Lt. Governor Tahesha Way is expected to join the race for Mikie Sherrill’s congressional seat in New Jersey’s 11th district, adding a major contender to an already crowded Democratic field in a primary expected to be held in late January or early February.
Sherrill announced yesterday that she will resign her House seat next week, and Gov. Phil Murphy plans to issue a writ of special election almost immediately.
Way, a staunch Murphy ally, has served as Secretary of State for the last eight years. Murphy named her lieutenant governor following the death of Sheila Oliver in 2023.
Her unexpected entrance into the race for Congress puts her in the top tier of a field of Democrats that includes Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill and former Rep. Tom Malinowski.
It also puts her on a possible collision course with Passaic County Commissioner John Bartlett, a fellow Passaic Democrat who has been planning a House bid since it became apparent that Sherrill harbored statewide ambitions. Bartlett, who dropped plans to challenge Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Harding) in 2018 to help clear the field for Sherrill, announced his campaign last week and already has $517,000 cash-on-hand. The Passaic portion of the district – Way and Bartlett both live in Wayne – represents about 9% of the registered Democrats.
Way also becomes the third woman in the race to succeed Sherrill in a state that has only elected nine women to the U.S. House of Representatives. So far, each time a congresswoman left office, which has happened five times (Sherrill will make six), they were replaced by a man.
Cammie Croft, a former Obama administration official and non-profit executive from Montclair, is already in the race, as is activist Anna Lee Williams. Among the other candidates are Morris Township Committeeman/former Mayor Jeff Grayzel, Maplewood Township Committeeman/former Mayor Dean Dafis, ex-House staffer Marc Chaaban, and Chatham Borough Councilman Justin Strickland, a U.S. Army veteran and ex-Pentagon official.
Way, 55, was elected Passaic County Freeholder in 2006 but narrowly lost re-election three years later in an upset Republican year. She had served as an attorney for the Passaic County Board of Social Services and as an Administrative Law Judge before joining Murphy’s cabinet in January 2018.
Way is a former president of the National Association of Secretaries of State. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she was unexpectedly assigned to run primary and general elections conducted almost entirely through vote-by-mail in a presidential election year. More than 4.6 million vote-by-mail ballots were cast in November 2020. Way had run elections in a bipartisan manner and played a significant role in establishing a process where voters could cast mail-in ballots, and later, early in-person votes, fairly and safely.
She is married to Charles Way, a former New York Giants player and NFL executive. A mother of four, Way graduated from Brown University and the University of Virginia School of Law, and worked as a television producer for CourtTV and as a literature professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
As lieutenant governor, Way has spent weeks as acting governor while Murphy is out of New Jersey.
Way leaves office on January 20, when Lt. Governor-elect Dale Caldwell will succeed her. She does not have to vacate the lieutenant governor or secretary of state posts to run for Congress.
