Dems face headwinds as GOP looks to flip New Jersey red
The New Jersey governor’s race is growing increasingly competitive, sending troubling signals for Democrats in a state where Republicans have made inroads.
A recent poll from Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill showed Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli tied at 43 percent. Meanwhile, a Decision Desk HQ polling average of the race has the Democrat leading by 4 points.
The survey underscores how Democrats can’t take the state for granted, particularly after term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D) narrowly won his last reelection four years ago by 3 points and former Vice President Harris only won it in November by close to 6 points.
“I’m not surprised, I always thought this was a competitive race,” said Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky about the recent polling.
The polls showing Sherrill seven or eight points ahead were “outliers,” Roginsky argued, “because I just don’t think that is possible in a state like New Jersey after eight years of Democratic control.”
The race to replace Murphy is coming down to the wire more than a month before the November election, with Ciattarelli and Sherrill pointing to each other’s party as who should be blamed for the current economic environment in the state.
Ciattarelli has argued that continued Democratic governance, including two terms for Murphy, has wreaked too much havoc on property taxes and energy prices. Meanwhile, Sherrill is looking to defy political headwinds — a political party has never won three consecutive gubernatorial elections in the Garden State since the early ’60s — and point the finger at the Republicans and the Trump administration.
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