Mikie Sherrill won big, sure. But N.J. Dems are in serious trouble.

Tom Martello writes a regular column about the 2025 race for New Jersey governor.

I’ll admit it. A Mikie Sherrill Democratic primary victory declared just 39 minutes after the polls closed simply wasn’t on my bingo card Tuesday night.

And so that crazy, one-of-a-kind, hundred-million-dollar primary filled with six big-name candidates for New Jersey governor who truly thought they could win — the race nobody (least of all me!) dared to predict — ended in the blink of an eye.

I’m told even the people in Sherrill’s camp were surprised at how quickly it was over.

What happened isn’t that hard so see: Progressives clearly split their vote between Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, labor unions didn’t come out for former Senate President Steve Sweeney, and $40 million from teacher union dues could only buy NJEA President Sean Spiller a fifth place finish. (The less said the better about Josh Gottheimer’s goofy commercial where his bulked-up AI image took on Donald Trump in a boxing ring.)

So Sherrill, the frontrunner top Dems wanted all along, won with ease, despite months of worry over a play-it-safe approach that didn’t set the world on fire. And even though they no longer have the power to give their anointed candidates star treatment on primary ballots, party leaders showed they can still get out the vote.

Likable? Yes. Electable? We’ll see.

So why can’t I shake the feeling that this may turn out to be the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory? The Democrats picked their most “electable” candidate, the likable and moderate Sherrill, who flew Navy helicopters and seems straight out of Democratic Party central casting.

Except if the 2024 Presidential race taught us anything, it’s that optics can take you only so far. The storm from the national Republican Party is coming fast, and that’s a big test for anyone who hasn’t run a statewide campaign.

On Tuesday night, Jack Ciattarelli won a commanding and unsurprising victory in the GOP primary. He’s the consummate Jersey guy — Somerset County-raised, Seton Hall-educated — and by now a seasoned campaigner, especially after he gave Gov. Phil Murphy the scare of his life four years ago.

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And the numbers don’t lie: Two-thirds of Republicans voted for Ciattarelli in the primary on Tuesday night. He won every county.

Two-thirds of the Democrats did not vote for Sherrill, with the two progressive candidates combined pulling in more votes. Her 34% plurality is the lowest in a Jersey primary since Jim Courter defeated seven Republicans in 1989, and the lowest in a Democratic primary since Peter Shapiro won a six-way race in 1985. (Both lost big in the general election.) Sherrill won 15 of the state’s 21 counties but lost the two most populous, Essex and Bergen, to Baraka and Gottheimer, respectively.

So I’ve said it once and I’ll repeat it now: This race is Ciattarelli’s to lose.

“She’s got to put this thing together beyond a third of the voters and then cross over to the other side. And that’s not proven yet,” said one top Democrat of Sherrill. “There is work that needs to be done to pull the factions together.”

The progressive problem

Sherrill will also have to confront an as-yet-resolved question: While Baraka and others said they’d fight for her in the fall, will they be able to mobilize their passionate progressive voters around a moderate candidate who mostly gave off lukewarm vibes during the primary?

And there remains the elephant in the room, looming even larger now that the primary is over: Donald Trump.

Ciattarelli, who wasn’t interested in a Trump endorsement four years ago, understood he couldn’t win the primary this time without Trump’s backing — giving Democrats an opening.

There’s no secret how this will play out, with both candidates jostling for the middle. Though he’s solidly Trump now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ciattarelli asks the president to keep his Jersey visits confined to his Bedminister golf club this summer. I wouldn’t be surprised, either, if Sherrill suggests an increasingly unpopular Murphy take a vacation at his Italian villa after he signs the budget — and stay there till November.

Check out the back-and-forth during their victory speeches Tuesday night.

From Ciattarelli: “Mikie Sherrill is Phil Murphy 2.0, Make no mistake, a vote for Mikie Sherrill is a vote for four more years of Phil Murphy.”

From Sherrill: “A state like this is not going to be led by a Trump lackey like Jack Ciattarelli.”

Back to Jack: “Trust me, if this campaign were a drinking game and you took a shot every time Mikie Sherrill says Trump, you’re going to be drunk off your ass every day between now and Nov. 4”

(Of course, the first drink was on Ciattarelli because he drew cheers by thanking Trump.)

Trump vs. Murphy?

One Republican operative told me Ciattarelli can “run rings around Sherrill” on state issues and that she’s making a mistake by “nationalizing the election.”

“You know, the more she tries to bring Trump into it, the more Jack’s gonna make a mockery of it, saying, ‘This is about New Jersey, this is about property taxes and schools and energy.’”

Democrats concede Ciattarelli can make hay over their party’s failures in Trenton with broad messages about taxes, schools and parental choice. And — no surprise! — now that the primary is over, some Republicans stress he’s not as Trumpy as people think.

Republicans and Democrats tell me they believe if Ciattarelli pivots a bit left on a few issues, Trump won’t object because his main goal is to score a Republican win in New Jersey, which one described as “a crown jewel for him.”

For example, what will he do if Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” winds up having ugly consequences in New Jersey?

“He can be pretty independent,” one Republican said. “I think it really depends on the issue. If it benefits New Jersey, he’ll be supportive of it.”

Democrats believe there’s no downside to Sherrill’s linking Ciattarelli to Trump, saying his moves on the national level have real consequences for the state. Sherrill, who is seeking to be New Jersey’s second female governor, was just endorsed by the first: Christie Whitman, who left the Republican Party because of its fealty to Trump.

At the same time, some Democrats say Sherrill, who is talking about affordability and changing Trenton, should run as far away from Murphy as she can.

My own take, with 144 days to go before Election Day: Ciattarelli has the slight edge over Sherrill because Jersey’s intractable problems haven’t gone away under eight years of Murphy, and I suspect all the Trump talk — pro and con — will become white noise for many. (Democrats and a few political scientists I spoke to disagree, saying Trump’s recent actions are ticking off middle-of-the road voters, including many independents, who don’t like the big cuts and the immigration raids. They stress the state is still blue.)

But in the end, it will all come down to timing — and what our world looks like in September, when voters truly tune in to the big elections. Will Jersey voters be exasperated by schools that don’t have enough funding, worries over power bills, a brewing disaster with public workers’ health benefits, and, of course, taxes —and then take it out on Sherrill? Or will it all fall apart for Ciattarelli if the feeling toward Trump turns into real anger across party lines during the crucial fall months?

Yes, timing.

In 1993, Democratic Gov. Jim Florio lost his re-election by a mere 26,000 votes despite the backlash over his tax increases. He felt he was hurt by consistently bad news on Jersey’s economy. Two days after his losing Election Day, he had a news conference at the Statehouse. When we informed him that the day’s labor report showed unemployment had dropped and the state economy had perked up, Florio smiled and shook his head.

“Now it gets better,” he said.

Previous columns:

• Which Democrat do Republicans fear the most in N.J. governor race? This might surprise you.
• 10 days out, the race for N.J. governor is still anyone’s game. This is not normal.
• N.J. is suddenly at the center of America’s political universe as governor’s race catches fire
• Trump railroaded the N.J. governor debates in one fell swoop. What happens now?
• Did Baraka arrest just win him the N.J. Democratic primary for governor?

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Tom Martello may be reached at tmartello@njadvancemedia.com.