As the co-founder of MeidasTouch, I’ve spent years chronicling the relentless assault on our democracy by Donald Trump and his MAGA acolytes. But Tuesday on Election Night, amid the national blue wave that defied all the cynical pundits, the results from New Jersey stood out as a powerful testament to the fight we’re waging nationwide.
Watch my interview with New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill above, and remember to add the MeidasTouch Podcast anywhere you find audio podcasts, like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, for more interviews and reports. Subscribe to this Substack now to support our work—and remember to like and share this post.
Every victory Tuesday, from coast to coast, was a crucial step forward, but New Jersey’s 14-point mandate to Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill buried the MAGA Republican Jack Ciattarelli in a landslide that exposed the hollowness and repulsiveness of their “golden age” delusions. This was a reckoning, a clear-eyed repudiation of tariffs that gouge families at the checkout line, a “big beautiful bill” rips people off their health care and cuts taxes for the wealthy, militarized ICE raids that turn our streets into war zones, and economic sabotage that threatens tens of thousands of jobs.
The numbers tell a story of betrayal felt deep in the bone. In counties that tilted red in 2024, places like the train-line suburbs where commuters rely on the Gateway Tunnel project that Trump has repeatedly vowed to gut, voters swung blue by margins pollsters never saw coming. Hispanic communities, which MAGA courted with empty gestures, reverted dramatically to Democratic strongholds, often exceeding their 2021 turnout. And across the board, from urban cores to suburban enclaves, New Jerseyans rejected the GOP’s fealty to a man whose policies have eroded their livelihoods. As one longtime Trump voter messaged in the flood of post-election confessions I reviewed: “I voted for Trump three times. I’m 100% MAGA. But sadly, this administration doesn’t support me anymore. As a guy who voted for Trump three times, I’m fed up. I’m a Trump supporter. I voted for him three times, but I’m not feeling a single benefit economically.”
It crystallized in a single, searing moment from the debate between Sherrill and Ciattarelli. When asked what grade he’d give Trump’s second term so far, the MAGA candidate didn’t hesitate: “I’d certainly give the president an ‘A’. I think he’s right about everything that he’s doing.” Sherrill’s response was a masterclass in cutting through the B.S. and conveying how Americans actually feel, especially in New Jersey: “I give him an F right now. We see it every single level. Costs are going up on New Jerseyans. So whether it’s the tariff cuts that are costing you more from everything from a cup of coffee to the groceries you buy for dinner at night to the one big beautiful bill, which will raise health care, energy and housing.”
That exchange echoed the lived reality I’ve heard from so many people during my reporting. Sherrill went on the offensive, centering her campaign on a singular, urgent message: affordability. “This race has been about affordability,” she declared in her closing pitch, “and that’s because I speak to thousands and thousands of New Jerseyans sometimes a day. And the thing on their minds is cost, both utility costs, housing costs, health care costs, and then how they keep getting worse under this administration with the tariffs, with one big beautiful bill, with the recent attacks on the Gateway Tunnel.”
Even as the votes were tallied, Trump tried lying his way through it, posting on Truth Social that morning: “They had the worst inflation in 48 years. We have almost no inflation. We’re down now to 2% and will be at maybe 1%. You want to always stay above 1%. Actually you want a little tiny bit of inflation.” Let me be clear: these are lies. Inflation is at 3% year-over-year per the latest data—and has been continuously ticking up under Trump. It’s the same gaslighting that’s defined his regime, the long con of “don’t believe your own eyes,” but New Jersey voters saw through it. Probably because they feel it every day. Trump tries to hide government inflation data, but guess what? Americans get their own “inflation reports” every time they buy something from a store. It’s called a receipt. The American people gave Trump an F too, as Sherrill put it, and her overperformance in the state proves they’re done with the fairy tales.
