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June 16th Len’s Political Note #732 Mikie Sherill New Jersey Governor
2025 General Election
This is what the polls projected shortly before the primary election on June 9.
Congresswoman Mikie Sherill 28%
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka 11%
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop 11%
Congressman Josh Gottheimer 11%
These are the election results (not quite complete, but complete enough for the election to have been called for Mikie Sherill)
Congresswoman Mikie Sherill 34% 267,404
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka 20.4% 160,094
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop 15.9% 124,743
Congressman Josh Gottheimer 11.6% 92,121
Total Votes 786,145
Of the 24% undecided in the final poll, 6% went to MIkie Sherill, 9% went to Mayor Baraka, 5% went to Mayor Fulop, 1% went to Congressman Gottheimer, and 3% went to other candidates.
The Republican race was not so close
Assembly Member Jack Ciatarelli 67.8% 309.303
Radio host Bill Spadea 21.9% 88,353
State Senator Jon Bramnick 6.2% 28,094
Total votes 454,605
Although 63% of the voters were in the Democratic primary, that does not mean that Mikie Sherill is an automatic victor in November. She received fewer primary votes than Jack Ciattarelli and the general election electorate is different – larger, with unaffiliated or independents voting.
With a population on 9.5 million, New Jersey is the 11th largest state in the country – slightly smaller than North Carolina and Michigan, larger than Virginia and Washington state. It is the most densely populated state (something I have trouble believing, coming originally from Rhode Island as I do) and is the state with the second highest median household income – just under $100,000. Almost one tenth of New Jersey households are millionaires. New Jersey’s cities are not that large. Newark and Jersey City have populations close to 300,000. Paterson is next with more than 150,000 people.
Other demographics: Non-Hispanic whites are about 55% of the total population. Non-Hispanic Blacks approach 15%. Hispanics can be rounded to 20%; Asians to 10%. About 500,000 people in New Jersey are undocumented immigrants.
Mikie Sherill has represented New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District since 2018. This inkblot looking district is east northeast of New York City, northeast of Newark in North Central New Jersey. Mikie Sherill is not a local.
She was born in Alexandria, Virginia and lived in various places on the east coast (residence changes, she says, which had to do with her dad’s non-military work). Her mother returned to work when Mikie Sherill was eleven years old, working as a Siemens contractor to the Air Force. A return to work that her young daughter did not approve of. To dissuade her mother, she told tales of the disasters latchkey children encountered.
Mikie Sherill graduated from South Lakes High School in Reston, Virginia. From there, she went to the Naval Academy. She tells us that the moving force for her interest in becoming a military pilot was her grandfather – a veteran pilot of World War II. Her persistent dream was encouraged by her father. After all, the Naval Academy had admitted its first woman in 1976 – four years after Mikie Sherill was born. It took longer for the Naval Academy to begin preparing women to fly. Mikie Sherill graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994. Trained to fly, she was among the earliest women eligible to be assigned directly from the Naval Academy to combat aircraft flight training. She became a helicopter pilot and spent five years flying missions in Europe and in the Middle East.
In 2000, Mikie Sherill was assigned to Corpus Christi, Texas where she continued flying a helicopter, but also received other training and assignments. Ultimately, she was re-assigned as a Russian policy officer in the headquarters of the Naval Forces in Europe. She earned an MSc from the London School of Economics in 2003. She retired from the Navy in 2004. She went to law school at Georgetown.
Mikie Sherill is married to Jason Hedberg, a Naval Academy classmate who captained the Academy’s Rugby team, whose naval work was intelligence, and who is currently a Manager for the Swiss investment bank UBS. After being a summer associate for Kirkland & Ellis, one of the country’s largest law firms, Mikie Sherilltook a job in their New York office. After three years as an associate, she joined the New Jersey US Attorney’s office, where she remained for four years, the last year as an Assistant US Attorney. Through these years, the family settled in Montclair NJ. The mother of four children, in addition to her work, she coached daughter’s lacrosse team and managed her son’s baseball team.
