Voter turnout has surged in New Jersey during the first few days of the early in-person voting period in this year’s closely watched gubernatorial election — and the early tallies likely show an advantage for Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill over her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli.

More than 160,000 voters went to the polls on the first two days of early in-person voting Saturday and Sunday, according to the state’s Division of Elections. In the 2021 gubernatorial election, the first where the state held early in-person voting, the total for the entire nine-day early-voting period was about 207,000 .

Registered Democrats are outpacing registered Republicans by about 5,000 votes in early in-person votes so far, according to election division data.

Democrats have also experience

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