Rep. Rebecca Michelle “Mikie” Sherrill (D-NJ) won the Democratic gubernatorial primary in New Jersey on Tuesday, setting her up for a November contest with Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli.
Sherrill has represented New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District since 2018, but she is looking to replace term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ).
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Here’s everything you need to know about Sherrill.
Age
She was born on Jan. 19, 1972, making her 53 years old.
Hometown
She was born in Alexandria, Virginia, and moved up and down the East Coast growing up due to her father’s job, according to an interview with PBS from 2018.
Sherrill was working in New York City when she started looking around at nearby suburbs to move to, ultimately deciding that New Jersey felt the most like home.
Education
Sherrill received a bachelor’s degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1994. In 2003, she received a master’s degree in world history from the London School of Economics, then going on to earn a law degree in 2007 from Georgetown University Law Center, according to her website.
Family and religion
Sherrill identifies as Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center.
She is married to Jason Hedberg, a fellow Naval Academy graduate. The couple has four children, two girls and two boys, according to Politico.
Occupations and experience
Sherrill served in the Navy for almost 10 years as a helicopter pilot and Russian policy officer. From there, she worked as a litigation attorney for Kirkland & Ellis in New York City for three years, according to her LinkedIn profile. After leaving this position, she spent four years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey working under Paul Fishman.
Sherrill decided to run for Congress in 2017 after her experiences in the military and as a prosecutor. She said she saw things important to her being “attacked” and felt a call to action, according to PBS.
After announcing her run for Congress, Sherrill defeated her Republican opponent, Jay Webber, in the general election in November 2018, becoming her district’s first Democratic representative since 1984, according to Ballotpedia.
She announced her run for New Jersey governor in November 2024 in a video posted online.
Notable moments in Congress
Sherrill helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, lowering healthcare costs for seniors by freezing the cost of insulin at $35 per month and ensuring seniors do not spend more than $2,000 out of pocket per year on prescription drugs, according to her campaign website.
She also introduced the Expanding Access to High-Impact Tutoring Act to Congress in 2023 to help provide more high-quality tutoring services for students, but it has yet to pass.
Major policy positions
Sherrill is running on issues such as housing, healthcare costs, reproductive rights, education, and transportation, among others. Regarding healthcare, she seems to be echoing her position from her congressional run in 2018, when she claimed she believed in “quality and affordable healthcare for each and every person in this country” in her interview with PBS. She is advocating lowering the cost of prescription drugs and making healthcare more affordable overall to reduce medical debt, according to her campaign website.
Regarding reproductive rights, she wants to protect both civilian and servicewomen’s access to abortion, including emergency abortions and medication abortions. One way she plans to do this is by adding abortion access as a state right to the New Jersey state constitution.
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She also has plans to increase housing affordability by building more new houses and working with local towns and cities to repurpose buildings into housing units. For education, she wants to add more school counselors and mental health services to further support students. She also believes in providing free school meals for every student and expanding trade programs.
Her plans for improving public transportation consist of improving roads and investing in a mass transit system to reduce congestion and frustration among commuters.