In 2016, Mikie Sherill left the US Attorney’s office with thoughts of working on criminal justice reform. In November of that year, the election happened. Mikie Sherill was one of innumerable women who propelled themselves into politics in revulsion at the election of Donald Trump. She did not know it at the time, but there was no better year for a Democrat to attempt to oust an incumbent Republican than 2018.
Mikie Sherill began her 2018 run for Congress with two crucial endorsements: Vote Vets and Emily’s List. The Republican she was attempting to unseat, Rodney Frelinghuysen, was the scion of a New Jersey political family that had a longer history than the existence of the United States of America. Trump had made him vulnerable. Then Frelinghuysen made himself vulnerable. A few days after Mikie Sherill’s announcement, a hand-written note by the Congressman surfaced. He had written, at the bottom of a fundraising form letter sent to Joseph O’Dowd, a Board Member of the Lakeland Bank: “PS. One of the ringleaders works in your bank.” The letter had expressed alarm about a group organized to oust Frelinghuysen.
Enclosed in the letter was a newspaper article that featured Sally Avelenda, the senior vice president and assistant general counsel for the Lakeland Bank, for her involvement in NJ 11 for Change. The Change would be replacing Rodney Frelinghuysen in Congress.
After the letter became public, after Avelenda resigned from the bank, after considerable public discussion about the propriety of Freylinghuysen’s note, the Congressman decided it was time to retire from Congress. Mikie Sherill won the Democratic. Primary with 77% of the vote and defeated the Republican nominee 56.8 to 42.1. She has been a fixture in Congress since then.
Mikie Sherill is particularly proud of her bipartisan work in Congress. She describes her effort, jointlhy with Ohio Republican Mike Turner, to clean up “brownfield” sites. She worked across state lines to support the Hudson River Tunnel project that Republican Governor Chris Christie once blocked. She is an advocate of the pharmaceutical industry in her state. As a candidate for governor, she promises to reduce food costs by creating more competition for customers. She promises to make housing more available and affordable by helping municipalities convert buildings into housing. She promises to make health care more affordable by ensuring that health care costs are visible, not surprises.
Mikie Sherill has a Republican opponent. Jack Ciattarelli, a former CPA who owned a medical publishing company. He also served on his Borough council and ran successfully for the State Assembly. He followed that success with a second place finish in the 2017 Republican primary for governor and first place in 2021. He lost the governership race by a touch more than 3% to the now outgoing, term-limited Democratic governor Phil Murphy,
Jack Ciattarelli ran as a never Trumper in 2021. That is neither the case nor even possible in 2025. He has the endorsement of the President for this run. Republicans have developed expectations that New Jersey was becoming less of a safe Democratic state; that the governor’s seat could be won.
If Jack Ciattarelli is going to win, he will have to persuade voters that his belief that government should ban abortions after 20 weeks is wise, that Donald Trump is not the “charlatan” he called him in 2021, that he can make New Jersey affordable by reducing state spending by 30% and capping property taxes, that state legislators should have an 8 year term limit, and that elections in New Jersey will become more honest by requiring a photo ID to vote.
Let’s make certain that the winner in November is Mikie Sherill. There are those that believe that national Republican leadership is discouraged about the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia; that they will be spending money in New Jersey rather than in Virginia. These are, after all, the only two governor races in 2025 in the country.
If that flow of money occurs, Mikie Sherill will need a lot of money to combat the Republicans. DONATE. Help Mikie Sherill keep the New Jersey governorship Democratic.
The other 2025 Gubernatorial race
Virginia
Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger had no primary opposition. There was a threat. Congressman Bobby Scott considered a race. Former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney considered a race as well, but opted to run for Lt. Governor. Both men are African Americans. Both were concerned that Abigail Spanberger would not be sufficiently focused on the needs of their community.
She grew up focused on law enforcement and defense. In New Jersey, where she was born, her father was a cop, her mother a nurse. Her parents moved to Virginia when her father had an opportunity to work for the Postal Inspection Service. Abigail Spanberger’s signature work before running for Congress was for the CIA.
