New Jersey voters are less than a month away from selecting a new governor on Nov. 4.

The contest between Republican Jack Ciattarelli (chih-tah-REL-ee) and Democrat Mikie (MY-kee) Sherrill has captured intense national interest. The race for governor, alongside a similar contest in Virginia, is being viewed as an early litmus test for how voters feel about President Donald Trump and Republican leadership.

Both Sherrill and Ciattarelli emerged from competitive primaries and have run general election campaigns with efforts to unify their parties.

Here is a closer look at each of the candidates.

Giacchino “Jack” Ciattarelli, 63, has made being a lifelong New Jersey resident part of his campaign pitch and put his hometown of suburban Raritan at the center of some key campaign events. He conceded the close 2021 loss to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy there and said he'd run again.

Four years after his defeat, he's the GOP nominee again.

Rebecca Michelle “Mikie” Sherrill, 53, is a Montclair resident who first ran for political office in 2018, when she won in the longtime GOP-held 11th District in northern New Jersey's wealthy suburbs.

Long considered a reliably blue state in national elections, New Jersey has swung between Republicans and Democrats during its odd-year gubernatorial elections. Trump lost here by just 6 percentage points last fall, a credit to his appeal among the state's large working-class population.

With Election Day less than a month away, the candidates are still working to introduce themselves to voters who may just be starting to pay attention to the off-year election.

As she has for much of the campaign, Sherrill focused on her background as a Naval Academy graduate and Navy helicopter pilot. She was a federal prosecutor before being elected to Congress in 2018 in a longtime Republican-held district in northern New Jersey.

Ciattarelli, who is in his third bid for governor, played up his family’s roots in New Jersey, which he says go back a century. A certified public accountant, he owned a medical publishing company that he sold in 2017. He was a local and state elected leader before running for governor in 2017 and 2021.

AP video shot by Ted Shaffrey