Dem 'firebrand' set to kick off 'high-stakes referendum on Trump' in November

On Tuesday night, June 10, New Jersey voters picked the main nominees in their closely watched 2025 gubernatorial race. Democrats nominated four-term Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill — a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot — while Republicans chose conservative former state lawmaker Jack Ciattarelli.

Although Ciattarelli was critical of President Donald Trump in the past, Trump is endorsing him in this 2025 race. Sherrill, however, is running an aggressively anti-Trump campaign, and she attacked Ciattarelli as "Trump's lackey" during her victory speech.

In an article published on June 11, The Nation's John Nichols stresses that New Jersey's gubernatorial race — not unlike the one in Viriginia — will become a "referendum" on Trump's presidency.

"Sherrill's jabs at President Donald Trump and billionaire 'special government employee' Elon Musk — or make that former 'special government employee,' now that the pair have fallen out spectacularly — were featured for months in ads designed to show that the former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor would not back down in fights with the (Trump) administration," Nichols explains. "That was vital messaging at a time when Trump and his congressional allies have attacked Medicaid programs that are essential to providing healthcare in the state such as New Jersey; moved to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and gut initiatives that support public schools; sought to gut safety-net programs in order to fund tax cuts for the billionaire class; and now threaten to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom and other officials who follow the Constitution."

Nichols adds, "Newsom's current fight against Trump's decision to order Marines and the National Guard onto the streets of Los Angeles offers a powerful illustration of the role that governors are playing — and will continue to play — in the struggle to prevent a lawless federal administration from crushing the right to dissent and the ability of local officials to govern. And now, New Jersey primary voters have set up a referendum on these questions."

In the past, Ciattarelli attacked Trump as a "charlatan" who was "out of step with the party of Lincoln." But he has since flip-flopped — a fact that Sherrill isn't shy about mentioning.

In one of her many attacks on Ciattarelli in the days before the June 10 election, Sherrill argued, "Is he going to invite the Marines into the streets of New Jersey? This is ridiculous. That's not leadership, that's not governing, that’s not standing up for the people you serve, that’s not talking about truth in a moment of crisis in this nation, and that is not how we're going to go forward in this state."

Nichols notes that although Sherrill "was initially identified as one of the more centrist members of the House Democratic Caucus," she "has grown into her role as an anti-Trump firebrand" and voted to impeach Trump twice. In one of her speeches, she remarked that if Democrats retake the U.S. House of Representatives, they might "go for a trifecta" and impeach him again.

"The November contest between Sherrill and Ciattarelli will feature plenty of state-specific debates about issues such as housing affordability, access to healthcare, and education funding — with Sherrill adopting mainstream Democratic positions while Ciattarelli veers to the right," Nichols writes. "Yet it is no longer the case, in New Jersey or elsewhere on the 2025 electoral map, that 'all politics are local.' As in the other state that will elect a governor this fall, Virginia, New Jersey's race will double as a high-stakes referendum on Trump and Trumpism."

Nichols adds, "That’s likely to help Sherrill mobilize a Democratic base that — if results from the April contest for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and special elections for legislative seats nationwide that have taken place so far in 2025 are any indication — is enthusiastic about pushing back against the GOP’s extremism."

Read John Nichols' full article for The Nation at this link.