How would Ciattarelli, Sherrill handle NJ's economic hurdles?

Whoever becomes New Jersey’s governor next year will oversee a state business climate fraught with high taxes, rising unemployment , lagging gross domestic product and the fallout from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have triggered a sluggish job market and the prospect of a recession — not to mention the fears of an artificial intelligence bubble burst.

Some of those issues — like Trump’s tariffs and the rise of AI displacing portions of the labor market — “certainly pose challenges that would be hard to combat via state policy alone,” said Will Irving, a professor at the New Jersey State Policy Lab at Rutgers University.

And the state “relies heavily on immigrant workers and immigrant businesses and immigrant entrepreneurs,” meaning Trump’s deportation focus could pose a ris