voters, weighed heavily. Democrats whispered that the party’s nominee, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, was running an underwhelming campaign and perhaps wasn’t ready for the limelight of a statewide race. History was also working against Democrats. After all, it’s been more than six decades since any political party has won three consecutive gubernatorial elections in the Garden State.
None of it mattered. Four years after Murphy squeaked by with a narrow victory over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, Sherrill trounced Ciattarelli by double digits, an outcome that was far from expected.
Sherrill’s victory offers a clear political path forward for Democrats, as does the apparent romp for Democrats in Virginia. It’s the same one they used to great effect in 2018 and 2020: run against Donald Trump.
Sherrill’s focus throughout the campaign has been to link Ciattarelli to the top Republican in the White House, and it appears to have been an effective strategy. According to NBC News’ exit poll, Trump’s approval numbers in New Jersey matched those in the rest of the country, with 55% of voters disapproving of him and 43% giving him a positive mark.
Nearly two-thirds of New Jersey voters said they are angry or dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Sixty percent rated the economy good or poor. CNN’s exit polls showed New Jersey voters expressed a negative view of the Democratic Party by a 50% to 47% margin — and it didn’t hurt Sherrill, particularly when 91% of voters who disapprove of Trump voted for her. There was one person and party on the ballot Tuesday in New Jersey — and it was Donald Trump and the GOP.
Though Trump has made mass deportation the centerpiece of his second-term agenda, and concerns about immigration were considered one of the reasons for his over-performance in New Jersey, voters there believe his deportation efforts “have gone too far.” Voters were also more likely to say that the next governor should not cooperate with Trump on immigration enforcement.
New Jersey and Virginia are indeed lean blue states, and Democrats are expected to do well there. But tonight’s victories easily surpassed pre-election expectations.
According to Steve Danley, Director of the Center for Urban Research and Education (CURE) at Rutgers-Camden University, the Sherrill campaign leaned heavily into her personal story as a former Navy pilot and focused on “kitchen table economic issues” to win over independent voters. They paired that approach “with nationalizing the election and focusing on Trump … to drive up turnout with an uninspired base.” It seems to have worked. Neither Sherrill nor her counterpart in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, is the most exciting political candidate, but perhaps that worked in their favor. After nine months of Trump’s daily outrages, voters were looking for politicians who pledged to tone down the rhetoric, not supercharge it.
While the Trump factor boosted Sherrill, it bedeviled Ciattarelli. The only chance for a Republican to win the race, says Danley, is “by changing the map. The rise of Trump-ism (and nativism) has already locked the rural areas of South Jersey red. Trump’s gains with Hispanic men provided another opportunity to gain with low-propensity voters.” Only by getting a massive turnout from these groups could Ciattarelli hope to overcome the Democrats’ significant registration advantage. But the flip side of that strategy is clear: The more Ciattarelli attached himself to Trump — or at the very least, failed to distance himself — the more he played directly into Sherrill’s campaign strategy. Indeed, despite all the talk of the GOP’s inroads with Hispanic voters, at least one exit poll showed Sherrill winning them by a 2-1 margin. Ciattarelli’s dilemma is one that congressional Republicans will soon face. New Jersey and Virginia are indeed lean blue states, and Democrats are expected to do well there. But tonight’s victories easily surpassed pre-election expectations. For Democrats, the path forward is far more straightforward. The president of the U.S. is deeply and historically unpopular. Democratic voters may not be enthusiastic about the Democratic Party, but they are very excited about the prospect of voting against Trump. And as last night, that is more than enough. Democrats’ road back to political power couldn’t be clearer.
Michael A. Cohen is a political writer and a fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation. 
