The basics:

• Record $122M spent in New Jersey’s 2025 primary races
• First gubernatorial primary since abolishment of county ballot line
• Sherrill, Ciattarelli lead in latest polling
• Affordability, Trump influence, turnout shape the race

After a marathon campaign season, primary election day is here in the great Garden State.

Of course, this year features a competitive gubernatorial race to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy – while all 80 Assembly seats are up for grabs.

Key things to know about the gubernatorial race:

• The crowded, competitive Democratic field includes
  • • Newark Mayor Ras Baraka
    • Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop
    • U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th District
    • U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11th District
    • former Senate President Steve Sweeney
    • New Jersey Education Association President and former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller
• On the Republican side, major candidates are:
  • • Sen. Jon Bramnick, R-21st District
    • former Assemblyman and 2021 GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli
    • former NJ 101.5 host Bill Spadea
• Race has seen record spending versus other primaries. Total spending between candidates and independent groups tops more than $122 million, according to the most recent filings with the Election Law Enforcement Commission
• Sherrill has paced the polling on the Democrats’ side, while Ciattarelli has held a commanding polling advantage throughout on the Republican side
• President Donald Trump looms large over the race. Dems have focused their attacks on his administration, while the president has endorsed Ciattarelli over Spadea. Meanwhile, Baraka was recently arrested by the administration during a dust-up at a federal detention center. Those charges were dropped, and he is now suing interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba.
• Marks the first gubernatorial primary since the abolishment of the county ballot line
• Early voting took place between June 3-8

Over the weekend and into the early part of this weekend, the candidates have barnstormed the state to make their final pitches as Primary Election Day polls open.

NJBIZ connected with several of the state’s top political analysts and pollsters to get their take on some of the key aspects of the race heading into Tuesday.

Choices, choices

“Primary voters in New Jersey have not had this many really good choices in a very long time,” Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, Rider University, who moderated a series of debates, told NJBIZ. “In fact, you’ve got to go back to the year in which Tom Kean was elected governor – 1981 – to find as many top-tier candidates as we have this year. In that race, we had the mayors of Jersey City and Newark, two members of Congress, and more. Sound familiar?

“It was also the first governor’s race with public financing, which prompted a decision to forego the county lines, which is something the two cycles have in common. This year, my sense is that those two factors lowered the barriers candidates thought they would face – and so more of them jumped in than usual.”

Ashley Koning, an assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said there’s a lot on the table here – both for the outcome of the primaries and the general.

“While it has not been surprising that it seems establishment candidates have emerged on either side as front-runners, what is perhaps somewhat surprising – or at the very least, eye-opening, is how much President Trump has already loomed large in this election,” Koning told NJBIZ. “Democrats have mostly taken to attacking the president than their Democratic opponents until recent weeks, and the Republican frontrunner is singing a much different tune when it comes to Trump than he did in 2021.

“The rapid nationalization of New Jersey politics may not be completely shocking given the national landscape, political climate, and Trumpian era we have lived in for the past decade – but it is nonetheless dismaying, given the uniquely state-level issues it faces and that New Jersey was one of the last bastions of a statewide moderate brand of Republicans.”

Dan Cassino, professor of government and politics and executive director of FDU Poll, said the defining story of this race – on both sides – has been the difficulty of getting the attention of voters.

“The onslaught of news coming out of D.C., combined with the depleted media landscape in New Jersey means that candidates have had to find new ways to reach voters,” Cassino told NJBIZ. “That’s meant a whole lot of retail politicking, much more than we expect out of a statewide race.

“On the Republican side, the fact that there was a competitive primary pushed all of the candidates to embrace Trump in a way that they might not have wanted to. A Republican candidate in 2025 wasn’t going to reject their president, but some degree of strategic ambivalence might have helped in the general; the need to win over Republican voters made that impossible. That’s likely to be a drag on the nominee in November.”

Will voters turn out?

As far as for the Democrats, Cassino said we are really seeing the consequences of the end of the line.

“There just aren’t that many opportunities to move up in Jersey politics, so everyone is following [Sen. Andy] Kim’s lead, and giving it a shot,” Cassino continued. “Sherrill is very much the candidate who would have the line in most of the state, and prior to 2024 wouldn’t have faced much competition in the primary.

