Echo Communications in Heatmap News

Dan Crawford, senior vice president at Echo Communications Advisors, was featured in Heatmap News on how energy prices became a defining issue in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race—and how Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill turned a potential vulnerability into a winning message.

How Mikie Sherrill Won New Jersey’s Electricity Election

The next governor of the Garden State turned a potential liability into an advantage.

By Matthew Zeitlin
November 4, 2025

Sherrill was able to use the electricity prices issue to create some space from her predecessor, incumbent governor Phil Murphy. Murphy was associated with a renewables forward strategy, including offshore wind, and had cast some doubt on the effectiveness and practicality of Sherrill’s pledge. “I’m not sure how you’d actually do that,” Murphy told reporters in August.

“Governor Murphy has taken a lot of blame for increased energy prices. He kind of went all in on clean energy. I think she’s trying to create distance between herself and an incumbent from her party,” Dan Crawford, senior vice president at Echo Communications Advisors, a public relations firm that specializes in climate and clean energy, told me.

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Sherrill also embraced nuclear energy on the trail, one of the few non-politically-polarizing energy generation sources left in the United States, saying she would “immediately develop a plan for a new nuclear power site in Salem County.”

Ciattarelli stuck to standard Republican moves on energy, saying he would ban offshore wind and take New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Northeastern cap-and-trade system.

“The price freeze was a very smart move because it was very bold in a way. It’s very Trumpy,” Crawford said. “I’m going to use an executive order to freeze prices. I’m going to fight for you. I’m going to take the fight to PJM. She’s not really worrying as much about the details, but she’s calling attention to the issue. I think that did kind of make energy prices a bigger issue in the campaign and put Ciattarelli on the defensive a little bit.”

Now Sherrill will have to deal with the politics and practicalities of actually implementing a price freeze, navigating potential legal challenges, and maintaining the necessary investment levels in the state’s grid in order to meet its decarbonization goals.