The NJ Gubernatorial Frontrunners - Major Governmental and Political Advantages for Jack Ciattarelli (Republican) over Mikie Sherrill (Democrat)
The 2025 campaign for New Jersey governor has begun in earnest. The Trenton cognoscenti and major political players have already nominated Republican former State Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and Democratic US Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill as the frontrunners.
I will not go so far as to predict that these two candidates will remain the frontrunners. It is abundantly clear that if this status quo remains, Jack Ciattarelli will be a definite favorite to win the governorship due to his strengths, governmental and political, and the severe fatal flaws of Sherrill in these two regards.
First, Ciattarelli’s governmental record is one of highly distinguished service, both in quantity and quality, at the local and state government levels. By contrast, the absence in Sherrill’s record of any service at both these levels of government is a disqualifying and embarrassing lacuna.
I have sharply criticized Ciattarelli for his obviously politically motivated conversion from principled anti-Trumpist in the 2017 GOP gubernatorial primary to a committed MAGA supporter in the 2021 election and ever since. Given my status as one of New Jersey’s most emphatic anti-Trumpists and the ultimate danger Donald Trump poses to democracy, I will doubtless continue to castigate Ciattarelli for his devotion to The Donald.
More recently, I find myself appalled by Ciattarelli’s silence and evasions on Trump’s despicable pardons of the MAGA insurrectionary lunatics who stormed the capitol on January 6, 2021, in the riots that threatened the life of former Vice President Mike Pence.
My continuing criticism, scathing at times, of Jack regarding his MAGA embrace precludes a pleasant relationship between the two of us. Jack and I are not friends, and his political confidants despise me.
However, I do not need access to Jack Ciattarelli to cover him fairly and accurately in this gubernatorial campaign. I follow the journalism philosophy of the late renowned independent journalist, I.F. Stone, who would debunk the value of access. As he was wont to say, “I don’t want access because I may end up liking the people I’m supposed to be pursuing.” Although Stone was far to my Left, I will always admire his journalistic integrity and independence.
Regarding the New Jersey gubernatorial race, despite my qualms about Ciattarelli’s embrace of the Donald, there is no question that his record of both local and state government service (Raritan Borough Council and the Somerset County Board of Commissioners) and three terms as a State Assemblyman abundantly qualifies him for the position of New Jersey’s chief executive.
Mikie Sherrill’s experience perhaps would have qualified her as a US Senate candidate. However, her abject paucity of relevant state and local government experience makes her as inappropriate a match for the office of New Jersey governor as Eddie Fisher was as a husband to Elizabeth Taylor.
Sherrill’s status as Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner is due to only one factor: the endorsement of a majority of Democratic county chairs. A number of these chairs are personal friends of mine.
However, these leaders have made an egregious miscasting error in movie terms. Anointing Mikie Sherrill as the putative Democratic gubernatorial candidate is the worst miscasting error since Ronald Reagan, a great president but a Grade B actor, was considered for the role of Rick Blaine in Casablanca rather than Humphrey Bogart, who in this role gave the greatest performance in the history of motion pictures.
One of the critical exigencies to successfully govern New Jersey is competency with the state-local intergovernmental process. Ciattarelli has expansive knowledge of and experience with this arena of service, while Sherrill has none.
Undoubtedly, Jack will be ready to govern New Jersey from Day One. By contrast, Sherrill, if elected, will have to undergo on-the-job training. New Jersey cannot afford such an unprepared and inexperienced chief executive for even one month.
Thus, the disparity between Ciattarelli's and Sherrill's governmental preparations for the governorship is abundantly clear. Yet the Sherrill candidacy has an even more significant political flaw.
No Democratic statewide candidate can win in New Jersey without majority support in the Jewish community. In a race between Ciattarelli and Sherrill, Jack would have an outstanding chance of becoming the first Republican gubernatorial candidate over the last half century to carry a majority of the New Jersey Jewish vote.
By contrast, Sherrill is most likely to make the worst statewide showing of any Democratic candidate in the Jewish community in the entire Northeastern United States since Democratic candidate Lynn Yeakel was defeated by then-incumbent Republican US Senator Arlen Specter in the 1992 Pennsylvania US Senate race. If she wins the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Mikie Sherrill would be the weakest supporter of Israel over the past half-century of any major party New Jersey gubernatorial nominee.
Jack Ciattarelli has been an outspoken ally of Israel. He is literally an Ohev Yisrael - a lover of the worldwide Jewish community. In contrast to his somewhat timorous position on Trump, the pardoner of MAGA cop-beaters, Ciattarelli has been a profile in courage in supporting young Orthodox Jewish families facing discriminatory barriers in moving into Ocean County towns near Lakewood.
