July 03, 2025
Thomas P. Costello/Chris Pedota/USA TODAY NETWORK
In New Jersey's race for governor, a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Wednesday shows Democrat Mikie Sherrill with 20-point lead over Republican Jack Ciatterelli, who's making his third gubernatorial run.
With four months to go before New Jersey elects its next governor, Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill has a sizable advantage over Republican former state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli in the first major poll of the race.
The Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Wednesday shows Sherrill with a 20-point margin over Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump in the primary last month and narrowly lost to Phil Murphy in the last gubernatorial election in 2021.
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Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor from Montclair, was the pick for 51% of voters who were polled during a three-day period in the week after the primary. Ciattarelli was the choice of 31% of voters, while 13% said they were unsure and 5% said they would vote for neither or someone else.
“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,” Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said in a statement about the poll. “A lot can happen between now and November, and we know this gap will very likely narrow in the next several months."
Among independent voters in the poll, 45% said they would cast a ballot for Sherrill compared with 28% for Ciattarelli and 10% who said they are undecided.
More than half of the people polled said they consider Trump a "major factor" in their choice for governor, including 65% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans.
Although Sherrill outpolled Ciattarelli on a range of issues, the gap was tighter on the question of New Jersey's economy — the top issue leading up to both primaries in June. When voters were asked which candidate would better handle taxes in the state, 39% said Sherrill would compared to 34% in favor of Ciattarelli. On cost of living and affordability, 45% said they trust Sherrill most compared to 29% for Ciattarelli.
During her primary campaign, Sherrill said she wants to boost home construction in New Jersey and incentivize communities to repurpose infrastructure for more housing. She also called for increasing the state's child tax credit and earned income tax credit to give financial relief to parents and low-income residents.
Ciattarelli is campaigning on the goal of reducing state spending by 30%, capping property taxes to provide economic relief and withholding resources from municipalities that have sanctuary policies for undocumented immigrants. Ciattarelli, who grew up in Raritan, was elected to the state assembly's 16th legislative district in North Jersey in 2011 and held the seat until 2018.
The Rutgers-Eagleton poll included responses from 621 people and has a 5.4% margin of error. Koning noted that Ciattarrelli bounced back from an early polling deficit to Murphy in 2021, eventually losing in the general election by a margin of just 3.2%.
