The effects of the national government shutdown are seeping across state lines, including into New Jersey, where frozen funds for the Hudson Tunnel project are becoming a flashpoint in the competitive 2025 gubernatorial election.
With a little over a month until the New Jersey governor’s race, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Republican Jack Ciattarelli are following in their parties’ footsteps, playing a blame game as to who is responsible for a shutdown that entered its second day on Thursday.
Sherrill, who has spent much of her campaign working to tie Ciattarelli to President Donald Trump’s agenda to boost her standings in the blue state’s polls, said the frozen funds are just another example of how the Republican would not stand up to the president.
The congresswoman said in a statement that she would “fight tooth and nail” to complete the essential infrastructure project.
“Jack Ciattarelli will not,” Sherrill said. “He’s refused to name a single area where he disagrees with Trump and has already said he would never sue the Trump administration. He will choose Trump over New Jersey every time.”
On the other side, Ciattarelli has focused on Sherrill’s “no” vote against the House GOP’s spending deal proposal that has since failed in the Senate. He echoed similar national Republican talking points, which argue Democrats are to blame for holding the government “hostage” in order to get healthcare concessions.
“If Mikie Sherrill did her job as a congresswoman, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Ciattarelli campaign strategist Chris Russell said in a statement. “Sherrill hasn’t bothered to show up for work in the House more than 90% of the time this year — and now she’s opposing a bipartisan plan to continue funding the government to play politics instead. Make no mistake, Mikie Sherrill owns this shutdown and is responsible for any negative impacts on the Gateway tunnel project and other NJ priorities.”
The freezing of the $16 billion “Gateway” project, which aims to bring New Jersey’s traffic into New York City by building a tunnel under the Hudson River to connect the two states, is one of several Democratic priorities facing cuts after Congress failed to pass a spending deal before the midnight deadline on Oct. 1. Now, the U.S. is facing its first shutdown in seven years, the last occurring under the first Trump administration and lasting for 35 days.
The frozen funds also come as a surprise upheaval for Sherrill and Ciattarelli’s race, which culminates on Nov. 5. This is one of two gubernatorial elections in 2025 that will serve as a temperature check on Trump’s agenda and the GOP trifecta in Washington.
Whether Sherrill or Ciattarelli will receive the most backlash from the shutdown remains to be seen, but it will indicate a larger issue for either national party. RealClearPolitics’s polling average shows that Sherrill holds an 8.5-point lead over Ciattarelli, 47.3% to 40.8%.
Several Democratic projects are on the chopping block for federal cuts, Russell Vought, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, announced Wednesday. The Gateway project, as well as New York City’s $2 billion expansion project for the 2nd Avenue Subway, are delayed to “ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”
Vought also said nearly $8 billion in Green New Deal funding for energy projects, which covered 16 states, would be canceled.
New Jersey strategist and political consultant Henry de Koninck told the Washington Examiner in an interview that the frozen funds for the Hudson Tunnel project are a “gift” to the Sherrill campaign, particularly if she can successfully tie the state race to the White House in Washington.
He said much of the federal New Jersey delegation, Republicans and Democrats, have been fighting for a “long time” on the tunnel project.
“It’s something that’s on the minds of voters, and this move by the Trump administration to freeze funding throws that back into the forefront of the conversation in a context that is very advantageous to the Sherrill campaign,” de Koninck said.
“Trump is underwater in popularity in New Jersey, and despite doing better in the last presidential election, he still lost New Jersey by five points. So to the extent that congresswoman Sherrill’s campaign can make this election a referendum on Trump, that’s something that’s going to work to their advantage,” he added.
This isn’t the first time transit projects in New Jersey have been caught in the crosshairs of a political battle.
In 2013, top officials in former Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s administration closed access lanes on the George Washington Bridge in a push to create a traffic jam and hit back at a Democratic mayor who did not endorse his reelection bid. He did not face charges, but two of his officials were convicted in the scandal, which was later reversed by the Supreme Court in 2020.
In August, Trump threatened to open an investigation into Christie’s “Bridgegate” scandal after the former governor, a vocal critic of the president, accused Trump of politicizing the Justice Department in an appearance on ABC News.
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told reporters on Wednesday that he thinks the freezing of federal funds will “backfire” when New Jerseyans see how “partisan this is and how much it’s about retribution.” Kim joined most of his Democratic colleagues in voting against the GOP’s continuing resolution to fund the government until Nov. 21.
“It’s going to hurt New Jersey,” the New Jersey senator said. “And if Jack says there’s nothing he disagrees with Trump on, he owns the delays to Gateway.”
“I think [Trump] really locked in that loss for Republicans in the governor’s race,” Kim added.
JEFFRIES BACKS CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO ‘ILLEGAL’ RELEASE OF MIKIE SHERRILL’S RECORDS
But de Koninck noted that Ciattarelli’s campaign has been handy in flipping the blame of national issues to Democrats. He said the Republicans will likely stay focused on taxes and the “bread and butter” issues that have driven the campaign thus far.
“The Republicans have been known to pull rabbits out of their hats,” de Koninck said. “So if they can flip this around and somehow pin the blame on Democrats, I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.”