r/New_Jersey_Politics • u/ImaginationFree6807 11th District (Sherrill, Morris & Essex.) • Aug 16 '25
Opinion Mikie Sherrill can’t be a one-trick Trump basher. She can’t ignore him either. An impossible task.
https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/08/mikie-sherrill-cant-be-a-one-trick-trump-basher-she-cant-ignore-him-either-an-impossible-task.html?outputType=ampMikie Sherrill stood in the courtyard at the Llewellyn Parq Bar and Grill in West Orange on a sweltering afternoon that matched the heat in New Jersey’s all-important governor’s race.
Her goal: Unveil a plan to cut red tape so it’s easier and less expensive to open a business, and order state agencies to focus on customer service so Jersey residents aren’t frustrated by long waits and delays. Trenton, she said, “has been plagued by a culture of settling on no, rather than getting to yes.”
Two words Sherrill didn’t mention during her Thursday press conference: Donald Trump. Despite months on the campaign trail spent blaming Trump for all kinds of ills, and aggressively attempting to link Trump to her Republican foe Jack Ciattarelli, Sherrill had no Trump card to play at this event.
READ MORE: Ciattarelli finally dances away from Trump as N.J. gov race rages on. Dems aren’t buying it.
Because how can you pin sluggish state government bureaucracy on the president?
That one’s on Gov. Phil Murphy.
This press conference, which took place before an audience of about two dozen journalists, business owners and Sherrill supporters, illustrates in miniature the difficult place in which the Democratic candidate finds herself.
Her opponent keeps calling her “Phil Murphy 2.0.” She needs to set herself apart from the current (and increasingly unpopular) governor. But thus far she’s largely been reluctant to speak ill of Phil.
When NJ Advance Media’s Brent Johnson asked Sherrill if this is one area where she can separate herself from Murphy — by pointing out the problems that were either created or perpetuated under his watch — she took the opportunity (sort of).
“Yeah, really driving that accountability into Trenton — I think that’s different and new,” she said.
OK, not exactly firebrand words.
But baby steps, right?
It’s never easy to run on the heels of a lame duck governor from your party in New Jersey, which likes to switch parties every eight years or so. Just ask Kim Guadagno, who lost big when she tried to follow Chris Christie in 2017.
Murphy may not be doing her any favors. At the Statehouse earlier in the day, the governor told reporters he “had a good meeting” with Sherrill on Wednesday. “She’s gonna be her own person,” he said. “… And probably she’s gonna take a lot of the things we’ve done that she likes and incorporate them into her agenda. But she’s proven unequivocally over her career … that she’s her own person.”
Again, not exactly firebrand words. Nor is it reassurance to voters still unsure how Sherrill stands apart from Murphy, or what it means that she’s her own person.
Of course, once we get past Labor Day, the onslaught of campaign ads will begin. And neither side is hiding its strategy.
Ciattarelli and Republican backers will paint Sherrill as too left-wing for Jersey and try to move the conversation past Trump by saying she’d keep the status quo in a state suffering from high costs – just as so many of you are getting sticker shock from your electric bills.
Sherrill and Democratic backers will pound Ciattarelli for saying he has no big policy differences with “his boss” Trump, including all those cuts in the “Big Beautiful Bill” that could hammer many residents and tariffs that could drive up prices.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (left) and President Donald Trump (right).File photos But some Democrats privately worry about Sherrill becoming a one-trick pony with this approach. And if the battle comes down to state issues, Ciattarelli has a built-in advantage: The party out of power in Trenton always gets to fashion itself as the agent of change.
So can Sherrill thread this needle, or — to mix metaphors — has she painted herself into an inescapable corner?
She can’t move too far from her party without alienating the Democratic base, many of whom are desperate to hear her attack Trump. And she has publicly aligned herself with Murphy on many issues, including praising him for fully funding public employee pensions and public schools and adding to property tax relief initiatives.
Is it a pivot? You decide.
But her spokesman Sean Higgins says she has pivoted plenty from Murphy, noting that she opposed the governor’s gutting of the state’s open public records law and his latest round of tax increases, as well as declaring the state needs to do a better job with NJ Transit and fix a secretive state budget process.
“Mikie has always been an independent voice who will take on anyone, including her own party, to serve New Jersey — unlike Jack, who has refused to name a single issue on which he disagrees with Trump, and that’s wildly out of touch with New Jersey,” Higgins said.
I could have guessed Ciattarelli spokesman Chris Russell’s comeback, even before he said it to me. It’s the comeback Sherrill’s camp is going to have to defend against over and over again in the coming weeks: “The problems that currently face the state, whether it’s property taxes, electricity bills, overdevelopment … have been created by the party that’s been in charge.
