Key Takeaways
- Sherrill wins big: A decisive Democratic victory surprises even her supporters.
- Cross-party appeal: She draws independent and traditionally Republican voters.
- Montclair roots matter: Local ties and “Montclair mom” identity boost her image and fundraising.
- Local impact: Montclair’s $19.6M school deficit and utility costs are top priorities.
- Policy focus: Early action expected on affordability and utility bills.
- Looking ahead: Terrence will cover Sherrill’s appointments, new assembly members, and a project on trans lives in NJ.
The Montclair Pod sits down with Terrence McDonald of the New Jersey Monitor on the morning after Election Day to discuss the recent New Jersey gubernatorial election, the victory of Democrat Mikie Sherrill, and what her administration could mean for local issues, including Montclair’s schools and budget. Terrence shares insights from election night, Sherrill’s connection to Montclair, and upcoming stories he’s following as a journalist.
The Montclair Pod: Big news! New Jersey has elected a new governor. Democrat Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli in Tuesday’s election. For more on this, we’re going to welcome back our friend, Terrence McDonald of the New Jersey Monitor. Were you surprised at all by the victory?
McDonald: I was surprised at how decisive it was. Even I had talked to somebody who is a big supporter of Mikie Sherrill’s on Monday and that person was like, I’m a little nervous. They thought she was going to win, but they thought at worst by two, at best by like five or six and no way over 10. But you know, she won a really, really resounding victory and brought along a bunch of assembly seats that now are controlled by the Republican Party and Democrats won them last night.
The Montclair Pod: Six counties that had voted for Trump in 2024 voted in her favor and five of those counties also backed Ciattarelli in 2021, evidently. What do you make of that?
McDonald: Mikie Sherrill had made fighting Trump a real cornerstone of her campaign. Democrats are really mad at DC and Donald Trump right now. Almost certainly a lot of independent voters, because I don’t think you get this kind of result last night without at least getting some independent voters to come along with you on this.
Considering all the other races around the country, there weren’t many of them, but like in Virginia, for example, all three statewide races were won by Democrats.There was one Democrat who had what would have been, in normal times, a career-ending scandal in the last month, but he still won. So I think that’s it. People are really mad at Donald Trump and Donald Trump’s administration in New Jersey. And they went to the polls last night to indicate that.
The Montclair Pod: Yeah, it was sort of a Democratic sweep nationwide on Tuesday in some cases. Well, no secret, Mikie Sherrill is local to Montclair. She’s a superstar here. She has deep roots here. She raised her family here. And the town’s been really at the center of her political story. How do you think her connection to this town has shaped and will shape her political identity going forward?
McDonald: I don’t know the answer to that because it’s not like any other Democrat wouldn’t have like handily won Montclair, right? So that’s a good question. I’m not really sure I know the answer.
The Montclair Pod: Yeah, well, I certainly think she had a good money base here, a lot of supporters here. I mean, she was quite good at raising money, is that right?
McDonald: Yeah, she’s absolutely a fundraising powerhouse. I guess the answer to your question is that like a “Montclair mom” is sort of a type of person that I think will help Democrats win back control where they’ve lost it previously.
The Montclair Pod: I love it. I’m going to start making t-shirts right after this interview. At a more granular level, we have some serious school issues here. We have a budget deficit and a lot of people were holding their breath to see who would be New Jersey governor in swaying their vote in the December 9th referendum, which has us deciding on whether we’re going to accept state funding or raise taxes to seal this $19.6 million deficit. Now with Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, as governor, any thoughts on how that could trickle down to our state, our school concerns, our school deficit and how we resolve it?
McDonald: I don’t have any specific intel on that, but I would say that Mikie Sherrill, whoever was going to win this race, is going into Trenton with some serious budget issues that they have to deal with. What happens with Montclair’s school district is one of myriad budget challenges that she is going to face when she becomes governor in January.
The Montclair Pod: Yeah, affordability was a huge platform that she ran on. What are some of the big goals you think that she’s going to try to achieve or address starting in January?
McDonald: Well, she has said, and she said again last night, that she is going to issue some state of emergency on utility rates and freeze people’s utility rates and utility bills. One of my reporters, Nikita, has done some reporting about the challenges there. I don’t really know what that’s going to look like because the rates right now are sort of where they are, and they’re going to be until about June. I don’t know what she really means by freezing utility rates, but she’s made that promise so often that she can’t really not do anything about that. I would expect on the very first day for her to take at least a symbolic action toward freezing or lowering electric bills and then figuring out some way to bring them down.
The Montclair Pod: Any other big policy agendas for her term that you think she is going to start on right away?
McDonald: That’s a tough one because she wasn’t super specific on the campaign trail and we would sort of badger her about what she would do about XYZ and she very much stayed in the very vague, generic area of answering questions. So that’s a good question and I wish I had the answer to that one too. And we tried a number of times to sort of get her specifics on what she wanted to do about various issues, but we weren’t super successful.
The Montclair Pod: Since the New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom and you’ve got people all over the country that you were collaborating with last night, I imagine. What was it like to hear from your colleagues across the country about their experiences on this election night?
McDonald: I haven’t even spoken to them yet. I was just 100% frozen on my computer on New Jersey until about 12:45 in the morning and then went to bed and then woke up like two hours ago to do my morning work. I just know what I do know is what you know, which is that Democrats in places like Virginia and even in places like Georgia are super happy about the results last night. They think that this gives them a lot of momentum going into the midterms next year.
The Montclair Pod: What are you working on next? Not to keep you on the hamster wheel, you’ve sort of crossed this gubernatorial election finish line. As a journalist, what are you kind of eyeing next in terms of interesting stories to follow?
McDonald: Well, one is all of the things that this new governor is going to do, right? She’s got to make a whole bunch of appointments like attorney general and judges, et cetera. So what a new governor is going to do is going to take up a lot of our time over the next couple of months and for a large chunk of early next year. Plus, we’ve got some new assembly people that are coming into the assembly that I’m sure are to stir things up. We’ve got two sort of renegade Democrats in Hudson County that have sort of promised to be a lot more vocal and maybe a lot more progressive than the people that they’re replacing. So they’ll be interesting to watch. We also just hired a visual journalist. Her name’s Anne Marie Caruso, who is about to start working on a project about the lives of trans people in New Jersey. So that’s something that we’re going to debut hopefully in the next couple of months. We’ve got a lot of stuff to do!