“The question is whether voters care. We have decades of training voters not to worry about primaries, so we can’t be that surprised when we see that they’re not turning out in large numbers. Everyone running against Sherrill is running against that apathy, trying to convince voters that their vote matters, and trying to earn that vote. That’s a high degree of difficulty.”

National trends

Tina Zappile, director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University, said that the voter confidence in Ciattarelli has been notable.

“It’s clear that the close margin in 2021 and his grassroots campaign for that election laid the groundwork for an easy primary win and strong support going into this November,” Zappile told NJBIZ. “Jack also distanced himself sufficiently form Trump to focus primarily on the top policy issues New Jerseyans care about, such as energy prices, property taxes, education, and more.

“The lack of a single candidate to rally around for Democrats was initially surprising, but this reflects the dynamics of the national party, where voters are unsure about the party’s platform, it’s core values, and the types of candidates they want to see run.”

The campaign and debates raised a number of issues – against the backdrop of national themes. NJBIZ asked the political experts which topics have dominated on the trail, with affordability emerging as a consensus top issue.

Pocketbook issues

“Economic issues are always top of mind for voters,” Alyssa Maurice, head of research, Hughes Center, told NJBIZ. “Affordability has dominated the race with an emphasis on housing, property taxes and energy costs. Immigration has been a large theme, too, but it’s definitely been secondary to the pocketbook issues and the economic discontent that decided the presidential election. Economic uncertainty and rising costs still loom large. So, we’re dealing with very similar dynamics to November in that respect.”

“The overarching issue at stake here is affordability; this overshadows everything else,” said Koning. “New Jersey voters feel the state is unaffordable, say that wages cannot keep up with costs, and give subpar ratings to the state economy and increasingly negative ratings to the national economy. Especially given all that is happening at the national level, kitchen table issues are once again likely to take the spotlight as head into the general.”

The overarching issue at stake here is affordability; this overshadows everything else.
– Ashley Koning, Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling

Rasmussen said, “There’s no question that affordability is a major issue for both parties, and that’s because they know it is always on the minds of voters in a high-cost state like New Jersey. In fact, you could go back to any race for governor in the last 50 years or more and you’d find property taxes and other drivers of affordability being discussed. I’d say the problems that have plagued New Jersey Transit have come up a lot, particularly in the parts of the state where more people rely on it. And then on the Republican side, there’s also been a lot of talk about crime and immigration.”

Another energizing issue

“Energy has emerged as a top issue, and candidates from both parties have rallied around the need for New Jersey to diversify its energy sources,” said Zappile. “How the state should do that is an entirely different question, though in campaign speeches, Ciattarelli and Sherrill had similar ideas and policy proposals to diversify New Jersey’s energy supply to meet consumer demands and drive more business into the state. While candidates shied away from presenting a comprehensive energy plan just yet, there was remarkable synergy between Democrats and Republicans on this issue.

“Property tax relief has been a top issue across the state,” Zappile continued. “Candidates from both parties have lamented the lack of property tax relief, citing this as a failure of governance. Democrats trace this failure further back to Republican administrations – while Republicans have squarely focused on blaming Murphy.”

A burgeoning battleground?

“Ciattarelli narrowed the gap in 2021 between himself and Murphy when he started focusing on this issue [kitchen table/affordability], and it will presumably be a prudent strategy and focus for each of the nominees in the months ahead,” Koning continued. “The national political landscape may determine what other issues are at stake in the general and if New Jersey will become a battleground for more nationalized politics and hot-button topics or if uniquely-Jersey issues will prevail – such as mass transportation, infrastructure, SALT, and offshore wind.”

Cassino said, “The Democratic race has ben defined by fights over what it means to be a progressive in New Jersey. Is it about being against the party establishment? Or is it about holding liberal policies? What if those policies threaten sacred cows like home rule? Candidates on both sides have spent the election talking about affordability, but in New Jersey, affordability is like the weather: everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it. The bottom line is that we live in a high-tax, high-services state.

