Early Polls Show Ciattarelli Lagging in New Jersey Gov Race

In November, New Jersey will hold its gubernatorial election, which will serve as an important bellwether of how Republicans are being perceived 10 months into the Trump presidency. Though there is precedent for New Jersey to swing from voting Democratic in a presidential election to Republican in the gubernatorial race the following year, early polls show the Republican candidate trailing significantly.

The race for governor of New Jersey will be between Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who also ran in 2021 against Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy. The latest Rutgers-Eagleton poll found that Sherrill leads by 21 points, 56% to 35%.

Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers, cautioned, “Early polling on the governor’s race should serve as a baseline or a barometer of how voters are feeling in the moment, not as some crystal ball predicting the future four months from now.”

Ciattarelli’s top strategist, Chris Russell, criticized the poll, saying it should have surveyed registered voters or likely voters instead of just adults. Polling adults instead of registered or likely voters is an unusual practice in election polling, as polls of likely or registered voters better approximate the types of people who will vote on election day.

Russell further rebuked the poll, saying, “In 2021, the Monmouth poll screwed up the New Jersey governor’s race so badly they got shut down. Eagleton is worse and next.” Monmouth’s final poll in October 2021 had Murphy leading by 11 points; he ultimately won by just 2.8 points. Other pollsters, such as Stockton University and Fairleigh Dickinson University, also showed Murphy ahead by similar margins, around nine points.

In 2021, early polls similarly favored Democrat Phil Murphy. A May 2021 poll from Rutgers-Eagleton had Murphy leading by 26 points. However, Murphy was the incumbent, and incumbents typically benefit from early polling advantages due to higher name recognition. Sherrill does not have the same incumbent advantage, meaning her current lead may prove more durable than Murphy’s in 2021.

A separate poll from Republican firm Cygnal (R), conducted June 19–20 for the conservative American Principles Project among 500 likely voters, found a smaller lead for Sherrill: just seven points, 50% to 43%. When respondents were informed about bills related to transgender issues that Sherrill supported, including “Mikie Sherrill voted to let boys who identify as girls compete in girls’ sports,” her lead narrowed to just one point, 46% to 45%. However, polls that present information about one candidate but not the other should be taken with a large grain of salt, as the added information can bias the results.

For Ciattarelli to win in 2025, he would need to outperform former President Donald Trump’s 2024 margin in New Jersey by about six points, as Trump lost by just about six points. While a Republican presidential candidate has not won the state since George H.W. Bush in 1988, there is precedent for the state voting Democratic in a presidential election and Republican the following year in the gubernatorial race. Chris Christie won the governorship in both 2009 and 2013, despite Barack Obama carrying the state by 15 and 18 points in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

Though the swing required for Ciattarelli to win is not unprecedented for a Republican in New Jersey’s off-year gubernatorial election, he has ground to make up based on early polling.