Here's What Happens To Mikie Sherrill's House Seat When She Becomes Governor

By Nikita Biryukov, New Jersey Monitor

November 13, 2025

Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill’s victory will trigger another election, this time to fill her seat in the House until a replacement can be elected to a full term next year.

Though New Jersey law and the U.S. Constitution allow New Jersey governors to make appointments to vacant Senate seats, the Constitution requires empty House seats to be filled by an election, if they are filled at all.

The New Jersey statutes that govern how House vacancies are filled are varied, and timing decides which is used.

It’s not clear when Sherrill will resign from her seat in the House (she was reelected to it in November 2024 and it expires on Jan. 3, 2027). The congresswoman did not say when she would step down when asked during a press conference Wednesday. She becomes governor on Jan. 20.

“We’ll be working with the leadership in the House as well as our Legislature here to, as smoothly as possible, run the special election to get a new person in that seat,” she said.

The governor could issue a writ of election declaring that voters will choose who fills out the rest of Sherrill’s current term during next year’s November general election, with nominees chosen in June primaries. That timeline would leave the 11th Congressional District’s seat vacant for about a year.

The district includes towns in Essex, Morris, and Passaic counties. Sherrill was first elected to represent it in 2018.

The governor could also call for special elections — with both a primary and a general election — to fill the seat, as Gov. Phil Murphy did following Rep. Donald Payne Jr.’s death last year. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10) won a July 2024 primary and a September 2025 election to finish out Payne’s term.

State law sets no timeline for the governor to issue a writ of election, though it cannot be issued until the vacancy comes into being. The law sets timelines for special elections called as a result of a House vacancy, though the flexibility granted to governors on the timing of writs of election extends to those races.

Special House primaries must be held between 70 and 76 days after the issuance of the writ, with special general elections following 64 to 70 days later.

Pending legislation could upend those timelines. A bill introduced by Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex) would require House vacancies to be filled by a special election, including primaries, held 74 to 80 days after a vacancy occurs in most cases, eliminating the need for a governor to issue a writ of election.

Murphy indicated Wednesday that he backs changes to the process, noting that Payne and Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. died in office last year and left Democratic officials scrambling to replace them. New Jersey’s system of filling House vacancies is one of the most difficult in the nation, he said.

“We’ve got a really cumbersome process right now and that needs to be addressed,” he said.

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