A Democratic newcomer with national political connections has entered the special election for Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair)’s House seat – an election which may not happen at all if Sherrill doesn’t win this November’s race for governor.
Cammie Croft, who spent several years working in President Barack Obama’s administration before entering the nonprofit world, officially launched her campaign this morning to succeed Sherrill in the 11th congressional district, home to blue-leaning North Jersey suburbs and some of the most engaged voters in the state.
“Running for Congress was never part of my plan,” Croft says in her launch video. “But I realized that one day, my kids will ask me what I did. And when they ask, ‘What did you do?’, I need to be able to tell them that I did everything I possibly could.”
Croft is among the first candidates on either side of the aisle to enter the race for Sherrill’s seat; most other would-be contenders, including plenty of local politicians and one former member of Congress, are holding off until Sherrill is elected governor to kick off their campaigns. But while she may be getting into the race early, Croft said she firmly supports Sherrill and has no intention of running against the congresswoman if she loses the governorship and seeks re-election to the House.
Born into poverty in small-town Pennsylvania and raised by a mom who had four kids by the age of 20, Croft said her family relied on government assistance to make ends meet – the type of assistance that President Donald Trump’s administration, through the Big Beautiful Bill and other funding cuts, is directly targeting.
“My mom worked really really hard, but we needed food stamps and public housing and Medicaid to be able to get by,” Croft told the New Jersey Globe. “So when Trump cut these programs this summer, I know what that means. It’s personal.”
The first in her family to go to college, Croft got her start in politics in Washington State, managing the state legislative campaign of an underdog Democrat who’s now the majority leader of the Washington State Senate. In 2008, Croft joined Barack Obama’s campaign for president; when Obama won, she followed him to D.C., working as his deputy new media director and as a communications strategist at the Department of Energy.
After departing the White House, Croft worked for a number of nonprofit and advocacy organizations, eventually joining Rewiring America, a nonprofit focused on helping Americans afford home electrification. Croft witnessed a huge expansion of Rewiring America during the Biden administration, but at the beginning of this year, the group found its funds suddenly frozen by the new administration and was forced to downsize.
“The same month that we were acknowledged for being one of America’s most innovative nonprofits, the Trump administration froze our bank accounts, and our federal funding became in limbo,” Croft said. “We were doing everything right, using every tool at our disposal, and it still wasn’t enough. In this moment where families are feeling like they’re doing everything right just to get by, it just feels like it’s unfair and the system is rigged.”
If she’s elected to Congress, Croft said her first priority will be to lower costs, and that means opposing and reversing the policies put in place by the Trump administration.
“We need to stop Trump and stop the corruption where the ultra-rich are just making themselves richer on our backs,” she said. “At the congressional level, one of the first things we need to do is reverse Trump’s cuts to Medicaid. We also need to reinstate the investments in clean energy that are going to reduce energy demand while also increasing energy supply.”
In 2021, Croft moved with her family to New Jersey; now 43, she and her husband are raising their three children in Montclair, the famously progressive suburb that’s at the heart of the 11th district (and that’s also home to Sherrill). The district, which re-elected Sherrill by 15 percentage points last year against a little-known GOP foe, is chock-full of ambitious politicians, setting up an unpredictable – and, for now, hypothetical – Democratic primary.
Only one other Democrat, Anna Lee Williams, has officially launched a campaign to succeed Sherrill; Williams, who has garnered relatively little attention for her bid thus far, has said that unlike Croft, she’ll continue her campaign even if it means running against Sherrill.
But if Sherrill does win in November against Republican Jack Ciattarelli – the pair met for their first debate yesterday – the floodgates of interested candidates, especially on the Democratic side, will open rapidly.
Two candidates, Morris Township Committeeman Jeff Grayzel and Chatham Borough Councilman Justin Strickland, have filed campaign finance paperwork to run. Plenty of others – among them Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill (D-Montclair), Passaic County Commissioner John Bartlett (D-Wayne), Assemblywoman Rosy Bagolie (D-Livingston), South Orange Mayor Sheena Collum, and former Biden administration official Jack Miller – are certain to at least take a look at the race.
Perhaps the most prominent name of all is former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes). Malinowski lost re-election in a neighboring district in 2022 – and currently chairs a county party far outside the borders of the 11th district – but he would bring name recognition and fundraising abilities that may be tough to match.
The timing of a special election if Sherrill wins remains somewhat unclear. If Sherrill waits until she’s sworn in as governor to resign her House seat, then a special election would take months, but she could also depart the House earlier, pushing the special primary up to as early as late January or early February.
If that’s the case, then candidates interested in succeeding her will have to put together campaigns extremely quickly to avoid being left behind. By announcing now, Croft said she wants to give herself as much time to build out her campaign as possible, but she recognizes that New Jersey political attention will be focused elsewhere through November.
“Part of the impetus for making the announcement now, rather than waiting for November, is so that I have more runway to raise money and build name ID,” Croft said. “But I’m very cognizant of making sure that, while I’m doing that, I am doing everything I can to make sure that Mikie Sherrill and other Democrats win in November.”
