Nearly 6 in 10 New Jersey voters approve of Gov. Mikie Sherrill‘s performance after two months, according to the first independent approval poll of her tenure — a more popular start than the state’s other recent governors.
Most voters in the blue-leaning Garden State also want the Democrat to work with President Donald Trump, at least sometimes, instead of continuing to confront him with lawsuits and other actions.
The survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University, released Tuesday morning, found 58% of the state’s registered voters give a thumbs-up to Sherrill so far, while 34% disapprove and 8% say they don’t know.
“Sherrill is getting what no politician on the national level gets these days: the benefit of the doubt,” said Dan Cassino, the poll’s executive director and a professor of government and politics at FDU. “Independents, and even some Republicans, have nothing bad to say about her yet, and that approval is political capital in her talks with the Legislature.”
The pollsters noted Sherrill’s marks are significantly larger than the ones her Democratic predecessor, Phil Murphy, received during his second term, when his approval hovered in the 40s. That isn’t a surprise since rookie governors often enjoy honeymoon periods with good grades.
But Sherrill’s rating is also better than the ones New Jersey’s last three governors received around the same time. Monmouth University found Murphy was at 44% a few months in, Republican Chris Christie was at 41%, and Democrat Jon Corzine 34%. (That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, though, because FDU did not break down how Sherrill’s numbers compared to their early polls on her forebears.)
Tuesday’s survey shows:
88% of Democrats, 88% of progressives, and 85% of liberal voters approve of Sherrill’s performance.
50% of independents approve.
22% of Republicans, 25% of conservatives, and 14% of MAGA voters approve.
“As the governor starts having to make tough choices, these numbers are going to go down,” Cassino said. “The question is what Sherrill does with her high support while she has it.”
The survey comes shortly after Sherrill introduced her first state budget proposal — a record $60.7 billion plan — and as she begins negotiations over a final plan with the Democratic-controlled state Legislature.
Sherrill’s 58% approval 10 weeks in is nearly identical to the 57% of the vote she got in November’s governor’s race. By comparison, Murphy won with 56% of the vote in 2017, but his popularity was at 44% about 12 weeks into his tenure.
Sherrill, a former congresswoman, won the election by 14 percentage points. Experts widely said the victory was rooted not just in her background and platform but backlash to the first year of Trump’s return to the White House.
Since taking office Jan. 20, Sherrill has routinely criticized the president, enacted policies opposing his immigration agenda, and taken his administration to court.
Tuesday’s poll asked whether voters think Sherrill “should try and work” with Trump when there’s a conflict or “use lawsuits and other means to defy him.”
The survey found 42% say she should work with him, 31% say she should defy him, and 26% said, unprompted, that it depends.
“Voters in New Jersey may not like Trump very much, but they’re pragmatic,” Cassino said. “The fact that they’re volunteering a conditional response about working with the president tells us that they want to see cooperation when it’s possible.”
The results were closely linked to political beliefs. Just 15% of Democrats say Sherrill should work with Trump, similar to the 10% of progressives and 20% of liberals who say the same. On the other end, 80% of Republicans, 74% of conservatives, and 93% of MAGA voters say she should work with him. Black voters (40%) and Hispanic voters (44%) are more likely than other groups to say it depends.
Meanwhile, the poll discovered the number of voters who identify as MAGA in New Jersey has dropped. In January 2024, 10 months before Trump’s re-election, 27% of the state’s voters identified as MAGA, including 45% of Republicans and 31% independents. In Tuesday’s poll, 16% identify as MAGA, including 37% of Republicans and 11% of independents.
“Being a MAGA voter isn’t like being a conservative or a libertarian,” Cassino said. “The MAGA coalition is real, but the fact that it’s so tied to an individual means that people move pretty freely in and out of it depending on how they’re feeling about Trump at the moment.”
The poll was conducted from March 20-28 with 805 registered New Jersey voters. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 3.4 percentage points.
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