Politics
Sherrill dismisses the Democratic bedwetters
In the lead-up to Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in New Jersey, some Democrats wondered if Mikie Sherrill could pull off the improbable: winning three consecutive terms for the party for the first time since 1961.
But Sherrill was confident she would emerge victorious.
Sherrill said Wednesday in an interview with Blue Light News’s Dasha Burns on “The Conversation” podcast that she “never really felt too nervous about my ability to win this one.”
As early voting got underway, it became clear that it was “just a matter of how much we’d win by,” Sherrill said.
“The narrative was weird in the primary, and it was weird in the general, and I think some of that was because of how people felt from ’24, that there was still this kind of hangover from ’24 and how that race went,” she told Blue Light News.
Still, the enthusiasm on the ground — especially at last month’s nationwide “No Kings” rallies — convinced Sherrill that voters would deliver for her.
Sherrill speculated that some observers underestimated her campaign because it didn’t follow the model of “the traditional Democratic campaign” in New Jersey, where the legacy of machine politics looms large.
“Because we built this a different way, I think it wasn’t as clear to people how we were doing it and how we were getting our votes out,” she said. “And I think that probably made some people nervous, but I would say that we invested a lot of time, energy and resources in a statewide field program, the likes of which have never been seen.”
Sherrill also said that her military background conveyed her “decisive” leadership style to voters, who she said trust her to deliver on promises like bringing down energy costs.
While she said she hasn’t yet spoken to President Donald Trump, the governor-elect told Blue Light News that she’s intent on “clawing back as many resources into the state of New Jersey as possible.”
“I’m really hoping we can convince the administration, ‘hey, if you want to have a comeback in this economy, this is where you start and this is how you do it,’” she said.
Despite striking a message comfortably to the right of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Sherrill said she and her Democratic peers who saw electoral success across the board Tuesday have one thing in common: “This desire to make change that things aren’t working for people.”
Listen to Blue Light News’s full conversation with Sherill on Friday’s episode of “The Conversation.”
A version of this article first appeared in Blue Light News Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to Blue Light News Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
The scorer of the opening American goal against Bosnia, Folarin Balogun, is eligible to play for the United States only because airline employees in New York kept his pregnant mother from returning to London until her son was born.
As our Riya Misra wrote recently, it makes Balogun not only the leader of a reinvigorated U.S. attack but a poster child for a cause validated yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court: that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone born within its orders.
Read Riya’s story about Balogun and the debate over birthright citizenship here.
Spotted at World Cup matches so far: King Felipe VI from Spain, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima from the Netherlands, and Norway’s Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. The European royals have been out in force supporting their national teams.
Hardly spotted yet: Europe’s elected leaders.
European heads of government only tend to make appearances at matches in person during later stages of the tournament. For example, Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, attended the 2018 final in Moscow and traveled to Qatar in 2022 for the semifinals and finals.
This is perhaps because a monarch attending the national team’s match is viewed as apolitical, whereas a prime minister making the same trip can invite criticism over priorities and use of public funds.
Indeed, this year, Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney had to reject opposition claims that his trip to Massachusetts to watch his country play Haiti was a taxpayer-funded “World Cup jolly.” Portuguese President António José Seguro also attended the Colombia vs. Portugal game in Miami last Saturday evening.
As the tournament heads toward the quarterfinals and beyond, expect more European politicians, whose countries remain in contention, to start appearing in the stands. So no Friedrich Merz or Rob Jetten…
No matter the result on Wednesday night, the roughly 60,000 Bosnian Americans who call St. Louis home — reportedly the largest population of Bosnians outside Bosnia and Herzegovina — will have something to celebrate. Many, however, are unapologetically cheering for their homeland when it takes on the country they now call home.
“They are like dressing up in the jerseys, singing the anthem,” said Ibro Tucakovic, a Bosnian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1998 and became the first Bosnian immigrant to seek elected office in Missouri. “Looking at my daughter, when we won against Qatar, she was crying. And so basically they, they can see the happiness in their parents’ eyes, because it means so much to us. So the kids are basically just going nuts over it.”
Mirhad Hasanovic, a Bosnian immigrant who came to the U.S. in July 2001 and is now a legislative staffer running to represent parts of St. Louis’s South County in the Missouri statehouse, said it was “unfortunate” that his two favorite countries are playing against one another so early on in the tournament.
“For Bosnians, this is huge,” he said. “We’re a very small country, so just to be able to be at the World Cup and compete is an achievement in itself. “Kids grow up at the age of three or four, they start playing, they start watching, they start going to all the leagues, so the excitement level is out the roof.”
For refugees whose memories of Bosnia revolve around war and genocide, its first-ever appearance in the knockout rounds has become a way to reconnect with the country they fled.
“It’s not very often that you get, like, really great news from Bosnia,” said Adna Karamehic-Oates, director of the Center for Bosnian Studies at Saint Louis University. “People want good stories that come out of Bosnia, and that’s why they’re so happy.”
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