New Jersey voters head to the polls as Democratic candidate Mikie Sherrill pledges to tackle affordability and fight for the people. Speaking after casting her ballot, Sherrill told voters, "If it keeps you up at night, it’ll keep me up," promising to address key concerns like housing, healthcare, and utilities.
She also addressed early voting challenges and reassured New Jerseyans about election safety, emphasizing her commitment to ensuring every vote counts.
Stay tuned for updates on this critical NJ gubernatorial race and what it could mean for the state and the Democratic Party.
00:00How are you? Happy Election Day. Thank you. Two questions for you. One, first, any reaction to the bomb threats this morning? How's it impact the turnout? Any reaction to your campaign? The second, how are you feeling now that the polls are officially open? So we haven't seen, we've heard, checked out all the bomb threats. There are no credible ones yet. Law enforcement's working overtime to keep our elections safe. So I don't see any threat to voting and I know New Jerseyans so I know everybody's taking this really seriously and will get out to vote.
00:29But no impact so far in any of the operations you guys have? No, I mean obviously this is an attempt to suppress the vote here and I don't think New Jerseyans take very kindly to that kind of tampering in our election system. This campaign has certainly gotten quite bitter in the final stretch here. I'm just curious now that it's here, what do you think is going to be the top issue on voters' minds and if you have to show up your chances today, size up your chances today. How are you feeling? So this race has been about affordability and
00:59and 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, healthcare costs, and then how they keep getting worse under this administration with the tariffs, with the one big beautiful bill, with the recent attacks on the gateway tunnel.
01:17In the halls of Congress here, you're a former federal prosecutor.
01:20I largely think that was something that we were talking about in 2024. We've just not seen that on the ground. We've seen rallies with thousands of people. The early vote, the vote by mails look very, very good.
01:33We've surpassed the firewall we wanted to put in place today, the blue firewall, which is the numbers are looking good. So we just are going to run through the tape and continue getting out every vote.
01:44Vaughn? Congressman, hi. There's a lot of folks here in this off-year election that are looking at Virginia and looking at your race. To folks beyond New Jersey that may not even be all that familiar with you and your candidacy, to the rest of the country, what should they be looking at from your candidacy?
02:00And if you win tonight, what it means for the Democratic Party as a whole going to the midterm?
02:05Well, I'm going to work relentlessly to drive down costs for people. So I think as we are navigating what is going on in the nation right now with, as I said, constant attacks on our economy from the federal government and a need to make sure our state governments are running incredibly well to serve people and create opportunity, that's what I think people should look to New Jersey to lead on as I govern.
02:25Right now, as far as what to see and how we connect with people, I think it is doing, again, the kind of campaign I've run, which means speaking to thousands and thousands of the people that you want to serve in office and understand what keeps them up at night.
02:39I've told people in my state, look, if it's keeping you up at night as your governor, it's going to keep me up at night.
02:44Congresswoman, you have to make a prediction. How's it going to turn out?
02:48I think I'm going to do quite well today. Oh, thanks.
02:52If you're victorious tonight, as governor, how soon would you give up your U.S. House seat and when would you call for a special congressional election?
03:00You know, we've been totally focused on this election. We'll be in touch with the leadership of the House to make sure that we're doing that as smoothly as possible for the people of New Jersey.
03:12So if you served in the military, how would you? Well, this is a state that sends $70 billion more to the federal government than we receive back in our tax returns.
03:22So certainly if the federal government is going to refuse to run things like health care programs, education programs, support the innovation economy or basic infrastructure like the Gateway Tunnel Project, then, you know, we are going to be working here in New Jersey to claw back as much federal funding as possible to continue to run this innovation economy.
03:40We have one of the really most powerhouse economies in the nation. And so to harm New Jersey is to harm the nation's economy. So we'll fight back tooth and nail to make sure people here have opportunity. And we really run a great economy here in New Jersey.
04:00You know, I was in the military when Cheney was vice president. I certainly found myself on the opposite side of a lot of decisions he made at that time. But I could not have respected him more when so many of the attacks started to come from the Republican Party.
04:28And our constitutional protections, the rights and freedoms. We have basic decency at that time when it really mattered the most, he stood up and I really respected that.
04:44We're headed to our diner and then grabbing a large cup of coffee after at our coffee shop with an extra shot to get through the rest of the day. So thank you guys. I appreciate it.
04:56Thank you. The Latino community is incredibly important. Our fastest growing community. We've done tons of work with them.
05:02They too, you know, our most entrepreneurial community. So working hard on affordability and making sure small businesses thrive is front and center.
05:10Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you guys.
Be the first to comment