Undecided N.J. Voters Hold Key to Victory in Deadlocked Governor Race

With just weeks before New Jersey’s gubernatorial election, the two leading candidates are in a statistical dead heat, according to a new poll.Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, and a former Republican congressman, Jack Ciattarelli, were separated by just four of the 935 likely voters polled by Emerson College in conjunction with WPIX 11 and the Hill. Each was favored by 43 percent of those polled while nearly 11 percent said they were undecided.“The first Emerson College general election survey of New Jersey’s 2025 election for Governor reveals a tightly contested race in the Garden State,” Emerson College Polling’s executive director, Spencer Kimball, said in a statement. While the two candidates are running neck-and-neck overall, the poll shows their support comes from very different groups. Those in the 18-29 and 30-39 age groups favored Ms. Sherrill by a margin of 58 percent to 24 percent.“The race tightens to seven points among voters in their 40s, with Sherrill leading 47% to 40%,” Mr. Kimball said. “Then Ciattarelli flips the script among voters over 50, leading Sherrill 52% to 36% among this group.”Garden State residents also expressed widespread unhappiness with the outgoing Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, with 44 percent disapproving of his job performance and 35 percent approving — a decline of five points since May. The remaining 21 percent were neutral.Voters were split on whether New Jersey’s next governor should collaborate with the Trump administration — 51 percent want pushback, 49 percent want cooperation — in a four-point shift from May, when 53 percent favored working with Mr. Trump and 47 percent wanted resistance.The poll follows the first of three gubernatorial debates between Ms. Sherrill and Mr. Ciattarelli. The 90-minute faceoff quickly devolved into a verbal slugfest.At one point during the debate, Mr. Ciattarelli noted that his Virginia-raised opponent is not a New Jersey native and linked her to Mr. Murphy, another political transplant, who has championed offshore wind energy.“Now if he was from New Jersey, and anybody who was from New Jersey would know, that the Jersey Shore is sacrosanct here in this state. Nobody wants wind farms off our Jersey Shore, male, female, young and old, Republican, liberal, conservative, liberal, for different reasons,” he said.When the candidates were asked whether they would keep the state sales tax at 6.6 percent, Mr. Ciattarelli answered, “We are not raising the sales tax here in New Jersey.” Ms. Sherrill said she was not prepared to “commit to anything right now, because I’m not just going to tell you what you want to hear.”

Undecided N.J. Voters Hold Key to Victory in Deadlocked Governor Race

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