New Jersey election 2025: What to know about Mikie Sherrill and the race for governor
She says her three top priorities as governor will be affordability, protecting kids and making state government more accountable.
4 weeks ago
Voters leave Saint Teresa of Calcutta's McDaid Hall in Haddon Township after voting in the New Jersey primary election. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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New Jersey residents will vote in one of the most competitive gubernatorial races in the country in the Nov. 4 general election, with several candidates vying to replace outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy.
Democratic candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli are in a tight race for the state’s top public office, according to recent polls. Libertarian candidate Vic Kaplan, who is positioning himself as the anti-tax candidate, favors expanded efforts to create affordable housing and supports immigration reform.
Socialist Workers Party candidate Joanne Kuniansky is also on the ballot.
As a high school student in Atlanta, Georgia, Kuniansky said she fought for Black rights and against the Vietnam War.
She met members of the Socialist Workers Party while actively campaigning for the decriminalization of abortion and for the Equal Rights Amendment and joined the party in 1977. She moved to New Jersey in 2010.
The Socialist Workers Party believes problems in America are caused by capitalism, a system that values profit above all else.
Kuniansky said the Socialist Worker Party gives workers an opportunity for a better life, and her campaign is helping spread that message.
“We don’t think that you can reform capitalism,” she said. “We think that it’s only through workers taking actions independently of the bosses’ parties, the Democrats and Republicans, that you can begin to make progress.”
She said she hopes her run for governor is successful, but her campaign is focused on building momentum for change.
“If you win something but don’t fundamentally change the system of capitalism, then the profit system and the competition that’s at the root of this system will just erode gains that have been made,” she said.
Kuniansky said making New Jersey more affordable will be a top priority if she’s elected governor.
“It’s getting harder and harder to afford to start a family,” she said. “Young people often end up living at home for years with their parents because the prices of things have gotten so high.”
She voiced support for good-paying union jobs.
“And not just livable wages but [pay increase] schedules that make it possible to spend time with and afford a family,” she said.
In recent years, Kuniansky joined the picket lines with nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, longshoremen at Port Elizabeth and United Airlines flight attendants at Newark Liberty International Airport. She said some of the biggest concerns of workers are low wages and the high amount of overtime they are required to work.
As governor, she wants to create a public works program in the Garden State.
“Doing things that are needed like building affordable housing, repairing schools, hospitals, roads, etc.,” she said.
Another front-burner issue for Kuniansky is fighting discrimination against Jewish residents.
“New Jersey has the third highest level of attacks on Jews in the country right now, and the level of those attacks has sharply escalated since October 7th when Hamas carried out its pogrom,” she said.
The Anti-Defamation League reports that a majority of Jewish Americans have experienced at least one form of antisemitism in the past year, and 57% believe antisemitism is a normal Jewish experience. The New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness reported earlier this year that domestic and homegrown violent extremists continue to pose an enduring threat to the Jewish community in New Jersey.
Kuniansky said another top priority is taking a “strong public stand” against what she described as the normalization of violence to settle political differences.
“This is very dangerous, and it’s connected to fighting against any further crackdowns on constitutional protections that the working class needs to fight, like freedom of assembly, freedom of speech,” she said.
According to a recent report, many Americans are worried that their First Amendment right to free speech is fading.
Kuniansky said she supports:
She said that to make life better in New Jersey, “workers need to break with the Democrats and Republicans and build a revolutionary movement to take political power into our own hands.”
She said she has been knocking on doors in working class neighborhoods across the Garden State. Her message to voters heading to the polls is simple.
“There is no solution to the problems of working people under capitalism,” she said. “Only the working class taking political power through revolutionary struggle can end the march towards depression and war.”
In 2021, Kuniansky ran for governor of New Jersey and received 4,012 votes.