OAN Staff Katherine Mosack and Brooke Mallory
12:05 PM – Friday, September 26, 2025
A new poll shows Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill are currently tied in the race for New Jersey governor.
A recent Emerson College/PIX11/The Hill poll, released on Thursday, indicated that Democrat candidate Mikie Sherrill and Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli are tied at 43% each in the New Jersey gubernatorial race — with 11% of voters undecided.
The poll is the first widely recognized survey to compare the two candidates and the first in which Sherrill does not lead in either the Democrat primary or the general election.
“A tightly contested race in the Garden State,” Said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. “Young voters, under 40, break for Sherrill by large margins, 58% to 24%. The race tightens to seven points among voters in their 40s, with Sherrill leading 47% to 40%, then Ciattarelli flips the script among voters over 50, leading Sherrill 52% to 36% among this group.”
Kimball also noted a gender divide between voters.
“Women break for Sherrill by ten points, 46% to 36%, while men break for Ciattarelli by 12 points, 51% to 39%. Notably, women are over twice as likely to be undecided at 15% compared to 6% of men,” Kimball added.
Ciattarelli (R-N.J.) served as a New Jersey state representative from 2012 to 2018, and he is now making his third run for governor. A certified public accountant, he previously owned a medical publishing company, which he sold in 2017.
Sherrill (D-N.J.) graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1994 and served nearly a decade on active duty in the U.S. Navy. After leaving the service in 2003, she earned a law degree from Georgetown University and practiced law before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018.
Sherrill has been criticized for a significant increase in her net worth since taking office in Congress. Reports indicate her net worth grew from a maximum of $4.3 million in 2019 to over $11.3 million in 2025, largely due to stock transactions connected to her husband, a UBS executive. Critics of hers argue that she profited from insider knowledge — particularly from stock sales made early in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Sherrill denies trading individual stocks and attributes transactions to her husband’s compensation, according to the New York Post.
In the poll, Sherrill captured 56% of voters aged 18 to 29, while Ciattarelli received 18% in the same demographic. The results reflect a clear generational divide, with the Democrat candidate performing stronger among younger voters and the Republican candidate faring better with older voters.
“Both President Trump and [New Jersey] Governor [Phil] Murphy are underwater among Jersey voters. Sherrill is trying to tie Ciattarelli to Trump, at the national level, and Ciattarelli is trying to tie Sherrill to Murphy and the cost of living at the state level,” said Spencer Kimball, the executive director of Emerson College Polling.
Trump responded to the poll on Truth social, endorsing Ciattarelli.
New Jersey has traditionally leaned Democrat, but the party has seen declining support in recent years. The state backed Hillary Clinton by 14 points in 2016 and Joe Biden by 16 points in 2020, yet supported Kamala Harris by only about six points.
Shifts in voter allegiance have been influenced by high-profile national events, including last year’s assassination attempt on President Trump, with another potential wave of disaffection emerging after the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk. Between 2020 and 2024, the Democrats lost 2.1 million registered voters, while Republicans gained 2.4 million, signaling a significant realignment in the state’s electorate.
The poll surveyed 935 possible voters from September 22nd to September 23rd, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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