To get to the House of Representatives, she defeated a Tea Party Republican incumbent who, himself, had defeated a member of the Republican leadership to get to Congress. She never had an easy race for Congress: She won by 1.9% in 2018, 1.8% in 2020, and 4.6% in 2022. In preparation for the 2025 gubernatorial election, she chose not to run in 2024. After the 2020 election, she was particularly critical of the Democrats making themselves vulnerable to accusations of being socialists, of wanting to defund the police.
She was extremely critical of Donald Trump. Drawing on her international experience in the CIA, she described Trump’s 2020 behavior as reminiscent of the behaviors of a dictator. As for the Biden led Congressional efforts to ensure an economic recovery, she commented “Nobody elected him to be FDR; they elected him to be normal and [to] stop the chaos.” Her preference was that he focus on stopping inflation.
Running against a fundamentalist African American, Abigail Spanberger can be confident in her race against Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears who was also unopposed in the Republican primary. Abigail Spanberger, opposes any legislation restricting abortions, supports same sex marriage, sees climate change as the great crisis of our time, and supports assistance to Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion. She is leading in an early poll 43-26. She is working to run up the score by campaigning in rural Virginia.
We want her to win big. A big win would be a good introduction to the national mid-term elections of 2026. DONATE if you want to help in that effort. Or focus on races that will be closer.
2026 Gubernatorial races you should donate to now
Arizona: Incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs is defending her seat in what is arguably the most important swing state in the country. She will be running against either extreme right win Congressman Andy Biggs or Billionaire Businesswoman Kerrin Taylor Robson. DONATE to Katie Hobbs. See Len’s Political Note #712
Florida. Term limited Republican Ron DeSantis will probably be replaced by a Republican – but not necessarily. Democrats are winning special elections in record numbers in reaction to Donald Trump’s dictatorial attempts. Former Congressman David Jolly left the Republicans in 2018 during Trump’s first term. He joined the Democrats in 2025 anticipating a run for Governor. So far, he is the only Democrat to announce. The only Republican to announce is Byron Donald, a Trump-endorsed African-American Congressman. David Jolly could win and turn Florida around. Help him do that. DONATE
Iowa. Republican Governor Kim Reynolds was not term-limited, but chose not to run for a third term. Although he will have a primary opponent, State Auditor Bob Sand, the only Democrat currently holding state-wide office will be the nominee. DONATE. Help Bob Sand be in great financial shape by the time the Republicans choose a candidate. So far, there are four Republicans running.
Kansas Democratic Governor Laura Kelly IS term-limited. Republicans are eager to return to the governor’s mansion. Four of them are running so far. State Senator Cindy Holscher is the only Democrat who has announced so far. She harks back to the days of Sam Brownback’s experiments with radical tax cuts and radical reductions is spending and radical governance. To protect Kansas from having that experience again, she says, the state needs to elect another Democratic governor. DONATE.
Nevada. Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford is challenging Republican first term governor Joe Lombardo. Aaron Ford was the majority leader of the State Senate before being elected Attorney General by a very narrow majority. Both in the state senate and as attorney general, he has been a leader in efforts to address sexual assaults of women. He has worked to ensure the state’s 8,000 untested sexual kits were tested. DONATE.
Ohio Term-limited Republican Mike DeWine chose to appoint someone to the Senate rather than manipulate the circumstances so he could run. He appointed the Lt. Governor to the US Senate instead. The likely Republican nominee is former DOGE partner Vivek Ramaswamy. The Democrats are countering with Ohio’s pandemic period Medical Director,. There are those who believe her leadership in Ohio against Covid was heroic. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #724.
Wisconsin. Democratic incumbent Tony Evers has not announced he is running for a third term. From his first term, he has been helping Wisconsin recover from eight years of draconian right wing Republican government. With a good election year and redistricting, if he runs and wins the 2026 election he might have a Democratic legislature to work with. That is worth staying for. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #723
Interesting Possibilities
Alabama: Could former Democratic US Senator Doug Jones take a shot at current Republican US Senator Tommy Tuberville who decided to run for governor instead? That would be a truly smart Democrat running against a less than smart Republican.
Alaska: Will former Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola decide the best place for her is as governor of Alaska? Could she defeat a Republican for the governor’s office.
