(TRENTON, N.J.) — As New Jersey’s 2025 election for governor — one of only two being held in the country this year — approaches, the candidates are grappling with whether the race is a bellwether for how voters feel about President Donald Trump, the upcoming battle for the U.S. House in the 2026 midterms, and the more general national sentiment against incumbent leaders.
In other words: as goes the Garden State, so goes the nation?
“All eyes in the United States are going to be on New Jersey. This looks like the most competitive race, certainly of one of magnitude in the country,” Daniel Bowen, a political science professor at The College of New Jersey, told ABC News.
On the Republican ticket, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli is making a third try for the office and hopes to flip the state’s governorship currently held by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who cannot run for a third consecutive term. On the Democratic ticket is U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who beat out a crowded primary field in June and now looks to keep New Jersey’s governorship blue.
“I understand why people say there’s national implications here. There’s only two governor races in the entire country this year,” Ciatterelli told ABC News in a recent interview.
“But this is all about New Jersey’s future and that’s where I keep my focus. My only concern is fixing New Jersey … as I go around the state, that’s exactly what people want to hear. That’s exactly what people want.”
Sherrill, in a statement to ABC News, brought up her campaign aims of helping with affordability and accountability, while also framing the race as having national stakes.
“New Jerseyans know what’s at stake in this election, and we know that the nation is watching,” Sherrill said. “We can choose to elect a Trump lackey who is going to do whatever the President says, and make New Jerseyans foot the bill, or we can chart a different path forward… by delivering for working families, we’re laying the groundwork for Democrats in 2026 and beyond.”
The race could measure how voters are looking for change, Bowen told ABC News, given that “a fact of politics in 2025 is this distrust of politicians, distrust of those in power, dissatisfaction with where things are, and that could advantage an opposition candidate,” which could help Republicans in the state campaigning against New Jersey’s currently Democratic-controlled government.
But at the same time, Bowen added, “if you think of trying to react against the way things are going right now, who is determining the way things are going? Well, that’s largely being set by the federal government and the Trump administration. So your response isn’t necessarily to the state government. It’s probably more likely going to be the response to the federal government.”
The question of who voters are seeing as the “incumbent” played out during Sunday night’s gubernatorial debate, one of two where Ciattarelli and Sherrill are facing off. Sherrill, for instance, occasionally brought up Trump, and at one point criticized Ciatterelli’s praise of parts of the president’s signature tax and policy bill.
“I’m sure he would like you to focus on those four things, because he doesn’t want you to focus on his tariff plan, which is putting small businesses out of business … In every single way, we’re seeing costs go up on New Jersey families and Jack just says he has nothing he disagrees with Donald Trump on,” she said.
But Ciattarelli later tied Sherrill to incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy and the current Democratic control of the state, which he framed as causing disillusionment and challenges for New Jerseyans.
“Their party’s been in control [of the state legislature] for 25 years, and they’ve had the executive branch for eight years. But you don’t hear her, you don’t hear my opponent criticizing the current [New Jersey] administration, or the 25 year reign of the Democrats,” he said.
Similar to other high-profile races in 2025, millions have been spent already on advertising and campaigning, including by national groups such as the Democratic National Committee and Republican Governors Association.
The governor’s race in New Jersey is projected to see $140 million in ad spending, an expected 268% increase over spending in the state’s 2021 gubernatorial race, according to media tracking agency AdImpact. The agency has also tracked millions more spending in support of Sherrill than of Ciatterelli as of mid-September.
Those ads are playing for unaffiliated voters as well, which number over 2 million in New Jersey.
“The independent vote is really a material part of New Jersey’s political history … the fact that New Jersey has gone, and the governor’s mansion, from red to blue to red to blue,” Keith Norman, vice president for political practice at LG Ad Solutions, told ABC News. “It’s a state that doesn’t typically see one party holding the office consistently.”
Republicans point to 2024 as a sign they can flip the governorship. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris won New Jersey by around 6 percentage points in 2024, even though Joe Biden won the state by about 16 percentage points in 2020.
The campaigns are also working to reach the large number of voters around the state who don’t have traditional over-the-air TV or cable, and can target New Jerseyans using streaming platforms and internet-connected TV more precisely.
Off the airwaves, meanwhile, both sides are running large ground games to turn out the vote.
Kate Gibbs, the executive director of the New Jersey Republican Party, told ABC News that the party aims to knock on 1.2 million doors, is working with every local GOP organization, and is trying to narrow the gap between New Jersey’s registered Democratic and Republican voters.
As of the beginning of September, there were over 860,000 more registered Democrats in New Jersey than Republicans, according to data from the New Jersey Department of State.)
And Gibbs says the party feels voters are anti-incumbent towards the current governor: “What we’re hearing overwhelmingly is that people think the state’s on the wrong track and that they want change.”
The Sherrill campaign, meanwhile, says it has contacted over 1.7 million voters since the primary, knocked on almost 150,000 doors, and gotten donations from all 21 counties.
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