Mikie Sherrill Wins the Democratic Primary for Governor of New Jersey

Representative Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday won the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for governor of New Jersey, capping a hard-fought primary that featured a large field of prominent and well-funded candidates.

With about 45 percent of the estimated vote reported, Ms. Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who represents New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, outpaced five other candidates to win the nomination, according to The Associated Press.

She is now expected to compete in November’s general election against Jack Ciattarelli, the winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary. Mr. Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman, is running his third race for governor and is backed by President Trump, who has made clear his goal of helping to propel a Republican to the State House in Trenton after eight years of Democratic control.

Ms. Sherrill, a lawyer and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who worked for about four years for the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, was among the 101 congressional newcomers — 42 of them women — who took office in 2019 during Mr. Trump’s first term as president, flipping the House from red to blue. She won a seat held for nearly a quarter century by a Republican who did not run for re-election.

This year, Ms. Sherrill, 53, was the only woman running for governor in either party’s primary, and she stuck closely to a carefully curated message in which she presented herself as a mother and a veteran trained to run “toward the fight.” Two of her four children will enter the Naval Academy later this month, a detail she shared with voters.

Her margin of victory reflected the size of the field and the prominence of each of the candidates, five of whom live in northern New Jersey and were competing for the same base of support. The other Democratic candidates were Mayor Steven Fulop of Jersey City; Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark; Representative Josh Gottheimer; Stephen M. Sweeney, a former State Senate president; and Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association.