Government shutdown and Trump will animate NJ governor debate
Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on October 8, 2025
(NEW JERSEY) — New Jersey’s gubernatorial candidates face off in their second debate, hosted by New York City’s WABC-TV and Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV less than a month out from Election Day.
Polling shows Democratic nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, has an edge over Republican former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli. A recent survey from Quinnipiac shows Sherrill leading in a head-to-head matchup, 51%-42%.
This is not Ciattarelli’s first go around — he narrowly lost a bid to unseat Murphy in 2021. But this time, he faces wider margins and is expected to try to dodge Sherrill’s attempts to link Ciattarelli with President Donald Trump on every issue. Trump has endorsed Ciattarelli’s bid.
Outside groups have infused large sums of cash into this race. Democrats, looking to defend control as term-limited Phil Murphy leaves office, are writing fat checks: Greater Garden State, a super PAC supported by the Democratic Governors Association, reserved over $20 million in ads to support Sherrill. And the Democratic National Committee has invested $3 million into the governor’s race, a sum it says is its largest in an off-cycle race in New Jersey.
Republicans have thrown in far less: Restore New Jersey, a Republican Governors Association-backed group, invested $1 million in ads supporting Ciattarelli in September.
New Jersey has not elected the same party three straight terms since 1961, with affordability and taxes central to the race. Trump’s inroads with Jersey voters could be tested in November, as Republicans point to last year’s presidential results as a sign the state has gotten more favorable for the GOP.
Late last month, Sherrill ‘s unredacted military records were released by the National Archives that revealed she did not walk at graduation. In 1994, more than 130 Midshipmen were implicated in a cheating scandal. No documents released or obtained by news outlets have shown that Sherrill was involved in the cheating, but because she did not report her classmates, she was not permitted to walk at graduation.
CBS News, which was the first to report about the release of Sherrill’s unredacted military records, reported that the request came from Ciattarelli ally Nicholas De Gregorio, who was tasked with doing so by political operative Chris Russell.
Sherrill said this was a 30-year-old widely reported incident that does not reflect on her military service and accused the Trump administration of leaking the records in concert with the Ciattarelli campaign and asked for them to stop distributing them as they contained protected personal information.
Sherrill’s campaign communications director Sean Higgins said in a statement: “This disrespects the service of all military veterans, jeopardizes the safety of their records, and shows that Jack Ciattarelli will say or do anything to get elected, no matter the dishonor he brings upon himself — and that should frighten everyone.”
Ciattarelli disagreed.
“For eight years, Mikie Sherrill has built her entire political brand around her time at the Naval Academy and in the Navy, all the while concealing her involvement in the scandal and her punishment. The people of New Jersey deserve complete and total transparency,” the Ciattarelli campaign said in a statement.
Another likely animating issue in the debate will be the impacts of the government shutdown and White House funding freezes in the Garden State. The Hudson Tunnel Project, which White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought froze funding for on Oct. 1, is meant to expand rail links between New York City and New Jersey.
After the announcement, Sherrill slammed the Trump administration for “attacking” the project and wrote in a post on X that Ciatterelli “said there’s not a single issue where he disagrees with Trump, and he promised to never take them to court.”
Ciatterelli, meanwhile, told NJ Advance Media/NJ.com that the hold “doesn’t stop what’s going on today with regard to the construction. And I think it’s a large negotiation that’s taking place.”
-ABC’s Oren Oppenheim and Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
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