Mikie Sherrill skips majority of House votes amid tough NJ gubernatorial race

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., has the greatest number of missed votes of any lawmaker in the House of Representatives by a wide margin as she wages a tightening bid to become New Jersey’s next governor.

Sherrill has no entry in 145 of the House’s votes since the 119th Congress began on Jan. 3, accounting for 53% of the measures put to the chamber. 

The second-closest member, Donald Norcross, D-N.J., has missed 83 votes.

The record of absences stands out — even when stacked up against other candidates who have pursued statewide office in recent years.

When asked about that record, Sean Higgins, communications director for Sherrill’s campaign, said the congresswoman is working to represent the state wherever possible.

“Mikie Sherrill is out there every day fighting for New Jersey on critical issues, like the Gateway Tunnel Project, which Trump ‘terminated’ and said ‘is going to be dead,'” Higgins said, referring to the Trump administration’s recent freeze of billions of dollars allocated to infrastructure projects in urban centers across the country.

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Although Sherrill’s high number of missed votes isn’t unprecedented, it stands out as one of the only examples in recent years when a sitting member of the House has visibly dropped participation in the chamber amid the heightened scrutiny of a competitive bid for statewide office. 

To Matthew Green, director of graduate studies at the Catholic University of America, it speaks to a surprisingly tight race — in a state that has solidly voted blue in years past. 

“It certainly suggests that it’s a close enough race that Sherrill has to spend as much time as she can in New Jersey and that can lead to missing votes in Washington. It’s not uncommon to miss votes. But if you do that too much, your opponent can say, ‘Oh, you’re not doing the job you have now, why should the voters trust you with a new job?'” Green said. “But you only campaign once. I could see candidates saying, ‘I can miss a lot of votes, and that’s not going to hurt me when I’m running for office.'” 

According to polling by FOX News last week, Sherrill leads Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli narrowly by four points, 48%–44%, among registered voters. Her lead has shrunk over the past few months, having boasted a seven-point lead over her opponent just one month before in September.

Chris Russell, a strategist for the Ciattarelli campaign, noted that Sherrill’s absences have become more acute as the November election draws near. He pointed out that Sherrill missed 87% of votes in the last three months, having only participated in eight of the 63 votes in that window.

“She ran for re-election to Congress in 2024 knowing full well she had no intention of doing her job. And when she did show up, the two most consequential votes she cast were to raise taxes on working people and shut down the government,” Russell said. “That Sherrill missed nearly 90% of the votes she was supposed to cast over the last three months is shameful.”

Sherrill joined her Democrat colleagues in voting against a short-term spending package last month and Donald Trump’s signature tax and border security package in July. 

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In the years since proxy voting was eliminated in 2023 that had been in place to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic, only one member of the House running for a statewide election has missed a comparable number of votes to Sherrill.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who ran for the Senate in 2024, participated in only 52% of the chamber’s votes. But unlike the New Jersey lawmaker, Schiff enjoyed a dominant lead over his opponent; he won his election by a commanding 17.8% margin.

On the other side of the coin, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., who also ran for Senate that year, won her election by just 0.3% but managed to participate in 99% of the chamber’s deliberations. Aside from Schiff, the six other members pursuing a Senate bid that year had a voting participation record of 80% or higher. 

Notably, the only other member pursuing a governorship in 2025, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, R-Va., decided not to pursue reelection last year as she launched a bid to become the next governor of Virginia.

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Green, the professor from Catholic University, said there’s no hard and fast rule in American politics when it comes to expectations about resigning office for a campaign. He pointed to candidates who made news for unexpectedly resigning seats to pursue a different post.

“We don’t have a norm in this country about people resigning an office to run for another office. In the 1996 presidential election, Robert Dole, who was running against [Bill] Clinton, said, ‘I’m going to leave the Senate while I’m running for president,’ and that got national attention. I wouldn’t have expected Sherrill to do the same thing. But of course that’s a risk.”  

Despite a gap that’s closed in recent months, Russell, the Ciattarelli strategist, emphasized that Sherrill still leads the race with just three weeks to go until Election Day on Nov. 4. 

“Jack Ciattarelli doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to his boss in the White House. No wonder Jack continues to trail, even in Fox News’ polling, where he can’t break through the mid-40s, and voters are rejecting him on healthcare, costs, taxes and utilities. Sad!”

The early voting period for the governor’s race begins on Oct. 25 and runs through Nov. 2.