To unpack this seismic shift, I sat down with Governor-elect Sherrill after her victory, her voice steady with the quiet resolve that’s marked her from Navy helicopter pilot to Congresswoman to now, the next governor of New Jersey. “What this race showed definitively is that voters aren’t buying it,” she told me, addressing Trump’s fresh latest lies about cheaper Thanksgivings and vanishing inflation. “And so I am hoping that what this will do is really galvanize some of the Republicans who I think have to see what’s coming next year to get off their butts and try to start delivering for the American people. Engage, you know, get health care costs down and open the government. Stop messing around with key infrastructure projects. Get this tariff thing under control. Stop this. You know, the tariff program is a worldwide extortion racket where costs are going up on everyone here. And yet Trump’s pocketing billions.”
Sherrill’s confidence stemmed not from polls, those 5-to-8-point leads felt conservative to her, but from the unfiltered stories she heard on the trail. “I always felt pretty confident in exactly what we were doing,” she said, “and that’s largely because I was speaking to thousands of people on the ground. ... When we saw those 5 to 8 point polls, we thought those were very conservative and felt pretty good about the path we were on. I was thinking I’d win by ten. So the 14 point win is big. And I think shows how galvanized people are here.”
What struck me most was how Sherrill rebuilt the Democratic coalition not through division, but by speaking to universal aspirations. She turned out working people, the Black and Latino communities, and even moderate Republicans in the suburbs, all drawn to her vision of “good government” that delivers “good education for their kids ... good jobs ... a good economy ... a chance to succeed.” Coming from a union family, her dad grew up poor but seized opportunities this country once offered, she framed her fight as a defense of that American promise. “That’s always been where I’ve centered my work,” she explained. “And that’s really important to our working communities more than really anyone, because good government makes such a difference in their opportunity.”
Even the much-hyped MAGA play for young men crumbled. Ciattarelli’s “Alpha pod bro” shtick, aping Trump’s bro-culture pandering, backfired spectacularly. The 18-to-29 crowd, facing unemployment rates spiking to 9.2% or worse, saw the rug pull for what it was: promises of riches swapped for layoffs and rescinded offers. “They see what’s happening because they are seeing the jobs numbers,” Sherrill said. “I’m talking to college kids and they don’t see a job market for them. I’m talking to kids who’ve had jobs that have been rescinded.” Authenticity, she noted, cut through the bravado. Her opponent’s fealty to Trump rang false, especially to a generation “gauging authenticity and see[ing] it very clearly.”
As a mother of teenage boys, Sherrill shared a poignant anecdote from the campaign trail: a rally where a group of them flashed heart signs and selfies, leaving her wondering if they were trolling, until she learned they’d been knocking doors tirelessly. “They are so excited,” she recounted. “You don’t know how many doors they’ve knocked. ... This felt different. This felt like a very empowering race where young people are saying, I am fighting for the future that I want to see.” It’s a fire we’ll need, because the threats ahead are dire.
Looking to her transition, Sherrill is laser-focused on the economy Trump is dismantling. With 22 states already in recession, SNAP funding being witheld, and New Jersey marketplace premiums surging 175%, her mandate is a weapon. “The bigger win that we were working towards was so that we could send a message,” she said. “This is very unpopular, Republicans, you need to stop. You need to get on board with actually coming up with a plan that’s going to serve the American people.” As governors become the bulwark against Washington’s predations, she’ll champion regional innovation, apprenticeships, and pathways from poverty to the middle class, fighting for “delivering for working people, delivering on the middle class.”
New Jersey’s victory wasn’t isolated. From Jersey, to New York City, to Virginia, to Mississippi, and beyond, the focus on affordability became a blueprint for democracy’s defenders everywhere. In a time when MAGA seeks to enrich a few at the expense of the many, Sherrill’s win reminds us that people-powered movements, rooted in truth and service, can still prevail. It’s been an honor to cover her campaign from day one, witnessing how competence and conviction can reclaim our future. As she put it simply: “It was truly an honor to run here and to galvanize people here in New Jersey. It’s really important to us.” Damn right it is.