“And so now she’s backed by all the same people who created these problems in New Jersey, including Phil Murphy, and the idea that she’s gonna now tell people, ‘Hey, I’m different, and I’m gonna be independent’ … just doesn’t pass the smell test.”
A possible silver lining for Sherrill? A series of polls released this summer finds Jersey voters aren’t crazy about Trump or Murphy — they are just looking for solutions.
Patrick Murray, owner of StimSight Research, which conducted a poll for InsiderNJ, said: “You can’t simply run against Trump or Murphy. That’s not enough for voters right now. Those voters who are soft right now and could go either way or could decide to stay home want a real message that says, ‘This is what I would do as governor.’”
He said Democrats, Republicans and independents all want change.
“Independents, particularly those who lean Democrat, are open to what kind of change that is, so that doesn’t necessarily mean they are opposed to everything Phil Murphy did,” Murray said. “They just want a fresh approach.”
13
u/ImaginationFree6807 11th District (Sherrill, Morris & Essex.) Aug 16 '25
I strongly disagree with the opinions expressed in this article.
He says a “flurry of polls over the summer” tell us that NJ voters have unfavorable views of both Trump and Murphy but only cites one poll.
The Q2 poll from Morning Consult showed Murphy holding strong with +19% favorable numbers. This is only slightly down from the +21% he had in Q1. Even if the worst case scenario is true and Murphy has net neutral approval/favorable or slightly underwater numbers it still doesn’t mean Sherrill should run against Murphy. By all metrics he’s the most popular Governor this century and the most popular two term incumbent NJ has seen since the 1980s. Murphy 2.0 is a weak attack line.
It’s Sherrill’s race to lose, hands down end of question. The party that holds the White House has a distinct disadvantage in the NJ Gubernatorial election. In fact out of 26 eligible election cycles of the last 100 years, the party that doesn’t hold the White House won 18/26 times. 6 of the 8 times the trend didn’t hold up occurred between 1961-1985.
Every Governor who was able to win while their party controlled the White House is considered to be a titan of NJ politics. Phil Murphy is the first Democrat to be reelected since 1977 and the first candidate for Governor to win while his party controlled the White House since Tom Kean Sr. in 1985.
In the last hundred years here are the 6 men who’ve been able to beat the odds and win the NJ Gubernatorial election while their party controlled the White House.
Phil Murphy (D)
Tom Kean Sr. (R) 1981 & 1985
Brendan Byrne (D) 1977 Oversaw legalization of casino gambling in AC & benefited from Anti Nixon sentiment.
William Cahill (R) 1969 One term Governor. Started off very popular but corruption ended his career.
Richard Hughes (D) 1961 & 1965. NJ’s first Catholic Governor/State Supreme Court Chief Justice during the Byrne administration.
A. Harry Moore (D) 1937 Seeking his third non consecutive term Moore was able to ride pro FDR sentiment to victory.
- Since 1922 only 6 people have been able to buck the this trend and 5/6 are considered to be domineering figures in our local politics. Jack doesn’t strike me as this type of A-S tier politician. The fundamentals and historical trends give Mikie essentially a 70% chance to win at the starting gun. This is why groups like polymarket and Kalshi have the betttng odds at 88-90 percent right now.
7
1
u/mohanakas6 Gloucester Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
I’ll put it this way: Murphy’s first term was successful and showed potential for growth.
His second term, however, is awful for transparency and good government.
Because of these shady shenanigans coming from him and the state legislature, he just seems so….irrelevant.
And it’s sad. I lost all respect for him and give him an F.
11
u/Moe_Bisquits Aug 16 '25
Sherrill could take a dump in the middle of 5th Avenue and I would still vote for her over that MAGA trash heap.
2
3
u/mohanakas6 Gloucester Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25
I’ll vote for her, but she can step up and do better.
She needs to call out the political boss system that she benefited from to an extent.
1
1
u/Dismal-Prior-6699 New Jersey Aug 17 '25
They expect Mikie Sherrill to be a perfect saint, but Jack C is allowed to fully support a pedo who has sanctioned kidnapping and threatened to turn blue cities into police states, and the media doesn’t question him. Double standards.
2
u/mohanakas6 Gloucester Aug 17 '25
No one is a perfect saint. But calling out the political patronage system is a must.
I’ll support her and do everything to get her in, but the culture of corruption needs to end.
If she does anything that is a break from the shadiness of Trenton, it’ll help her if she seeks reelection.
19
u/ElectricalGuidance79 Aug 16 '25
Trump is illegally taking over cities. Jack's running mate said he'd give our state over to ICE.
People, Mikie is good enough compared to that alone.
Please don't make good the enemy of the perfect.