With Democrats sweating bullets in a blue stronghold, former President Barack Obama swooped into Newark on November 1, 2025, to rally for gubernatorial hopeful Rep. Mikie Sherrill, as New York Post reports.
In a desperate push to avoid a stunning upset, Obama headlined an event to boost turnout for Sherrill, 53, a four-term House member and retired Navy pilot, as she clings to a paper-thin lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, 63, in a race that’s tighter than a drum.
Way back in 2015, Ciattarelli didn’t mince words, calling then-candidate Trump unfit for the presidency, yet on this campaign trail, he’s handed Trump an “A” grade for his latest term.
Fast forward to July 9, 2024, when Sherrill publicly urged former President Joe Biden to step aside from his own race, a move that might explain why Biden isn’t joining Obama on the stump for her now.
Obama, 64, who boasts a 59% approval rating per a February 2025 Gallup poll, previously lent his charm to a $1.5 million fundraiser for Sherrill, showing just how much Democrats are banking on his pull.
That pull is crucial in Newark, where nearly half the population is Black and over a third Hispanic, demographics where Sherrill dominates with 65% support among Black voters and 63% among Hispanics, per a Suffolk University poll released just before November 1, 2025.
Despite that edge, an Atlas Intel poll has Sherrill ahead of Ciattarelli by a mere 50.2% to 49.3%, a gap so narrow it’s within the margin of error, while Real Clear Politics averages show her lead under 3%.
Early voting offers a sliver of hope for Democrats, with a raw vote count edge of less than 2 percentage points, but Ciattarelli’s camp isn’t resting, especially after outperforming polls four years ago in a narrow 2021 loss to Gov. Phil Murphy, 51% to 48%.
The Republican National Committee is pouring resources into New Jersey, sensing blood in the water, while Ciattarelli held a competing event in Monmouth on November 1, 2025, to rally his own supporters.
“The candidate has to win the race,” Ciattarelli told The Post before the rally, adding with a jab, “She could bring in the ghost of FDR. It’s not going to matter.” A sharp quip, and he’s got a point—star power can’t paper over a campaign’s cracks when voters crave substance.
Sherrill, aiming for a centrist appeal amid progressive noise from neighboring New York, stumbled hard in a CBS New York interview, fumbling a basic question on her top legislative priority.
“Wow, that’s a really good question, because so many come to mind,” Sherrill said to interviewer Marcia Kramer, a dodge so weak it earned a “disastrous” label from New Jersey State Sen. Holly Schepisi, R-Bergen County. Ouch—when you’re running to replace term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, D, that’s not the soundbite you want haunting your ads, as Ciattarelli has gleefully ensured.
Adding to Sherrill’s woes, she’s faced scrutiny over not walking at her 1994 U.S. Naval Academy commencement, citing a penalty for not turning in classmates during a cheating scandal, a detail that raises eyebrows about leadership under pressure.
Meanwhile, Ciattarelli, backed by a Trump tele-rally last week, navigates a tightrope of energizing Trump’s base without turning off independents in a state Biden carried by 16 points in 2020, though Kamala Harris edged Trump there by just 52% to 46%.
With campaign spending topping $200 million, including $34 million from party committees, and New Jersey one of only two states—alongside Virginia—holding governor’s races on the upcoming Tuesday, Obama’s additional stop in Norfolk for Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger shows Democrats are playing defense everywhere.
