Rep. Mikie Sherrill leads Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey governor’s race poll

Democrat Mikie Sherrill leads Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 8 points in the race to become New Jersey’s next governor, according to a new poll out today.

The results of the poll, conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University, show Democrats and Republicans each lining up firmly behind their party’s candidate. It found 87% of Democrats polled say they plan to cast their ballot for Sherrill, who is in her fourth term as a member of Congress. And 86% of Republicans say they’re voting for Ciattarelli, the former state assemblymember who’s running for governor for the third time, now in his second general election race.

These latest poll results come just a bit over three months before New Jerseyans head to the polls in what many political observers see as the first major bellwether election on where the broader electorate may be heading and which party holds the advantage going into next year’s Congressional midterms.

New Jersey had about 2.5 million registered Democrats as of this year’s primary election, a shrinking lead over the state’s 1.6 million Republicans. But about as many New Jerseyans are unaffiliated as are registered Democratic voters.

“ I call us the first midterm state. I think we're the canary in the coal mine,” said Micah Rasmussen,  director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

Rasmussen told Gothamist he expects the New Jersey race to tighten up quite a bit.

“ I think this is going to be one for the ages. I think it is going to be close,” he said.

On its face, the results of the FDU poll appear to show a tightening of the race from other recent polling. An early July poll from Rutgers’ Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling had Sherrill enjoying a 20-point lead over Ciattarelli. The Republican campaign disputed the accuracy of those numbers.

Dan Cassino, professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson, said the race is about where he would expect it to be at this point.

He said that despite the improvements that Republicans made in the 2024 Presidential election, where President Donald Trump lost to Kamala Harris by just about five points, compared to the 16-point defeat he suffered against Joe Biden in 2020, New Jersey is still a Democrat-leaning state.

“We'd expect the Democrats to have an advantage,” he said.

Cassino noted there is good news for both candidates in FDU’s poll results. For Sherrill, he said the results showing that 87% of Democratic voters are lined up behind her show she’s done a good job uniting the party after emerging from a bruising primary this spring.

”Really, if you're the Democrat in Jersey, your job is to keep the Democratic coalition together and get them all to vote. You can do those two things. You're golden,” he said.

For Ciattarelli, Cassino said the  most positive takeaway is that his “hyperfocus on local issues” like housing and energy costs in New Jersey is helping him among independents. The FDU poll found that after being asked about local issues, undecided independent voters moved 7 points into the Ciattarelli camp.

“ He's still trailing with independents to Sherrill, but this is a path for him to make that difference up,” Cassino said.

Neither candidate responded to a request for comment on the FDU poll.