Mikie Sherrill is not prone to hyperbole. The Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey is measured and mainstream—even “milquetoast,” in the words of one progressive activist. But when I asked Sherrill what message a victory for her this November would send nationally, she made a rather bold declaration.

“As New Jersey goes, so goes the nation,” she told me. This is a stretch. But maybe not by all that much.

New Jersey is no one’s idea of a swing state; it hasn’t voted Republican for president in nearly four decades, and it last elected a GOP senator during the Nixon administration. But the Garden State has been moving rightward these past few years—Donald Trump came within six points of winning its electoral votes last year—and the governor’s office has historically toggled between the parties.

This fall’s election holds outsize importance for Democrats, who want both to keep a Trump ally out of a key state office and to give their base some hope heading into the 2026 midterm elections. A win, Sherrill said, would represent the party’s “shot across the bow” against Trump’s second term. The off-year governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia are closely scrutinized for signs of voter backlash to whichever party controls Washington. Usually Virginia, until recently a presidential battleground, provides the best clues about the national mood. This year, however, operatives in both parties believe that New Jersey might be the closer race and the more accurate barometer of how voters are reacting to Trump’s return tour in the White House.

In a shift from previous elections, national Democrats have spent far more money trying to hold the governorship of New Jersey than they have in the Virginia governor’s race. They’ve placed their hopes in Sherrill, a 53-year-old former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor, who in 2018 captured a House seat long held by Republicans. In June, she won a crowded party primary by defeating candidates to her left and to her right. Sherrill is now facing the former Republican state legislator Jack Ciattarelli, a self-proclaimed “Jersey guy” running a loose and energe