Today, Mikie Sherrill will take office as the 57th Governor of New Jersey, and Dale Caldwell will be sworn in as the state’s fourth Lieutenant Governor.
Sherrill will become the state’s second woman governor – and the first Democratic woman – and Caldwell will become the first man to serve as lieutenant governor. Her inauguration will mark the first time a political party has held the New Jersey governorship since 1962, when Democrat Richard J. Hughes replaced two-term Gov. Robert Meyner. Sherill’s husband, Jason Hedberg, becomes the state’s first gentleman, the first since John Whitman departed in February 2001.
Phil Murphy, the first two-term governor in 44 years, becomes one of seven living former governors, along with Thomas Kean (1982-90), Christine Todd Whitman (1994-2001), Donald DiFrancesco (2002-02), James E. McGreevey (2002-04), Jon Corzine (2006-10), and Chris Christie (2010-18).
She takes office with Democratic majorities in both houses of the New Jersey Legislature: 25-15 in the Senate, and 57-23 in the Assembly.
A former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, Annapolis graduate, and Assistant U.S. Attorney, Sherrill first became involved in politics as a volunteer on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign; she volunteered in the policy shop on Murphy’s 2017 gubernatorial campaign and today succeeds Murphy.
Sherrill, a Montclair resident who turned 54 on Monday, became a first-time candidate for office in 2017 when she joined the race to take on House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen in New Jersey’s 11th district, a place Democrats had not won in 34 years. She raised roughly $1.2 million by the end of the year and frightened Frelinghuysen out of the race; in January, the scion of one of the state’s dominant political families for hundreds of years announced that he would not seek re-election to a thirteenth term.
She flipped the Republican House seat by fifteen percentage points. She was easily re-elected three times. As a gubernatorial candidate, Sherrill became the early frontrunner; indeed, there was never a time when a pollster had her outside first place – even the inaccurate polls never had another candidate ahead. She won the Democratic primary by over 110,000 votes, 34%-21% over Ras Baraka in a six-candidate field, and beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli, by fourteen points in the general election.
Caldwell, 65, was serving as president of Centenary University when Sherrill selected him as her running mate in July. He had previously served 26 years on the New Brunswick Board of Education, as president of the United States Tennis Association, as executive director of the Newark Alliance, and as deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. Caldwell is the pastor of the Covenant United Methodist Church in Plainfield, and members of his family have been clergymen since before the Civil War.
He will serve as New Jersey Secretary of State, succeeding Tahesha Way in both posts.
