In the final debate of New Jersey’s gubernatorial race on Wednesday, Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill traded blows multiple times over the latter’s involvement in a decades-old cheating scandal at the Naval Academy and the current state of the government shutdown.
The race is seen as highly competitive as the two vie for votes in the final weeks until Election Day.
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Sherrill received a blow to her campaign last month when the New Jersey Globe reported that she failed to report her classmates involved in a massive cheating scandal that led to the expulsion of two dozen midshipmen. More than 130 midshipmen were implicated. Sherrill did not herself cheat, but was banned from walking onstage during her graduating class’s commencement ceremony in 1994.
At one point during the debate, Ciattarelli demanded Sherrill release the disciplinary records from her time at the Naval Academy three decades ago to show exactly why she was barred from graduation.
“Mikie said that she was the most transparent gubernatorial candidate of all time. She’s so transparent that [she won’t] approve the release of her disciplinary records at the Naval Academy, so we can know why it is, she was punished,” he said.
She made her military service a focal point of her gubernatorial campaign, even though her name was not included on a copy of the commencement program at the time.
“There’s a cheating scandal in the early 1990s, while she was there, we know for a fact that she wasn’t allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony,” Ciattarelli said of his opponent.
“She needs to come clean. I think people in New Jersey deserve an answer as to why she was punished at the Naval Academy,” he added.
In response to his questioning, Sherrill reiterated her refusal to release the disciplinary records.
“I’m certainly not going to open up my classmates’ hundreds of records so he can rampage through them on a witch hunt. He should take responsibility,” she said.
Sherrill then told him to return the records that his ally possesses. The National Archives released her full military file to Nicholas De Gregorio months before the bombshell story broke.
Later in the debate, both candidates addressed the government shutdown that has been in effect since last week.
Sherrill, who currently represents New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District in the House, argued that Republicans have the power to reopen the federal government.
“Right now, with the president, with the Senate and the House, all in GOP hands, the fact is, they’ve got to work to reopen the government so workers can get back to work and we can continue to drive down healthcare costs,” Sherrill said.
Meanwhile, Ciattarelli blamed Sherrill for her role in letting the shutdown begin after Democrats rejected Republicans’ continuing resolution to fund the government for a couple of extra weeks.
“When there were shutdowns during the Biden era, she voted every time for the continuing resolution to keep the government … open,” he said. “This time around with Trump in the White House, she’s voted ‘no’ on the resolutions to keep the government open. I hope the shutdown ends within moments.”
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An end to the shutdown appears to be nowhere in sight, with congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle unable to agree on a funding measure.
The race between Ciattarelli and Sherrill is growing tighter. The latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate shows Sherrill leading by 3.3 points, a notable marginal decline from a month ago when she led her opponent by 8.5 points.