Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
Before Election Day, people handicapping the gubernatorial race believed we were dealing with a new New Jersey — a place turning purple after years of being true blue. The alleged proof? In President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential win, the state shifted more red, with Trump losing to Vice President Kamala Harris by just 6 percentage points, compared with 16 points in 2020 when former President Joe Biden was on the ballot. Combine that surprise with Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli’s strong campaign against incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021 — in which Ciattarelli lost by just 3 points — and a GOP-leaning optimist could hope for big things on the Garden State’s horizon. But on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill reversed the trends and vanquished nascent GOP aspirations when she defeated Ciattarelli by 13 points statewide in a sweeping victory that can be explained clearly by this handy map. How did this happen? Data from the map offers three possible roads to victory. First of all, in a result few saw coming, Sherrill flipped the five counties Trump had scooped up in 2024, which Biden had won in 2020: Morris and Passaic in North Jersey, and Atlantic, Cumberland, and Gloucester in South Jersey. Some attribute that to sheer Democratic numbers — there are 900,000 more of them than Republicans. “A New Jersey Republican can win, but not when New Jersey Democrats turn out,” Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, wrote on X. In the flipped counties, there were 115,000 more votes cast than in 2021 — about 93,400 more Democratic votes, and 21,600 more Republican votes. Second, the conventional wisdom that conservative-leaning South Jersey would help deliver the state to Ciattarelli proved incorrect. Throughout the campaign, Ciattarelli backers saw the land of farmers, rural dwellers, and suburbanites living below U.S. Route I-195 as a key to victory. Ciattarelli himself won the region in 2021, and then Trump took it three years later. But this time, Ciattarelli’s conquest of South Jersey was not to be. Sherrill dominated there, taking 57% of the vote. Atlantic County went to Sherrill, 51 to 48, a drop of 7 points from when Ciattarelli won the county in 2021. In Cumberland County, Sherrill won 52 to 48, an 8-point falloff for Ciattarelli. And in Gloucester County, Sherrill scored the win, 51 to 48, a nearly 7-point decrease for the Republican. The only South Jersey counties where Ciattarelli broke through were Cape May, 59 to 41,and Salem, 58 to 41. A third factor contributing to Sherrill’s win can be seen by zeroing in on Passaic County, which was the largest share of Hispanic people in the state at 45%. In 2024, Harris’s share of the Passaic Hispanic vote compared with Biden in 2020 dropped by nearly 11 percentage points, reflecting a broader trend that saw Trump win more Hispanic voters than GOP candidates had in past elections. On Tuesday, the Democrats got most of that back. Sherrill’s portion of the vote was 10.2 points higher than Harris’. It was also 5.7 percentage points higher than Phil Murphy’s share in his reelection race in 2021. Meanwhile, Ciattarelli dropped 5.5 points from his 2021 campaign. Here’s a map of election results by county:
