WASHINGTON (TNND) — Former President Barack Obama is returning to the campaign circuit in an effort to help bolster support for New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ).
Obama will be joining Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin in Red Bank for a fundraiser hosted by Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) on Friday, Axios first reported. The sold out event will consist of a “dinner and discussion.”
Friday’s event will mark Obama’s first campaign appearance since Democrats lost the White House and both chambers of Congress in the 2024 election. The former president raised $85 million for Democratic candidates during the 2024 election cycle.
Both gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey at the end of this year are being considered by political pundits as the best indicator of constituent sentiment ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Come November, Sherrill will be facing off against Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli. In the 2021 election, Ciattarelli lost to Murphy by three points. It’s the closest a Republican has come to serving as New Jersey’s governor since former Governor Chris Christie’s victory in 2013.
Democrats competitive edge over Republicans appears to be shrinking in New Jersey, as former Vice President Kamala Harris won the state by six points. Democrats haven’t seen such low turnout since the 1996 election.
But Obama, who won the state in 2008 and 2012 with over 15 points, yields a 58% approval rating, making him the most popular living U.S. president, according to a February Gallup poll.
The race between Ciattarelli and Sherrill is setting up to costly, as the Democratic Governors Association has committed to spend $20 million on television ads, already rivaling the $30 million spent in ads during the 2021 general election.
Polling conducted by Rutgers shows Sherrill with a 20 point lead over Ciattarelli, but Ashley Koning, an assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said a lot can happen between now and November.
“Early polling on the governor’s race should serve as a baseline or a barometer of how voters are feeling in the moment – not as some crystal ball predicting the future four months from now,” Koning said. “A lot can happen between now and November, and we know this gap will very likely narrow in the next several months. We only need to look back to 2021 to see how much a race can change throughout a cycle. Add to this an intense national political landscape that will, once again, surely play a role in the governor’s race here at home. Come November, what will matter is who actually turns out to vote.”