“My parents in Arizona pay 80% less in property taxes, but they also go to private companies for water, trash pickup and the fire department. And the schools spend about a quarter of what they do here on a per student basis. People want lower taxes, but they like the services they get. The most telling moment of the campaign for me was at the final debate, when the Democratic candidates were asked to name a single program they’d cut: the only answer anyone was willing to proffer was the Rutgers football program.”

Taxes, transit & Trump

He noted how Gottheimer said he will get more money from the federal government to balance the budget. Meanwhile everyone else talks about how they’d encourage, to one degree or another, municipalities to merge or share services.

“But none of what’s being offered is anything close to the cuts or tax increases that are going to be necessary in the next few budgets,” Cassino. “So, you asked for the three biggest issues: taxes, transit and Donald Trump. Candidates on both sides are spending all day talking about those three issues, but how that will materialize into real policy is anyone’s guess.

“No matter what the candidates for governor want to do, they’ll have to somehow win over the state Legislature, which is fundamentally conservative. The only plan I’ve seen to put changes into effect came from Bill Spadea, who claimed that he’d govern like Trump, ignore the Legislature and just do everything by executive fiat.”

Location, location, location

Of course, turnout is the vital component in all races – but especially so in a primary contest where voter turnout is sparse. In 2021, about 383,000 ballots were cast in the Democratic primary (6% of registered voters) and about 339,000 in the Republican primary (about 5% of registered voters).

This year, early voting numbers have been strong.

NJBIZ asked the experts if there are any particular parts of the state they are watching – or for any particular trends. Notably, on the Democratic side, five of the candidates – Baraka, Fulop, Gottheimer, Sherrill, Spiller – hail from North Jersey districts, in somewhat close vicinity. Meanwhile Sweeney is a South Jersey native.

“Though turnout is still expected to be low overall, as is typical for a primary, but it is trending higher than recent gubernatorial primaries,” said Maurice. “The race is especially competitive without an incumbent in the field and on the crowded Democratic side in particular, each candidate has their own lane bringing out different parts of the electorate from the mainstream establishment Democrats to the anti-establishment or progressive wings to the old guard South Jersey machine.”

Turnout

“Turnout will play a significant role for Democrats for three reasons: the lack of a single candidate to rally around, the absence of county lines on ballots and differences in campaign strategies,” said Zappile. “Candidates may be more harshly judged in the regions where they weren’t as active. In Republican strongholds in the south, central and northwest parts of the state. Democratic voters are likely to reward candidates who showed up more often. A campaign’s ground game will matter a great deal in this primary.”

“We’ve certainly been watching to see if more votes are coming from a particular county or region – a strong South Jersey vote could mean good things for Steve Sweeney, for example,” said Rasmussen. “And Josh Gottheimer needs to do really well in Bergen County, where he is the endorsed candidate. But we are also noticing is that other candidates can be doing well within these regions, too – Mikie Sherrill has a lot of strength among women across the state, for example, and Steve Fulop has been building his anti-establishment organization in every county. So just because a vote is coming from South Jersey or Bergen County, we don’t necessarily know who has earned that vote.”

Turnout will play a significant role for Democrats for three reasons:

1. the lack of a single candidate to rally around,
2. the absence of county lines on ballots,
3. and differences in campaign strategies.

– Tina Zappile, William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy

Regional awareness

Koning noted, “Many of the candidates, particularly on the Democratic side, are affiliated with certain geographic regions throughout the state. It might be telling if we see particularly large turnout efforts in Essex and other urban areas, which could potentially benefit Fulop or Baraka; Bergen County, which could benefit Gottheimer; or South Jersey, which seems to be Sweeney’s best hope given he has consistently been at the bottom of any public pre-election polling.

“Sherrill won almost half of the county conventions, so seeing any movement favoring her in these counties may show that while the county line might be deal, county GOTV efforts could be alive and well. On the Republican side, I’ll be looking for whether low-propensity Trump voters – who typically skip these types of elections – actually turn out and for whom they turn out. Given Ciattarelli’s progress in 2021 and Republican progress in the state in 2024, it will also be telling if these counties that have gone redder turn out to vote.”

