Mikie Sherrill

Mikie Sherrill doesn’t like being told that she can’t do something. So when as a 10-year-old she announced to her parents that she wanted to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and become a military pilot, her dad suggested the U.S. Naval Academy, which had just begun accepting women. In 2017, when she decided to run for Congress, her mother noted that her Republican opponent had been in office for more than 20 years and asked if she thought she could beat him. She told her mother, “Well, I’m going to try.”

What is Sherrill’s track record?

• Sherrill graduated from the Naval Academy as part of the first class of women allowed in combat and became a helicopter pilot.
• In 2018 she turned her deep red New Jersey congressional district blue and has been reelected three times.
• In 2026 she became the first Democratic woman to serve as governor of that state.

Early years

For as long as she can remember, Rebecca Michelle Sherrill has been called “Mikie” (pronounced MIKE-ee). She told a PBS interviewer that she got the nickname “when I was around two.” “I’ve been Mikie all my life,” she said with a laugh. Sherrill is the oldest of Dave and Pattie Sherrill’s three daughters. Born in Alexandria, Virginia, she grew up on the East Coast as the family moved for her father’s work.

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How Women with Military Backgrounds Are Changing the Face of Politics: Mikie Sherrill

Life in the military and after

In 1990 she entered the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and four years later, just as her 10-year-old self had envisioned, she became a Navy helicopter pilot, flying an H3 Sea King—the same type of helicopter used for Marine One. In order to be certified as a Navy helicopter pilot, Mikie Sherrill had to pass a test that simulated an underwater crash, during which she was upside down and blindfolded and needed to free herself from the chopper.

Read: How women with military backgrounds are changing the face of politics.

During her time in the military, Sherrill did not fly combat missions, instead running support missions out of Bahrain, for the fleet in the Persian Gulf, as well as in Naples, Italy. She also flew training and search-and-rescue missions off aircraft carriers. She served as an adviser on Russia policy and worked on the implementation of nuclear treaties between the United States and Russia. She rose to the rank of lieutenant and had been recommended for promotion to lieutenant commander when she retired from the military in 2003.

After leaving the Navy, Sherrill earned a master’s degree in global history from the London School of Economics and Political Science and went on to study law at Georgetown University. After graduating, she worked in private practice at a New York City law firm before joining the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey in 2012, ultimately becoming an assistant U.S. attorney there. She left the U.S. attorney’s office with the idea of finding a role in criminal justice reform. Then the 2016 presidential election happened.

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Entering politics

As Sherrill tells it, in the wake of Donald Trump’s first victory, she felt moved to change Washington, but it was a friend who told her she should run for Congress. New Jersey’s 11th congressional district had been held by a Republican since 1985 and by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen since 1995. Still, the more Sherrill thought about facing the incumbent—her mother’s doubts notwithstanding—the more she saw an opening. Despite Frelinghuysen’s long tenure, he had come under criticism for not meeting with constituents and voting in lockstep with Trump. So, in May 2017, Sherrill entered the race, saying, “Job one of a congressperson was to represent their constituents. We’re in a representative democracy.”

Then in January 2018 Frelinghuysen shook up New Jersey politics by announcing that he would not run for reelection. Sherrill easily won the Democratic nomination and won a resounding victory in the November election over Republican Jay Webber, garnering more than 56 percent of the vote. She became one of more than 100 women elected to Congress in 2018.

Role in the “Mod Squad” and impeachment

Once in Congress Sherrill quickly aligned herself with a group of other female moderate Democrats who had backgrounds in the military or national security that became known in Congress as the “Mod Squad,” for their moderate positions. Among those were Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, both of whom had served in the CIA. (Sherrill and Spanberger wound up sharing an apartment on Capitol Hill. The three women remain in nearly daily contact.) Sherrill also made clear that she wanted to find ways to be bipartisan when possible. During her campaign, she said:

When I was a helicopter aircraft commander and people were entering the helicopter I never said, “OK, I’m only taking Democrats on this mission, or I’m only taking Republicans on this mission.” I couldn’t have told you the political preference of most of the people in my squadron. But I knew they were all Americans and we were going to get our mission accomplished.

Sherrill also proved to be a bit of a thorn in the side of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Sherrill, like Spanberger and Slotkin, refused to vote for Pelosi for speaker in 2019. And although Sherrill, as a freshman representative, tried to focus on local issues, her foreign affairs background drew her into conversations surrounding the Ukraine scandal. Trump was alleged to have threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky investigated Joe Biden and his son Hunter for corruption. Joe Biden became Trump’s eventual rival in the 2020 election.

Sherrill initially shied away from calling for impeaching Trump, saying that more information was needed. But in September, she joined six other freshman Democrats, including Slotkin and Spanberger, to write an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for impeachment proceedings. Days later, Pelosi opened a formal inquiry. The House went on to impeach Trump on those charges; he was acquitted in the Senate.

Sherrill easily won reelection in 2020 and 2022. In 2023, with the indictment of Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, Sherrill was courted to consider a Senate run. But she had her sights set on a different role in New Jersey, and her fellow New Jersey member of Congress Andy Kim won the Senate seat.

Running for governor

In November 2024, shortly after being elected to a fourth term in the House, Sherrill announced she was running for governor. Her reasoning stemmed from a combination of frustration with Washington gridlock and an understanding derived from the COVID-19 pandemic of the impact that effective governors can have:

Seeing what governors across the country have been doing, and how Washington has become so partisan and toxic…I just feel that often the future of how we really deliver for people, or the effectiveness of how we can deliver for people, resides in these governors across the country.

In June she won the Democratic primary over a large field of candidates and in November she defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who was supported by Trump. New Jersey’s current governor, Democrat Phil Murphy, was barred from seeking reelection because of term limits. Sherrill’s victory marks the first time since 1961 that either party has held the New Jersey’s governor’s mansion for three consecutive terms.

In delivering her inaugural address, Sherrill was pointed in how her political career continues to be shaped by Donald Trump. “This election proved that the people of New Jersey recognize the parallels. That we see a president illegally usurping power, unconstitutionally enacting a tariff regime to make billions for himself and his family, while everyone else sees their costs go higher. Here, we demand people in public service actually serve the public …”

Looking on as Sherrill took the oath of office was her old friend and the new governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger.

In July 2026, Sherrill announced that because of a computer glitch, some 6,600 noncitizens had been placed on New Jersey voter rolls. About 400 of them voted in the 2023 election. The disclosure came as Trump was making unsubstantiated claims about election security in advance of the 2026 midterm elections.