# Mikie Sherrill **Mikie Sherrill** (b. 1972) has been the Democratic Governor of New Jersey since **January 20, 2026**. She took the oath at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, the first gubernatorial inauguration held outside Trenton. On November 4, 2025 she beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli **57% to 43%** for the seat of term-limited Phil Murphy. The margin was far wider than polls suggested, and the race was widely read, together with Virginia's, as an early verdict on the second [[Donald Trump]] administration. ## Background Sherrill flew helicopters for the [[U.S. Navy]] (1994–2003), then worked as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. She flipped the long-Republican 11th congressional district in 2018 and served four terms as a national-security moderate. ## Governor - **Utility emergency.** On her first day she declared a state of emergency over electricity costs, froze electric rate increases, and signed an order to expand clean energy. In April she signed legislation lifting New Jersey's moratorium on new nuclear power. - **ICE and state property.** Executive Order No. 12, signed in February 2026, bars federal agents from using state property as a "staging area, processing location, or operations base" for civil immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant. The Justice Department sued on February 23, 2026, arguing the order violates the Supremacy Clause. The state is defending it. - **Delaney Hall.** On **May 25, 2026**, Sherrill was formally denied entry to Delaney Hall, the privately run ICE detention center in Newark, during a detainee strike. She became the first sitting governor to try to visit it. "My request for access to Delaney Hall was formally denied this morning, raising serious questions about what they are trying to hide from public view," she said, and she pledged to push for the facility's closure. ## Why she matters here Sherrill is the vault's main case of a **blue-state governor using state property and access law against federal immigration enforcement**, and of the administration answering with Supremacy Clause litigation. Her first year is a working test of how much room a state has between non-cooperation, which is lawful, and obstruction, which the administration says she has crossed into. ## The MVC registration error (July 2026) On July 21, 2026, Sherrill announced that the Motor Vehicle Commission had registered about 6,600 noncitizens to vote between June 2023 and June 2024, after they had answered "no" to the citizenship question, and that fewer than 400 had voted. She blamed a vendor error, ordered them removed from the rolls, and said they were registered "through no fault of their own." The next day, ICE's lawyers concluded that those who voted were deportable anyway. See [[New Jersey MVC Noncitizen Registration Error]]. ## See also - [[Donald Trump]] · [[2026 Midterms Hub]] · [[US Governors Hub]] · [[State Officials Hub]]