Mikie Sherrill Intends to Move Fast

A week later, Sherrill attributed the skepticism to the political atmosphere as the race began in earnest earlier this year. “Trump acted very quickly, so there was this toxic mix of desperation and panic.” The result, she continued, was constant questioning. “When we were talking about affordability, people said we didn’t understand what was going on. When we talked about Trump, again as it relates to affordability, people said we talked too much about Trump.” On the trail, Sherrill promised to freeze utility rates, while Ciattarelli blamed Murphy, who was finishing his eighth year in office, and Democrats for the high prices. (It had been six decades since New Jersey last elected the same party to the governor’s mansion in three consecutive elections.) The contest remained in a sort of holding pattern until the fall, when Ciattarelli revealed that Sherrill had not been allowed to walk at her Naval Academy graduation. She argued it was because she failed to report her classmates involved in a cheating scandal, and she later criticized the Trump administration for including her personal information like her Social Security number when releasing her military records. In October, Sherrill accused Ciattarelli, the former owner of a medical publishing company, of “killing tens of thousands of people” by printing “propaganda” about the safety of opioids. (Ciattarelli said he would sue Sherrill over the allegation. She continued to criticize his work on opioids but did not repeat the accusation during the trail.)

It wasn’t exactly an inspiring thing, but from a Democratic perspective it didn’t have to be, as long as Trump’s approval rating continued to decline and Sherrill continued to promote the connection between Ciattarelli and the president. Ciattarelli never explicitly based his campaign on Trump, instead focusing on local issues such as property taxes and school funding. But he welcomed the national MAGA Influencers like Vivek Ramaswamy supported him and repeatedly refused to distance themselves from the president. During a debate, Ciattarelli said he would give Trump an “A grade”; nor would he criticize Trump’s abrupt decision to defund the $16 billion Gateway program, a rail infrastructure project that would have made travel between New Jersey and New York easier for hundreds of thousands of travelers. He tried to argue that he would be in a better position to negotiate with the Trump administration and complained that Sherrill was too focused on the White House. “If you get a flat tire on the way home tonight, it will be blamed on President Trump,” he said at rallies.

Trump, however, was a pressing issue for the voters Sherrill was seeking. Josh Gottheimer, a congressman from northern New Jersey who ran against Sherrill in the primary because of her bipartisan legislative record, spent much of the summer and fall campaigning for her and found discussions of the president’s policies inevitable. Gottheimer often heard voters talk about Trump’s tariffs, he said, but their concerns about the shutdown were even more immediate. “He campaigned so much against the working class and then he just gave them the finger,” Gottheimer told me.

“What you’re looking at is a state that’s no longer necessarily Democratic, to the extent that it’s nationalized,” said Julie Roginsky, a longtime Democratic strategist in New Jersey. The magnitude of Sherrill’s victory impressed politicians from Mahwah to Cape May, but after a few days I also began to hear a different point of view. Trump’s approval numbers were near the 40s nationally and the mid-30s in New Jersey, and the shutdown was even less popular. Sherrill’s victory could be a source of inspiration for a national party that needs it. But Roginsky, a staunch Sherrill supporter, said: “I hope she doesn’t think she won by fourteen points just because of Mikie Sherrill. I hope she understands that she won by fourteen points also because of Donald Trump.”

Montclair, where Sherrill lives, is an upscale suburban city known locally for its suburban yuppie politics. When she entered the almost empty restaurant where we met, the waiter hugged her and asked for a photo. A few minutes later, another woman started seeing her through the window and gave her a thumbs up. I asked Sherrill if she’s been greeted like that more often since her victory, and she raised an eyebrow: “Yeah, it’s Montclair,” she replied. She had won Essex County, which includes Newark, by fifty-four points the previous week.

Sherrill claimed a mandate as soon as the scale of her victory became clear, but she largely avoided giving the details of her goal. The first day will involve “declaring a state of emergency on utility costs and freezing rate increases,” she has repeatedly said. “The reason I agreed to this was that I needed a way to communicate with people: I’m not just wah-wah-wah-wah” she told me, imitating a droning politician. “I’m not just going to go down to Trenton, into the bowels of the Statehouse, and have a few conversations about the 10-year plan. That’s not going to be enough for people and what they’re feeling right now. She also talked about going after middlemen who set drug prices, increasing assistance for first-time home buyers and working to restore funding for Gateway. But if the first question Sherrill faces is what exactly she hopes to do, the second – and more precise – is how she plans to do it. Although Trenton is heavily Democratic, the statehouse remains divided between regional and labor factions and dotted with entrenched power brokers who are unafraid, even willing, to publicly display and exploit their influence, even when it makes life difficult for their own party’s leaders. (South Jersey boss George Norcross, for his part, effectively blocked Murphy’s first-term agenda for months when Murphy tried to revise a Norcross-favored tax incentive program in and around Camden.) When I pointed out that the actual work probably required at least some work in the guts of Trenton and time spent negotiating, Sherrill seemed unmoved. “I just don’t think the sentiment of ‘It really takes time’ is working for anyone right now, because Trump has shown that it doesn’t have to be. If we’re not willing to act quickly, if we’re not willing to tackle difficult structural issues, we’re going to get played.”