Cassino said he is keeping a close eye on three municipalities in particular:

• “Montclair is a key test for Fulop and Baraka: if they can pull large numbers of votes from what Chris Christie called ‘The People’s Republic Of Montclair,’ despite the local leadership being solidly behind Sherrill, it’s a sign that they’re likely to be competitive with her statewide, especially in towns that are similarly liberal – but where she doesn’t have the home field advantage.”
• “If Baraka wants to have any chance of winning, he has to run up the vote in Newark. I’ve polled Newark several times, and he’s very popular at home: but he needs to get that turnout machine whirring, and we haven’t seen any sign of that yet. If turnout in Newark stays as low as it has been after the early voting period, it’s hard to see how Baraka stays competitive.”
• “Edison is the biggest municipality where there are rival slates backed by Sherrill and Fulop for mayor. This is a test for Sherrill’s organization. If she wins big in Edison, I think we can all go to bed early.”

Predictions and projections

Finally, NJBIZ asked these Jersey political experts for any projections or predictions about what to expect on Tuesday night.

“Jack Ciattarelli’s status as the Republican frontrunner is more secure than Mikie Sherrill’s position over the more competitive Democratic field,” said Rasmussen. “But with turnout that could approach just 1 million voters on both sides, someone can win either race with a couple thousand votes or less. And with so many viable candidates, it’s possible for any of them to get to that number. So, we really just don’t know how it will turn out, and that’s part of what’s made it an exciting election.”

“Ciattarelli wins and moves directly into general-election campaign mode, using the same grassroots strategy from both the 2021 election and primary,” said Zappile. “The Democratic race is too close to call. Every Democratic candidate except Sweeney will need to pivot and develop a stronger grassroots campaign for the entire state, breaking away from their previous strategies focused on leading a city or holding a national seat. This will be challenging and will require a lot of support – this should keep the Democratic winner up at night.”

The frontrunner

Maurice said there is not much suspense in the Republican race.

“Ciattarelli already had the advantage of widespread name recognition and institutional support, so the Trump endorsement was the cherry on top to further cement him as the decisive frontrunner. On the Democratic side, Sherrill has the edge. She has organizational support behind her in some of the biggest Democratic strongholds, and those rank-and-file Democrats are a reliable voter base to have in a primary.

“That said, there are some conceivable paths for someone else to pull off an upset – if Fulop succeeds in mobilizing anti-establishment voters, for instance. Plus, the fall of the county line adds some unpredictability to the race. Since this is the first primary without the county line, we don’t know how much that is going to affect the impact of those county endorsements Sherrill won. All in all, this race is likely to be decided by a very thin margin.”

Least to most surprising potential outcomes

“The most likely outcome, I think, is Sherrill winning by a reasonable margin, and the rest of the field pretty close,” said Cassino, laying out eight scenarios on the Democratic side from least to most surprising potential outcomes:

1. 1. Sherrill wins by 5-10 points, with Fulop coming up short and a crowded field close behind him
   2. Sherrill wins by 10-15 points, with everyone else close, but well behind
   3. Fulop inches out a victory over Sherrill, support for everyone else lags
   4. Sherrill inches out a victory over Fulop, Baraka close behind
   5. Baraka wins narrowly, with Sherrill and Fulop pretty close to each other
   6. Sweeney narrowly wins, racking up votes in South Jersey and doing surprisingly well outside of his home turf
   7. Gottheimer defies expectations and narrowly wins off of big turnout in places no one is paying attention to
   8. Spiller from out of nowhere

Every vote counts

Koning said that as a pollster, she never tries to predict – noting that polling informs how close or not close a race is, and what voters are thinking; and why they are thinking it.

“But it doesn’t necessarily tell us a guaranteed winner,” Koning explained. “It would not be a surprise to me if the current frontrunner on each side crosses their respective finish line and we have the race everyone assumes for the general – Ciattarelli vs. Sherrill. It would also not surprise me, though – given the presumed lower turnout in these kinds of elections – if we see some sort of upset, particularly on the Democratic side.

She stressed that primary day entirely depends on who turns out to vote – and how many.

“We may have ‘record’ turnout for a primary this time, but it wouldn’t take much to get there; primary turnout in the past has hovered in the low to mid-single-digits,” Koning continued. “Especially given the crowded field – every vote will truly count here.”

Please stay with NJBIZ for full coverage of the primary results – and more.