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. Between 1973, when 18-year-olds got the right to vote, until
now, the winning candidate for governor got between 1,133,394 (Christine
Whitman's re-election in 1997) 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.
Of the five highest vote getters in New Jersey, three were Members of Congress and one was the first woman governor. 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 county 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. The sad fact
is that there has 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.