Final New Jersey Election Results
Mikie Sherrill won the New Jersey Governor's race with 1,896,610 (56.3%)
votes to Jack Ciattarelli's 1,417,705 (42.0%).
Libertarian Vic Kaplan got 11,657, and Socialist Worker Joanne Kuniansky received 7,968. The statewide turnout was 51.4%,
breaking the 50% barrier for the first time in two decades.
Sherrill got the most votes of any winning governor candidate in New Jersey's history. The Democrats also gained three seats in the Assembly, bringing their total to 55 of the 80 seats. The party already controls 25 of the 40 State Senate seats.
What this election
shows is that New Jersey has suffered through a string of second-rate governors
of both parties. The sad fact is that there had been no substantial increase in
the number of votes needed to be elected governor of New Jersey in the 64 years
between 1957 and 2021. In broad terms, one in three eligible voters supported
the governors between 1949 and 1981, while only one in four has done so since.
What this means is more and more people see electoral state politics as
irrelevant, which leads to weak governments with no mandate.
Between 1973, when
18-year-olds got the right to vote, until now, the winning candidate for
governor got between 1,124,445 (Chris Christie’s election with the lowest vote
total in his lifetime) and 1,379,937 (Christine Whitman's election in 1993),
even though the size of the electorate has almost tripled. Put another way, of
the 13 gubernatorial elections in the half-century between 1965 and 2017,
Richard Hughes's 1965 vote total was higher than nine of the subsequent
victors.
|
Year |
Candidate |
Total Votes |
VoterTurnout |
% of registered voters |
|
2025 |
Mikie Sherrill (D) |
1,896,610 |
54.1% |
30.4% |
|
2021 |
Phil Murphy(D) |
1,339,471 |
42.6% |
21.5% |
|
2017 |
Phil Murphy (D) |
1,203,110 |
40.6% |
22.2% |
|
2013 |
Chris Christie (R) |
1,278,932 |
41.7% |
24.5% |
|
2009 |
Chris Christie (R) |
1,124,445 |
49.4% |
22.6% |
|
2005 |
Jon Corzine (D) |
1,224,551 |
51.1% |
26.6% |
|
2001 |
Jim McGreevey (D) |
1,256,853 |
51.8% |
28.6% |
|
1997 |
Christine Whitman (R) |
1,133,394 |
58.5% |
26.9% |
|
1993 |
Christine Whitman (R) |
1,236,124 |
65.1% |
31.5% |
|
1989 |
Jim Florio (D) |
1,379,937 |
60.0% |
36.2% |
|
1985 |
Tom Kean (R) |
1,372,631 |
51.6% |
36.2% |
|
1981 |
Tom Kean (R) |
1,145,999 |
64.2% |
31.0% |
|
1977 |
Brendan Byrne (D) |
1,184,564 |
59.4% |
32.4% |
|
1973 |
Brendan Byrne (D) |
1,414,613 |
61.4% |
39.9% |
|
1969 |
William Cahill (R) |
1,411,905 |
74.2% |
43.5% |
|
1965 |
Richard Hughes (D) |
1,279,568 |
72.7% |
40.6% |
|
1961 |
Richard Hughes (D) |
1,084,194 |
73.2% |
35.9% |
|
1957 |
Robert Meyner (D) |
1,101,130 |
73.6% |
39.4% |
|
1953 |
Robert Meyner (D) |
962,710 |
70.1% |
36.2% |
|
1949 |
Alfred Driscoll (D) |
885,882 |
75.6% |
37.9% |
\
Turnout for
Governor races never fell below 70% until 1973, when it fell to 61%., then 59%
in 1977. Turnout recovered briefly to 64% (Tom Kean) in 1981, but then resumed
its fall: 52% in 1985. Then 60% in 1989 (Florio), 65% in 1993 (Whitman), 58% in
1997, 52% in 2001 (McGreevey), 51% in 2005 (Corzine), 49% in 2009 (Chris
Christie), 42% in 2013 (Christie re-election), then 41% with Murphy's election
in 2017, and 42% for his re-election in 2021.
Governor is the
second-highest political office in our system. There is only one President.
Then, 50 governors, 100 senators, and 435 members of the House of
Representatives. The more important the office, the higher the voter turnout.
It is highly unlikely for a state representative to be elected governor,
whether Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey or Stacey
Abrams in Georgia. There are 5,413 state representatives in the United States
most of whom run with token opposition or none at all.
Of the
five highest vote getters in New Jersey, three were Members of Congress and one
was the first woman governor. The fifth
was Tom Kean’s re-election. Kean was originally elected from the Assembly in a
squeaker. He is also wealthy, the son of a House member, the grandson and grand nephew of two United States Senators from New Jersey,
whose other great uncle was a senator and governor from New York plus Secretary
of State. Kean is the exception who proves the rule.
In most states, one must be
elected to statewide office (Attorney General, Secretary of State) or serve in
Congress before becoming governor. New Jersey's governors have, by and large,
been local officials like prosecutors, freeholders, mayors, or just plain rich
people. New Jersey's Attorney Generals and Secretaries of State are appointed,
depriving voters of a farm team for elected officials, although the recent
creation of the Lieutenant Governor office has ameliorated this problem
somewhat. Sherrill held a seat in Congress.
While Sherrill won with the highest number of votes, the second highest was Brendan Byrne, half a century ago, who won with 1,414,613. The real champ is Bill Cahill. Cahill got only 2,708 fewer votes than Byrne before the electorate was swelled by more than 300,000 when the vote was extended to 18-year-olds in 1971.
. While Bill Cahill was winning with 43.5% of all REGISTERED voters, Phil Murphy was winning with less than half that amount.
While issues are important it is the quality of the
candidates that determine turnout in the end. Even when there are hot button
issues on the ballot like abortion or gun control, the candidates for
president, governor, senate and the total number of ballots cast for that
state’s House delegation will exceed the votes on the issues. This is because
the future is unpredictable. Having confidence in the quality, character and
judgement of the candidate is the deciding factor.
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