Democrats have spent a record amount to win the New Jersey governor’s race. Why some insiders are still nervous.

National Democrats are pouring millions of dollars into the race for New Jersey governor, as party insiders fret over whether U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill can keep the state blue.

With less than a month until Election Day, most polls show only a single-digit lead in her race against Republican Jack Ciattarelli, in a contest that Democrats hope preserves the party’s power in Trenton and sends a signal to Washington ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“We’ve never doubted that this would be an incredibly challenging and competitive race,” said Izzi Levy, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association, which is spending upwards of $20 million to boost Sherrill in the race.

Nearly $47 million has been spent in total on both sides since the primary, with significant portions coming from the DGA and other national groups.

The Democratic National Committee announced in September it was doubling its $1.5 million investment in the race, making it the group’s largest cash infusion in an off-year election and a much higher sum than is being dished out in Virginia, the only other state with a gubernatorial race this year.

Vice President Kamala Harris won both states by smaller-than-expected margins last year.

“There is a lot of fear people have that’s grounded in what happened last year,” DNC vice chair Malcolm Kenyatta said. “But Mikie is working her ass off from everything I can see.”

In interviews with a dozen New Jersey insiders, candidates, and elected officials, there was some intraparty concern about whether she is reaching the voters she needs, particularly in lower-turnout urban areas, and delivering a message that will get people to the polls.

“I’m very scared. And I’m extremely frustrated,” said a Democratic candidate running for state Assembly who did not want to be quoted publicly criticizing the campaign of the party’s nominee for governor. “Where the hell is the energy I saw during the primary? It’s not there.”

Sherrill’s campaign says the candidate is well positioned to win in November. In a memo sent last week, campaign manager Alex Ball noted Sherrill was up 8 percentage points in a recent Fox News poll, has momentum in fundraising, and boasts a strong ground game.

“Mikie Sherrill for Governor campaign is firing on all cylinders and ready to close strong on Nov. 4,” she wrote.

Democrats have a more than 850,000-voter registration edge in New Jersey, but the stakes for Democrats are extremely high after the state shifted right in the presidential election as Harris won the state by less than 6 percentage points, the narrowest margin for a Democrat since 2004.

The national party is looking to gubernatorial races here and in Virginia, and a state Supreme Court race in Pennsylvania, to act as bellwethers and build momentum ahead of the midterms.

“New Jersey has always been a purple state, and I think right now it’s not surprising that all eyes are on us, to try to figure out just how purple states are getting or how much the political winds are changing headed into midterms,” said Jackie Cornell, who was the state director for former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign in New Jersey.

And for New Jersey Democrats who saw President Donald Trump win the nation as he narrowly lost their state, Sherrill is a potential shield against the White House.

“I think even if she were up by 15 points, people would be nervous,” Democratic strategist Anthony Campisi said. “With Donald Trump in the White House, New Jersey’s governor is really the last bulwark that New Jerseyans have against a MAGA agenda being inflicted upon them. … I think people will be sweating this until the polls close on Election Day. I know I am.”

Historical winds are also a factor, any student of New Jersey political history will quickly tell you.

The state, though blue-leaning, is a pendulum. It tends to vote for a governor of the opposite party from who is in the White House. But it’s also a state that has not elected the same party into the governor’s mansion for three consecutive terms since the 1960s.

This year will test which of those trends is stronger. As Sherrill tries to run against Trump, Ciattarelli tries to run against Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, with some variations in between.

“After eight years of Phil Murphy, there’s a real fear voters will be tired of him and looking for a change,” Campisi said. But he also said that he thinks Ciattarelli aligning so closely with Trump, an unpopular president, will help Sherrill.

Ciattarelli gave Trump’s job performance an A during their final debate on Wednesday, while Sherrill gave the president an F. Sherrill gave Murphy a B as governor, while Ciattarelli gave him an F.

A September poll from Emerson College, which found the race deadlocked, showed both Murphy and Trump were unpopular. Only 35% of respondents approved of the governor, while 44% disapproved. The president had a 41% approval rating, but a 51% majority of voters disapproved of him less than a year into his second term.

An October poll paid for by the DGA and conducted by Public Policy Polling showed Sherrill up 6 points and Trump with 53% disapproval, but the polling memo did not include figures for Murphy.

Ciattarelli and Sherrill are running very different campaigns, and that contrast has sparked some of the worries about whether Sherrill is reaching the voters she needs to win. Governor races in New Jersey tend to draw about 40% of registered voters, which means turnout becomes key.

Ciattarelli is out on the stump more, holding larger, Trump-style rallies, while Sherrill has done fewer events and favored more controlled gatherings. She also has her duties in Washington to balance.

“She absolutely needs to be out there more,” a longtime organizer in the state said.

The organizer and several other Democratic insiders said they think Sherrill, a former federal prosecutor and Navy pilot, is good in off-the-cuff interactions and wish they could see more of that. It’s difficult to know how much on-the-ground campaigning she is doing because the campaign does not make her schedule public. Only some of her events are open to the media.

Her schedule looks to be ramping up, with Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, campaigning with Sherrill on Saturday and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and DNC chair Ken Martin both expected to join her on the trail in the coming weeks. Sherrill had scheduled events in Passaic, Essex, Camden, and Gloucester Counties on Saturday.

Sherrill’s team has also touted its coordinated campaign, a joint effort between the campaign and state and local parties, which have collectively contacted 4.2 million voters, made 1.3 million phone calls, sent 2.5 million texts, and knocked on 409,000 doors. That puts Sherrill ahead of totals in 2021 and 2017 coordinated campaigns, Ball, the campaign director, said.

Sen. Cory Booker, who got to know Sherrill when she was an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey said he has “heard the hand-wringing” but is impressed with what he has seen in the data.

“I’ve got a lot more confidence, but let’s be clear, this is New Jersey. You earn every vote,” said Booker, a New Jersey Democrat and former presidential candidate. “There are no easy baskets in New Jersey, especially at the governor’s level.”

The campaign has also invested specifically in messaging in Black and Latino communities across the state — including Newark, Paterson, Atlantic City, Trenton, Plainfield, New Brunswick, Willingboro, and Vineland, according to last week’s memo.

Geographically, Democrats are particularly wary of Passaic County, home to Paterson and a large number of Latino voters, where Trump narrowly won in 2024 after losing by more than 14 percentage points to then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden there in 2020. In September, Change NJ, a pro-Ciattarelli super PAC, began targeting Passaic voters in campaign ads attacking Sherrill.

“If I were Mikie, I would be worried about that because I don’t think anyone understands what happened there,” Cornell, the former Obama director, said.

Booker said he thinks many of those voters who gave Trump a chance have since turned on him, frustrated by aggressive immigration enforcement targeting noncriminals and prices that have not come down.

“There’s a bitterness in those counties about Donald Trump. They don’t believe him anymore, and they are really motivated to vote against Trump now,” he said.

And some critics question whether the campaign’s focus on tying Ciattarelli to Trump will be enough to get people to the polls, particularly independent voters. Sherrill has also focused on affordability, defending abortion rights, and effective leadership.

Katie Brennan, another Democratic candidate for state Assembly in Jersey City, noted the blue county presents a huge opportunity for Democrats. But with the lowest turnout of any county in the state, it’s a place that needs motivating.

“We are a Democratic force, but we need attention in order to turn out,” she said. “I really hope to be a part of a new Democratic Party that is organizing people on the ground.”

Many of the same insiders who expressed concerns about Sherrill’s campaign said they think she has a smart team that delivered for her in June, when she went on to win the primary by 14 percentage points.

“The political class in Trenton was criticizing her approach then,” Campisi said. “She was sort of accused of being very low-key, not being as accessible, and what I’ll say is that running for governor is a different race than running for state legislator or mayor.”

“This is a race that’s fought with very large narratives, and it’s very unlikely that Mikie Sherrill herself will encounter most of the folks who will cast a ballot for her and, I think, ultimately elect her governor.”

Data reporter Joe Yerardi and Politics and Government reporter Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Sherrill’s past legal experience. She served as an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey.