Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican nominee for governor of New Jersey, spent much of the summer looking for an edge against his Democratic opponent, Representative Mikie Sherrill.
His campaign aides were trying hard to get their hands on disciplinary records, hoping to tie her to a cheating scandal that had rocked her alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, three decades earlier. Ms. Sherrill had been barred from participating in the academy’s 1994 graduation ceremony, and it was not clear why.
They did not get those records. But the Trump administration did provide something else to a Ciattarelli ally: Ms. Sherrill’s official military personnel file, largely unredacted, exposing her Social Security number and performance evaluations.
A dispute over how — and why — the records were released has now enveloped the high-stakes election just a month before Election Day, as polls show the race narrowing. The contest, one of just two governor’s races this year, is seen as both a test of support for Mr. Trump’s policies and a bellwether ahead of 2026 congressional races that will determine the balance of power in Washington.
Ms. Sherrill last week said she had been penalized for failing to “turn in” her classmates in the throes of the cheating scandal. But she has also said that the disclosure of her comprehensive military record smacks of political dirty tricks. Her Democratic supporters have echoed her complaint, questioning whether the records were released to try to sully the reputation of Ms. Sherrill, who has made her Navy service a centerpiece of her campaign as she runs against a Republican endorsed by President Trump.
Ms. Sherrill has released a digital ad denouncing the exposure of the material, and Democrats are calling for a criminal investigation. Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign has, in turn, threatened a defamation lawsuit.
At the crux of the dispute are 85 pages of Ms. Sherrill’s military service record released three months ago by a branch of the National Archives to Nicholas De Gregorio, a Republican who has run for Congress in New Jersey and is supportive of Mr. Ciattarelli. Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign obtained the document from him and recently shared it with CBS News, which aired a story last week.
A spokeswoman for the National Archives and Records Administration has acknowledged that Ms. Sherrill’s personal information should never have been released. She said an investigation is underway to determine how the release occurred.
“That large file that they received was done in error,” the spokeswoman, Grace McCaffrey, said in an interview. “This was a really egregious error, but unfortunately they can happen,” she added.
Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign had been trying for months to discover why Ms. Sherrill’s name was missing from a graduation program celebrating the 1994 commencement at the Naval Academy, which at the time was convulsed by a cheating scandal that had implicated more than 130 students.
The records shared with CBS News did not include an explanation of Ms. Sherrill’s absence from the ceremony.
But she volunteered one: “I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk, but graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving for nearly 10 years with the highest level of distinction and honor,” Ms. Sherrill said in a statement.
Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign has demanded that Ms. Sherrill disclose records to substantiate that explanation. A spokesman for Ms. Sherrill, who during her campaign has emphasized her goal of increasing transparency in state government, has said that “we are not going to release anything to Jack’s campaign in his clear attempt to smear a veteran.”
Supporters of both candidates have rushed to their aid.
Ms. Sherrill’s Democratic allies have attacked the Trump administration’s release of a veteran’s private information. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House minority leader, has said the breach warrants a criminal investigation.
Mark D. Sheridan, a lawyer working for Mr. Ciattarelli, has said that the campaign trusted that anything released by the National Archives through a formal Freedom of Information Act request would not have contained material that “should not have been provided.”
Campaign aides were “unaware they were in possession” of material that should not have been released until after the document was shared with CBS, Mr. Sheridan wrote in a letter outlining the sequence of events.
Still, a new ad by Ms. Sherrill’s campaign calls the sharing of the records by Mr. Ciattarelli’s camp “despicable.”
Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign has argued that voters deserve more information about why Ms. Sherrill was not permitted to participate in the ceremony. “Her claims about why she was punished and barred from her own graduation are just that — her claims,” Chris Russell, Mr. Ciattarelli’s top political strategist, said in an email. “The only way to know the whole truth is through complete transparency, which she must provide.”
New Jersey’s three House Republicans, Representatives Jeff Van Drew, Chis Smith and Thomas Kean Jr., have also rallied to Mr. Ciattarelli’s side. “If those sealed disciplinary records match Representative Sherrill’s current explanation, we are unsure why she would refuse to release the records and put this matter to rest,” they said Monday in a joint statement.
Ms. Sherrill’s absence from the graduation ceremony did not dim her military career. In June 1991, as a student at the Naval Academy, she was commended for saving a classmate’s life during a training exercise at sea, administering artificial resuscitation five times over two hours while waiting for a helicopter evacuation. She went on to serve with distinction for more than nine years, earning two Navy commendation medals and four achievement medals, according to information obtained by The New York Times from the Navy through a records request.
Her military record has dominated her messaging as she runs for governor. An image of a helicopter is even embedded in her campaign website’s logo.
Ms. Sherrill was notified by the federal government about the release of her private information last Monday, the same day the National Personnel Records Center asked Mr. De Gregorio not to share the records with anyone else. “We made a serious error,” read an email sent to Mr. De Gregorio and included as an attachment to Mr. Sheridan’s letter.
Ms. Sherrill has said that she does not believe it was an innocent mistake.
“This is by no means an accident,” she told MSNBC on Friday.
“They will completely weaponize the federal government to achieve what they want,” she said of the Trump administration.
Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign has warned Ms. Sherrill that it would sue for defamation if she and her campaign continued to suggest that it had colluded with the Trump administration to “smear” the congresswoman or had acted illegally.
Mr. Sheridan said the campaign had complied with the federal government’s request not to “further disseminate the record.” He also noted in a brief interview that the CBS reporter was “the only person outside of the campaign” who received the material.
New Jersey and Virginia are holding this year’s only elections for governor. Democrats who are locked out of power in Washington and hungry for momentum are intently focused on winning both.
History, in New Jersey, is not on their side. Not since 1961 has either party won a third consecutive term as governor there, and Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, has held the seat for two. Mr. Trump’s stronger-than-expected showing last November in New Jersey has also buoyed Republicans hoping to make inroads in Trenton, where Democrats have controlled both houses of the Legislature for nearly a quarter-century.
New Jersey, a small, densely packed state, has roughly 860,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.
And until last week, Ms. Sherrill, who was elected to Congress during Mr. Trump’s first term as president, held at least a small lead in every poll released publicly. But on Thursday, an Emerson College poll concluded that voters — surveyed before the news broke about her military records — were evenly split.
John Ismay contributed reporting.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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