Sherrill targets Trump policies, rising costs in New Jersey governor’s race

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill would be New Jersey’s first Democratic woman governor, but it has hardly seemed worth mentioning during the campaign.

Sherrill has focused on fighting for reproductive rights and affordability, and to defend the state from what she says are Donald Trump’s destructive policies. 

“There’s going to be about a $5 billion hole in the budget because of Trump’s cuts to Medicaid,” Sherrill said during a debate with her Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli. 

“He’s cut off funding for some of our innovative power as we’re facing a utility crisis,” she said of the president. “It’s going to drive up costs for families by hundreds of dollars. He’s taking away Title One funding for our schools.”

Sherrill’s running mate for lieutenant governor, Dale Caldwell, is president of Centenary College in Hackettstown, a United Methodist pastor and a former deputy commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs. 

The Mikie Sherrill for Governor campaign account as of Oct. 6 had spent $10.9 million and was left with more than $6.5 million on hand, according to the New Jersey Law Enforcement Election Commission. Independent groups’ financial backing, though, has dwarfed her account. In total, those groups have spent almost $25 million in support of her candidacy, records show.

Sherrill has scored endorsements from major groups including the Communications Workers of America, Sierra Club and the New Jersey State AFL-CIO. 

“I’m all in for Mikie Sherrill,” Governor Phil Murphy, a fellow Democrat who will leave office when his second term ends in January, told NJ State House News Service.

Sherrill would be the state’s second woman chief executive, after Christie Todd Whitman, a Republican who was elected in 1993, re-elected four years later and resigned in 2001 to join the George W. Bush administration.

Sherrill’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for an interview.

A start in Congress

Representing New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, Sherrill has sponsored legislation to protect retirement funds, lower food prices and expand universal child care. Those policy interests are informing her run for governor.

Sherrill in January reintroduced the Reduce Food Prices Act, which would alter Internal Revenue Service code to provide tax incentives to certain small grocery retailers. 

“We have an affordability crisis in New Jersey – and I hear from far too many families who are struggling to keep up with rising prices at the grocery store,” Sherrill said in a news release “This legislation will help local, independent grocers keep their doors open, increase competition and drive prices down for New Jerseyans. No family should ever have to choose between putting food on the table, filling a prescription or making rent.” 

Sherrill also introduced the Increase Housing Affordability Act, which would offer tax incentives for commercial-to-residential building conversions to help boost affordable housing. As governor, she says, she wants to work with local governments to turn vacant office parks, strip malls and other properties into residences.

In May, she sponsored the Protecting Retirement and Health Benefits for Working Families Act aimed at shielding Social Security, veterans’ programs, and other benefits from cuts by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who at the time was leading the Department of Government Efficiency. 

“I refuse to sit by as an unelected billionaire lines his own pockets with the money that hardworking families, seniors and veterans have rightfully earned,” Sherrill, referring to Musk, said in a press release.

Sherrill’s gubernatorial agenda also includes a first- of-its-kind online “Report Card” for taxpayers to track contracts and grants. 

Affordability

“I am laser-focused on driving down your costs, making New Jersey more affordable,” Sherrill said at the Oct. 8 debate. On her first day in office, she says, she would declare a state of emergency on energy costs. New Jersey electricity bills rose about 20% in June as a result of an annual auction by PJM Interconnection, which controls the regional power grid and channels supply to local utilities.

In the long term, Sherrill says she would “increase the use of state properties to host solar projects – such as on closed landfills, New Jersey Transit facilities, rooftops and carports – which will generate new clean power.”. She said she would “pressure regional grid operators, controlled by big oil and gas CEOs, to plug in clean energy projects to the grid” to save ratepayers money.

Healthcare

Medical-insurance premiums are expected to rise 20% in 2026, according to KFF, a leading health policy researcher. As a result, Sherrill vows to “require health insurance companies to publicly disclose and justify premium increases to hold them accountable for escalating rate hikes and coverage denials.” 

Taxes

Average New Jersey property taxes in 2024 hit a record $10,000 – the highest in the country. Sherrill pledges to curb those bills. “I’ll take on one of the largest drivers of increased property taxes – rising health-care costs that counties and municipalities must pay – through independent, third-party auditing of the State Health Benefits Program claims and clawing back overpayments,” she said.

Sherrill supports expanding the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, which she says would “reduce child poverty and help families afford child care.”

She also backs a system “modeled after the military and Head Start” that would cap child care and early childhood education costs at 7% of income, according to the Child Care for Every Community Act, legislation she introduced in 2023.

Childhood education

“As governor, I’m going to make sure we’re teaching phonics to our teachers – that is the best way to help students learn reading,’ Sherrill said at the Oct. 8 debate.

In September, Sherrill was endorsed by the political action committee affiliated with the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. The group previously had spent $40 million backing the Democratic gubernatorial primary campaign of Sean Spiller – its former president – who finished last.

“Mikie Sherrill understands that a pension is a promise,” the teachers union said. “Unlike Jack Ciattarelli, she will keep that promise by fully funding public employee pensions so that educators can have the economic security they have earned and the dignity they deserve.” 

Ciattarelli was an Assembly member when Governor Chris Christie, a fellow Republican, paid less than the actuarial requirement to the state pension system.

Sherrill supports the Kids Online Safety Act, to combat harm to minors via bullying, sexual exploitation, addictive content and games and social media. Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say the federal legislation would lead to censorship and limit access to information by at-risk groups, including children who identify as LGBTQ.

Reproductive rights

“New Jersey must take action to require comprehensive insurance coverage for all reproductive health care services, including abortion,” Sherrill said. She was endorsed by Reproductive Freedom for All, the national abortion-rights and lobbying group formerly known as NARAL-Pro Choice.

“The Trump administration and GOP-led states will stop at nothing to attack our rights to healthcare — even in states where abortion care is protected,” the group said in a statement. “That’s why we are supporting Mikie Sherrill, who has a proven track record of fighting for her state  and will continue doing so as a future Governor.”

Sherrill said she would continue to expand access to contraception and in vitro fertilization “so that every New Jerseyan has affordable access to the family planning services they need.” 

Clashes with Ciattarelli

In September, the Ciattarelli campaign acquired Sherrill’s military records, including her Social Security number. Ciattarelli ally Nicholas De Gregorio “illegally released” her records to media, according to a letter from the Elias Law Group, which is representing Sherrill’s campaign. The records showed that Sherrill didn’t participate in her Naval Academy commencement program.

Sherrill accused the Trump administration of leaking the records with her opponent, and the matter is under investigation by the National Archives’ inspector general. Her absence from graduation, she said, was punishment for not reporting classmates caught in a 1994 cheating scandal.

“I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk at graduation, because I come from an incredibly accountable place. But I went on to graduate. I was commissioned an officer in the United States Navy,” Sherrill said at the Oct. 8 debate.

That evening, Sherrill said Ciattarelli, a former medical publisher, profited from the opioid crisis by distributing material that allegedly downplayed the drugs’ danger. His involvement, she said, “led to tens of thousands of deaths, some of which included children.”

Ciattarelli has said he was publishing information for medical professionals. His campaign says it will sue Sherrill over her claim.

This article is written by Brooke Holzhauer, a William Paterson University junior majoring in broadcast journalism, courtesy of the NJ State House News Service.