NBC News’ Steve Kornacki says Mikie Sherrill’s victory in the New Jersey gubernatorial race should serve as a warning to Republicans—Trump’s MAGA following is nontransferable.
President Donald Trump drummed up substantial support in New Jersey in the 2024 election, giving state Republicans hope of carrying his momentum into 2025.
“[Republican candidate Jack] Ciattarelli was a test case: Could these Trump gains transfer to a non-Trump Republican running without Trump on the ballot?” wrote Kornacki in a Wednesday analysis. “The answer is a resounding no.”
Trump seemed to agree, writing on Truth Social Tuesday night that the wave of Democratic victories in New Jersey, Virginia, New York, and beyond happened because “Trump wasn’t on the ballot.”
Kornacki says the landslide win for Sherrill, a Democrat, proves New Jersey’s Republicans are rapidly losing support among two key demographics: white suburban communities and voters of color.
Just last year, Trump narrowed his loss in New Jersey from a staggering 16 points in 2020 to just under 6 points, largely because he made significant inroads with the state’s Latino and Asian American communities.
However, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli failed to keep up the momentum. Instead, Sherrill, 53, won New Jersey’s Hispanic-majority municipalities by double digits.
Even in Passaic, a Hispanic-majority county that Trump won by seven points in 2024, Sherrill assumed a 26-point lead.
Sherrill also dominated more traditionally conservative suburban communities. Meanwhile, Ciattarelli not only failed to build on Trump’s gains, but also lost substantial support compared to his own previous gubernatorial campaign.
“Simply put, there were a lot of suburbanites who were comfortable with Ciattarelli when Trump was an ex-president but who look like they will shun anyone in the GOP column as long as he’s president,” explained Kornacki.
In the wealthy, majority-white suburban counties of Hunterdon, Morris, and Somerset, Ciattarelli saw significant losses compared to his 2021 race. In Hunterdon, where Ciattarelli won by 19 points in 2021, his lead shrank to just 5 points.
In Morris, a county that Ciattarelli won by 11 points in 2021 and which Trump secured by 3 points in 2024, Sherrill eked out a one-point victory. The Republican even lost Somerset, his home county, by 18 points.
Republicans should be especially concerned, Kornacki says, because early polling had predicted the race between Sherrill and Ciattarelli would be much closer.
Ciattarelli, 63, is a popular Republican in New Jersey who had Trump’s endorsement and had lost the 2021 gubernatorial race by just 3 points. In the final week of October, multiple polls had Sherrill in the lead by as little as one point.
“At the very least, this was going to be a close race, one that Republicans would be able to point to as proof that the national political climate wasn’t that bad for them,” wrote Kornacki on Wednesday. “But it was all a mirage.”
Instead, Sherrill, a Democratic congresswoman whom party leaders feared was weak in her messaging, claimed a commanding 13-point victory. The governor-elect later told Politico’s The Conversation podcast that she “never really felt too nervous about [her] ability to win this one.”
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