Naturally, the unfolding gubernatorial election significantly influenced the shaping of this year’s InsiderNJ Policymakers List. We frequently hear about people’s popularity in an election year, and their emotional responses to candidates. This year is no different. But there are also critical issues at stake.

Where the candidates come down on policy will go a long way in determining who wins and who loses the 2025 gubernatorial election. An MBA-CPA, Republican Jack Ciattarelli will make the case to voters that New Jersey should sharply depart from the progressive era of Governor Phil Murphy. A former prosecutor, Democrat Mikie Sherrill will make a constitutional argument for the preservation of due process, free speech, and the freedom to peaceably assemble. Ciattarelli will highlight law and order. So will Sherrill. Their differences of opinion will hinge on the delicate details of public policy, and finally, different emphases to attain justice for all.

President Donald Trump’s mass deportations of undocumented workers place a constitutional issue squarely at the center of the debate, as we, the voters, consider the wisest use of law enforcement and the military, and the truest expression of our rights as citizens, and the proper maintenance of power to guarantee the human rights even of non-citizens.

Also, of course, the candidates will revisit how we fund our schools in New Jersey, the library content of those schools, the size and scope of government services, transportation, housing, congestion pricing, health and safety, campaigns and elections law, and government patronage and corruption.

When you look at the list below, please consider some of these issues and the experts whom the candidates will consult as they attempt to refine their stances on policy to strengthen their respective campaigns for governor.

We all know the personalities involve, and they’re important.

But in this era of instantaneous ad hominem attacks, and a morass of social media substituting for thought and substance, emotion over reason, the caves of pre-history over the Enlightenment, take a moment to consider the work of these 100 people, whose natural element is not the virtual atmosphere of incessant food fighting, but the deeper world of ideas, at last manifested as policy.

Download Insider NJ’s Policymakers 100 Power List or view it below: