As the Garden State prepares for its next governor’s race, voter sentiment offers a glimpse into how New Jerseyans are processing national and local political shifts. Campaign Insights, through our proprietary Realtime Research platform, surveyed 1,012 residents to better understand which issues and motivations are driving support for Democratic candidate Mikie Sherrill and Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli.
What We’re Polling and Why
For Q4 2025, we surveyed over 1,000 New Jersey residents about the upcoming gubernatorial election, asking: “Which candidate do you support for Governor of New Jersey?” We also asked a follow-up question: “What is driving your decision to vote?” Our goal was to understand not just who people support, but why; capturing both the emotional and rational motivations shaping this election cycle.
Results Overview
The raw responses show a narrow edge for Sherrill, reflecting strong participation from Democratic-leaning respondents in our digital sample. When adjusted to reflect New Jersey’s 2024 electorate (Harris 57 %, Trump 42 %), the results slightly widened in Sherrill’s favor, showing a consistent but modest Democratic advantage. This difference between raw and weighted results illustrates Realtime Research’s ability to distinguish natural digital enthusiasm from true electoral strength.
What’s Driving Voter Decisions
Mikie Sherrill’s supporters tend to emphasize trust and character, while Jack Ciattarelli’s backers focus more on policy issues. Both sides display moderate negativity toward the opposing candidate, but overall motivations remain anchored in perceived leadership quality and agenda alignment. This indicates a contest driven more by issue-based decision-making than by party identification.
Why It Matters
Realtime Research provides a continuous, real-time pulse of digital opinion — capturing sentiment where people naturally spend their time online. By comparing raw participation data with reweighted, electorate-balanced outcomes, our approach helps highlight where enthusiasm and turnout energy might differ from the expected vote share. In New Jersey’s case, the digital ecosystem shows steady Democratic engagement but with meaningful representation across both parties, suggesting a competitive yet consistent environment
Methodology
Realtime Research conducts digital, voluntary, and anonymous polling across the Comscore Top 3,000 websites and mobile apps, engaging individuals where they already spend their time online. Because participation is completely opt-in and location-targeted, our methodology captures a natural slice of the digital population — free from traditional phone-call or panel biases. We then reweight these responses to reflect real-world voter composition based on verified historical data (such as the 2024 presidential electorate split). This approach lets us compare raw sentiment in the digital ecosystem versus weighted, representative sentiment, giving a unique view into how online engagement aligns—or diverges—from the broader electorate.