Early Voting Trends Show Democrats Ahead in New Jersey Gubernatorial Race

NEWARK, N.J. — With nearly 300,000 more Democrats participating in early voting compared to Republicans, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli seems to face a tough challenge as Election Day approaches.

While the data doesn’t specify which candidate the state’s 1.3 million early voters backed in the close competition between Ciattarelli and Democrat Mike Sherrill, it does indicate that Democratic turnout is robust. The 63-year-old Republican will likely need a strong push to secure a win on Tuesday.

“The early turnout is substantial enough to consider the election as divided: part pre-election, part on Election Day,” remarked Mika Rasmussen, director of the Lebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

“In the first phase, 300,000 more Democrats are expected to vote compared to Republicans. Can Republicans replicate that with a smaller number?”

Looking at the overall statistics, about 50.6% of the state’s 1,334,572 early voters were Democrats, while 28.9% were Republicans, and 20.5% belonged to other parties.

For context, early voting represented around 51% of the total votes cast in New Jersey during the 2021 gubernatorial election, where 2,614,886 votes were cast.

Republicans are generally thought to lag behind Democrats in early voting. Nonetheless, Ciattarelli’s campaign is actively encouraging early voting participation.

His campaign bus boldly displays the message: “Vote in person from October 25th to November 2nd.”

The current statistics are marginally more discouraging than those from the 2021 election cycle, when Ciattarelli faced off against Gov. Phil Murphy. During that period, registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans in early and mail-in voting by around 277,000 votes.

This time around, Ciattarelli significantly exceeded expectations on Election Day last election cycle, finishing within just 3 percentage points of then-incumbent Democrat Murphy.

There’s a slight silver lining for the New Jersey Republican Party; they now have a larger number of registered voters compared to 2021. As of August that year, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 1.1 million voters, a gap that has since diminished to around 853,000, based on recent data.

However, early in-person voting concluded on Sunday, and the numbers indicate Democrats have a somewhat greater advantage compared to four years ago.

According to VoteHub data, Democrats held a 4.4 percentage point lead over Republicans after eight days of in-person early voting, out of 615,000 votes cast. In the same timeframe in 2024, Democrats only led by 0.4%.

In terms of mail-in ballots, Democrats made up 61.9% of all returned ballots, while Republicans accounted for 20.8% and others for 17.4%, as per VoteHub analysis. Four years prior, 62.7% of returned ballots were from Democrats compared to 19% from Republicans.

Ciattarelli also has challenges at the county level. In Monmouth County, for instance, where Ciattarelli campaigned extensively, Democrats lead Republicans by over 800 votes in early voting.

During last year’s high-turnout presidential election, Republicans were leading with about 8,400 votes the day before Election Day.

Now, in the 2025 gubernatorial election, Ciattarelli seems to be at a disadvantage overall. Nonetheless, recent months have seen a rise in his approval ratings.

The Democratic Party has also sent high-profile figures, including former President Barack Obama, to rally support for Sherrill in the lead-up to the election. Sherrill currently has a 3.3 percentage point lead in latest matchups.