NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Mikie Sherrill, the four-term congresswoman and former Navy helicopter pilot who cast her November election in New Jersey as a victory over President Donald Trump's vision for the country, is set to be inaugurated as the state's 57th governor on Tuesday.
Sherrill, 54, will be just the second woman to lead the state of nearly 9.5 million people and is the first person from a major political party to be elected to a third straight
term in more than six decades, succeeding two-term Democrat Phil Murphy.
She swept to victory over her Trump-endorsed GOP rival in part by pinning blame for high costs on the president's tariffs and promising that her first action once in office would be to order a freeze on skyrocketing utility rates.
She will be sworn in Newark, the state's largest city whose voters made up a key component of her winning coalition. It is a departure from previous inaugurations, which have included military artillery salutes along the Delaware River outside the statehouse in Trenton.
She is being sworn in as her former congressional colleague Abigail Spanberger comes into office in as Virginia's governor after a similar double-digit victory over her Republican opponent and as the midterm elections start to come into sharper focus. Democrats are hopeful the president will be a drag on GOP candidates in key races across the country.
Sherrill takes over from Murphy, a former Obama administration ambassador and Wall Street finance executive, who delivered on a number of progressive promises over eight years, including raising taxes on income over $1 million, boosting the minimum wage, expanding early childhood education and fully funding the state workers' pension, which was underfunded for years before he took over.
Murphy said Friday in his final news conference that he has been in regular touch with Sherrill about the transition. He summed up his two terms as governor as having lived up to promises he made on the campaign trail.
“We were who we said would be,” Murphy said. “We didn’t campaign on my thesis and pull a fast one.”
He is also passing along a state budget that has swelled over the years, raising the prospect of potential shortfalls if state revenues dip as well as an unfunded promise to continue a property tax relief program begun in the governor’s second term.
Sherrill will have a Democrat-led Legislature to work with, one of more than a dozen where the party controls the legislature and governorship.
The first woman to be governor of New Jersey is Christine Todd Whitman, a two-term Republican who went on to serve as George W. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
New Jersey's governorship has often switched back and forth between the parties. The last time the same party prevailed in a third straight gubernatorial election was in 1961.
