Black, Hispanic Voters Key to Ciattarelli Path to Victory in N.J.

A new analysis shows that Republican Jack Ciattarelli's path to victory in the New Jersey governor's race this year could be determined by Black and Hispanic voters – two key constituencies where Democrat rival Mikie Sherrill might be vulnerable.

The Garden State GOP will need to repeat the success of recent years to thwart the four-term congresswoman's gubernatorial aspirations. When he ran against Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021, Ciattarelli performed well enough in the suburbs and exurbs to come within three points of unseating the Democrat incumbent. President Donald Trump, a Republican, also made substantial gains among New Jersey's Black and Hispanic urban voters in last year's election.

According to an analysis by Politico, Ciattarelli could win the governor's contest in New Jersey if he continues to build on those two areas this time around.

The outlet found that this particular path to a Ciattarelli victory is especially dangerous for Sherrill because she drew a lower share of the Black and Hispanic vote during the primary election in June.

For example, in majority-Black municipalities, Sherrill won just 16% of the Democrat primary vote versus 34% statewide. As she works to expand her coalition heading into the general election, Sherrill is competing with Ciattarelli for the support of some of the same voters.

"This campaign is not simply going to be won through the suburbs," Antoinette Miles, head of the New Jersey Working Families Party, told Politico. "It's really going to take a united front in order to defeat a candidate like Jack Ciattarelli, who has a wide swath of support and is trying to make inroads with the same Trump coalition that was able to be won in 2024."

While Ciattarelli still faces an uphill slog in a state where registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts, the Democratic National Committee reportedly poured $1.5 million into the New Jersey race recently, in part to expand its reach "to key constituencies that we lost ground with in the November 2024 elections."

In the general election, Sherrill is still likely to win the Black and Hispanic vote. The only variable is by how large a margin. Depending on how close the race is, those voters could make all the difference, and Ciattarelli has been showing up to court them.

"Jack Ciattarelli has been a little more present and a little more specific on what he might do," John Harmon, CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, told Politico. He added that it feels like Democrats are acting like "we've got a lead, we're going to run out the clock, and we'll talk to Black people more later on the specifics."

The Politico analysis identified two trends that have propelled New Jersey Republicans to greater gains in state elections the past few cycles.

In 2021, Ciattarelli's near win was fueled by a shift in how the state GOP performed four years earlier across the suburbs and exurbs. From 2020 to 2024, many areas of the state with large Black and Hispanic populations moved toward Trump.

Combining these two trends would give Republicans a powerful electoral edge, the outlet reported.

A recent poll from Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics found Sherrill strongly positioned among Black and Hispanic voters, leading Ciattarelli 69% to 4% among Black voters and 56% to 22% among Hispanic voters. Other polls also show Sherrill leading among these constituencies.

But during the primary, Sherrill did not perform as strongly in areas of the state with large Black and Hispanic populations. In municipalities with majority-Black populations, she came in 40 points behind Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

"You had a pretty prolific African American candidate in the race that was from the heart of urban New Jersey — Newark, New Jersey — and that was an appeal to African American voters and Latinos," New Jersey Democratic Party Chair LeRoy Jones told Politico. "That in itself was a lane that I believe that Mikie couldn't compete with Ras Baraka. The primary showed that. However, that was the primary, and the general is a whole different animal."