As Polls Tighten, Republicans Say Momentum Is With Them in New Jersey Governor Race

NEPTUNE CITY, New Jersey—It’s Deja vu all over again, but this time, “everything is different,” Alene Stewart said as she hoisted a red “It’s Time” sign heralding Jack Ciattarelli’s succinct campaign slogan.

This time, she said, Ciattarelli “started early” with his gubernatorial campaign and has a united Republican Party behind him, unlike 2021 when he lost to incumbent Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy by 3 percentage points after surviving a GOP primary rock fight.

This time, she said, he’s “answered every question” a New Jersey voter could ask of someone running for governor.

“It’s time,” agreed Alene’s son, Sean Stewart, 33, of Shark River Hills, among the 200-plus crammed into Kelly’s Tavern Monday night. “It’s time for a change. It’s time to be heard.”

Kelly’s Tavern in Monmouth County was among campaign pit stops on Nov. 3, the last frenetic day before Election Day polls open at 6 a.m. and New Jersey voters cast ballots in local elections, for state assembly seats, and in Ciattarelli’s gubernatorial race against four-term United States Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.).

Tightening polls indicate the race is close and, with President Donald Trump receiving 100,000 more votes in 2024 than he did in 2020—he lost to Democrat Kamal Harris by less than 6 percentage points, the closest a Republican presidential candidate has come to winning in New Jersey since 1992—the GOP believes the deep blue Garden State is ready to go red.

AtlasIntel’s Oct. 25-30 Atlas Poll has Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, up by 1 percentage point. Emerson College’s Oct. 25-27 poll of 1,000 voters also has Sherrill ahead by 1 percentage point.

Suffolk University’s Oct. 26-29 survey places Sherrill 4 percentage points in front, with more than 80 percent of respondents saying they were, at least, “somewhat likely” to vote—about 40 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the 2021 gubernatorial race—and 20 percent saying they already had.

In fact, more than 1.33 million of New Jersey’s 6.6 million registered voters have cast their ballots in the race, according to The Associated Press Advance Vote Tracker.

Nearly 750,000 were cast in-person during the state’s Oct. 25–Nov. 2 early voting period, and more than 590,000 were mail-in ballots. AP’s tracker shows 56 percent of early voters—about 700,000—are from registered Democrats; 27 percent, around 350,000, are GOP registrants; and 17 percent, about 225,000, by unaffiliated or independent voters.

The Nov. 1 New Jersey Decision of Elections update shows there are 2.52 million Democrats, 2.358 million unaffiliated, and 1.67 million Republicans among the state’s 6.63 million registered voters. The GOP has grown by nearly 31,000 voters in 2025, while registered Democrats have declined by more than 11,000.

Ciattarelli campaign staffer Jon Wilhelm said Republicans can “feel the momentum” with many unaffiliated voters—the constituency that will determine the election—expected to cast Election Day ballots, and a convincing tide of them, this time, is “on our side.”

This time, he said while hustling to set up a corner table for Ciattarelli to make his last-ditch pitch, Republican campaigns across the state are largely manned by enthusiastic under-30-somethings and there’s an energy, a vibrancy, a call for something different in a state that, while it’s had Republican governors, has been dominated by Democrats in Trenton for more than 40 years.

Ciattarelli’s campaign “is all young guys,” Wilhelm said, before adding, “At least, the grunts.”

‘A Jersey Guy’

The New Jersey and Virginia off-year governor and state legislature elections are being closely watched nationwide as possible pacesetters with 2026 midterm primaries beginning in less than three months.

The 2025 New Jersey governor’s race is the most expensive in state history, with more than $145 million spent by October and, likely, more than $200 million by Election Day, according to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.

Sherrill had raised more than $17.5 million and Ciattarelli more than $16.5 million, but the bulk of the spending by Oct. 9—around $85 million of the $145 million—was by “independent expenditure committees,” political action committees, nonprofits, and industry groups.

Both candidates have been boosted by big-ticket party endorsers, with former President Barack Obama, New Jersey’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, Andy Kim and Cory Booker, the Democratic governors of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Maryland, and former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joining Sherill on the stump.

Fox News host Sean Hannity did an entire broadcast on a Ciattarelli rally, while 2024 GOP primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has campaigned with him, and President Donald Trump has enthusiastically endorsed him.

Sherrill spent the final sprint to Election Day in Montclair, Union City, and Morristown. Ciattarelli began the day at a Totowa rally where he was surprised by the appearance of his son, Army Capt. Jake Ciattarelli, on a 72-hour leave from his unit in Kuwait.

It ended in a Raritan rally where he received a call from Trump, the second time the president has called into a campaign stump to tout the GOP hopeful.

Trump later posted a social media blurb calling on New Jersey to support Republicans. “All you’ll get from voting Democrat is unrelentingly high crime, energy prices through the roof, men playing in women’s sports, and heartache!” he said.

At Kelly’s Tavern, Ciattarelli was preaching to the committed—it’s a regular GOP stump spot in Monmouth County, where Trump beat Harris by more than 19 percent.

Noting Sherrill is a native of Virginia, Murphy, originally from Massachusetts, and former Gov. Jon Corzine is from Illinois—three of the state’s last four governors—he proposed voters do something different this time.

“I got an idea,” said the medical journal publisher, certified public accountant, and former four-term state assemblyman whose family has been in New Jersey since 1900. “How about electing a Jersey guy?”

That sounded like a good idea to Michael Delvecchio, 22, as he waited for the crowd to filter out of Kelly’s so he could get a bar seat to watch the Arizona Cardinals play the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football.

He’s an unaffiliated, first-time voter and had been wrestling with what box to check in the governor’s race until he walked over from his home to watch the game and was surprised to see the guy who could be the next governor talking about change, talking how, this time, it’s possible in New Jersey.

Delvecchio listened from the parking lot and liked what he heard. “We need change,” he said. “He’s got my vote.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the date range of New Jersey’s early voting period. The Epoch Times regrets the error.