HI NEW JERSEY ! EARLY VOTING BEGINS SOON !
Hello NJ residents, this November is our governor election and I urge you to consider Mikie Sherrill. she is an American politician, attorney, former naval officer, and former federal prosecutor serving as the U.S. representative for New Jersey's 11th congressional district since 2019. The district includes a swath of suburban and exurban areas west of New York City. Inspired by her grandfather who served as a pilot in World War II, Sherrill wanted to be a pilot from a young age. She was among the flight school graduates in the first class of women eligible for direct assignment to fly combat aircraft. Sherrill graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994, but was barred from walking at commencement. Sherrill said that her absence from commencement was punishment for her failure to report students implicated in a major cheating scandal at the Naval Academy. Sherrill herself, had nothing to do with the scandal, she just didn’t snitch. She later completed over a year of flight training, was designated as a Naval Aviator after graduation from the advanced rotary-wing training pipeline at NAS Whiting Field, Florida, and became a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot flying the H-3 Sea King. Sherrill flew missions throughout Europe and in the Middle East. In 2000, she was based at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas.
Following her first operational sea duty assignment in a flying squadron, Sherrill was a Russian policy officer assigned to the then-Headquarters, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe.
Sherrill served on active duty in the United States Navy for nine years, the final five in the rank of lieutenant.
In mid-2007, while earning her Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center, Sherrill was a summer associate at Kirkland & Ellis. After graduation from Georgetown University Law Center, Sherrill returned to Kirkland & Ellis's New York City office, where she worked in the litigation department from 2008 to 2011.
After leaving Kirkland & Ellis, Sherrill joined the United States Attorney's Office as an outreach and reentry coordinator. In 2015, Sherrill became a federal prosecutor, as an assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, working under U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. She left that office in 2016. At the time, she planned on going into the field of criminal justice reform.
On May 11, 2017, Sherrill launched her campaign for New Jersey's 11th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. The seat had been held by 12-term Republican incumbent Rodney Frelinghuysen, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who in January 2018 announced he would not seek reelection. The district had long been considered a Republican stronghold, even after it had been made slightly more Democratic on paper by pushing it further into Essex County, including a slice of Montclair around Sherrill's home. Frelinghuysen had been reelected three more times from this redrawn district without serious difficulty, but was thought to be vulnerable after Donald Trump carried it by just a single point in 2016.
Fast forward to 2024, Sherrill easily won the Democratic primary over real estate consultant Mark De Lotto with 93.6% of the vote. In the November general election, Sherrill was re-elected with 56.5% of the vote over Belleville building inspector Joseph Belnome. Sherrill outperformed the Democratic Party's concurrent candidates for President and Senate, as Kamala Harris only won 53% of the district's vote, while Andy Kim won 54%. The New Jersey Globe partially attributed Belnome's political unpopularity to his attendance at the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
Sherrill is married to Jason Hedberg, a classmate and graduate of the United States Naval Academy, who served as a U.S. Navy intelligence officer. The couple has lived in Montclair with their four children since 2010.
Sherrill is Roman Catholic but this does not negate the fact that she is pro choice for all. #mikiesherill #newjersey #governerelection #nj #navy