When Mikie Sherrill was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2018, she succeeded retiring incumbent Republican Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen. This was regarded as a loss to the pro-Israel community, as Frelinghuysen had been the most committed Republican Congressional supporter of Israel, other than Robert Kean, father of Tom Kean, since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
Nobody, however, anticipated that in her shameless pursuit of gubernatorial primary support of the AOC Democrats and New Jersey Palestinian Arab voters, Mikie Sherrill would embark on a course deleterious to the pro-Israel cause. If Henry Clay was “The Great Compromiser” in order to preserve slavery and the Union at the same time, Mikie Sherrill has been “The Great Abstainer,” using her voting power of abstention to ingratiate herself with the AOC Democrats by shafting Israel on vital matters, yet continuing to make spurious, hypocritical claims of being pro-Israel.
The first of two major Sherrill anti-Israel abstentions was on the “antizionism is antisemitism” resolution. Passage of this measure has been a major Israel and Jewish community priority, as I described in a guest op-ed column I authored for the Bergen Record.
In the column, I described the Sherrill action as a blunder. This blunder, however, would soon evolve into a Sherrill campaign political disaster.
Specifically, Rabbi Marc Katz of Bloomfield authored a response to my above mentioned Bergen Record column on Sherrill’s behalf. Yet in Rabbi Katz’s background, a most embarrassing item makes the value of his endorsement of Mikie highly dubious in pro-Israel circles.
Rabbi Katz is a member of the J Street Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet. J Street claims to be pro-Israel, but it is basically a Jewish appeasement entity. It is an organization beloved by the AOC Democrats whose support Mikie fervently seeks. The most effective advocate for Israel in the Diaspora, Alan Dershowitz, has described J Street as follows:
….it’s very hard to understand how J Street can claim to be a pro-Israel organization.
On the issue of Iran which is the existential, most important issue Israel faces, J Street is a firm enemy of Israel. J Street is in the enemy camp, giving aid and solace to the enemies of Israel, including Iran.
The message the Sherrill campaign sent the AOC Democrats was “Mikie and J Street, Perfect Together.” Clearly, within the New Jersey delegation in the US House of Representatives, Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a prominent Democratic gubernatorial primary opponent of Mikie, has by far the best pro-Israel record, while Mikie has the worst.
Yet even more evidence was to emerge that would discredit Mikie Sherrill’s fraudulent claim of being pro-Israel.
Mikie had been conducting a vitriolic verbal war against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throughout the Gaza War. Down through the years, I have had my own criticism of Bibi. It was an absolute obscenity, however, for Sherrill to conduct a vicious smear campaign against the Prime Minister of our ally, Israel, while the Jewish State was in an existential war against Hamas, a terrorist enemy dedicated to the genocide of the Jews of Israel.
So, it was hardly unexpected that Sherrill would oppose the passage of the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which imposes sanctions on International Criminal Court officials due to their issuance of an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. Pro-Israel advocates in New Jersey found her action disgusting and repulsive.
Mikie, the Great Abstainer, verbally opposed the bill and then, as usual, tried to downplay her anti-Israel position by abstaining instead of outright voting against it. This time, however, she fooled nobody.
The bill was championed by New Jersey Republican Congressman Chris Smith, a proud, unwavering ally of Israel and a most effective voice for Jewish human rights over nearly half a century. As Smith most eloquently stated, “This is about protecting the sovereignty of our allies and pushing back against a court that overreaches its mandate.”
Josh Gottheimer continued to maintain his status as the most effective advocate for the American-Israel alliance in the US House of Representatives by supporting the bill and stating, “Standing with Israel means standing against attempts to delegitimize its leaders.” Yet, Jack Ciattarelli gave the most accurate summation of Sherrill’s political cowardice on Israel. As he put it, “…now it’s a bipartisan bill to stand with Israel! Once again, Congresswoman Sherrill was too afraid of her far-left base to show up and cast a vote for our strongest ally. Shameful!”
As if all the foregoing wasn’t enough to prove to the AOC Democrats Mikie’s inclination to shaft Israel, she recently accepted the endorsement of a strident anti-Israel activist, Patricia Campos-Medina. She appointed her as a policy advisor on her campaign staff. Campos-Medina has advocated an end to aid to Israel. Sherrill outrageously proclaimed herself “absolutely thrilled” to accept this endorsement.
Memo to New Jersey State Democratic Chair LeRoy Jones: You are an outstanding individual and a most effective leader of New Jersey Democrats. You also have had a magnificent career as a supremely competent and ethical public servant.
Yet LeRoy, my friend, in endorsing Mikie Sherrill, you have given your imprimatur to a gubernatorial candidate who has as much chance of defeating Jack Ciattarelli as Floyd Patterson had against Sonny Liston or, for that matter, Jean-Pierre Coopman had against Muhammad Ali. New Jersey deserves a competitive general gubernatorial election in 2025. Change your endorsement, LeRoy.
Alan J. Steinberg of Highland Park served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. He graduated from Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin Law School and received a Master of Law in Taxation degree from Temple University Beasley School of Law. Alan served as a Lieutenant in the US Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He is the host of the Dynamic Political Centrism podcast, published on Substack.