New Jersey gubernatorial hopeful Mikie Sherrill has become one of the Garden State’s richest lawmakers in Congress six years after getting elected to Washington — buoyed by a portfolio of lux properties, millions in stocks and a banker husband who earns more than $2 million per year.
Republican Jack Ciattarelli and his allies have pummeled Sherrill (D-NJ) on her finances — accusing her of “flipping stocks and cashing in — to the tune of $7 million” since being elected to high office.
“In the seven years that she’s been in Congress, she’s tripled her net worth!” Ciattarelli said during their fiery clash at last week’s debate.
“While you were sitting on the House Armed Services Committee, you were trading defense stocks,” he went on.
“She had to pay fines for violating federal law on stock trades and stock reporting.”
Sherrill has denied that claim, saying she does not own individual stocks — though a mealy-mouthed response to the question about her net worth from “The Breakfast Club” host Charlamagne tha God has only fanned the flames.
A peek at Sherrill’s financial disclosures paints a murkier picture of her net worth — and suggests her impressive wealth growth comes from a variety of sources.
“Mikie does not own or trade individual stocks, and has gone ‘above and beyond’ releasing the exact values of her finances to the dollar,” Sherrill campaign communications director Sean Higgins told The Post.
“New Jerseyans have zero insight into Jack Ciattarelli’s net worth, they do know he made $15 million in profits off opioid misinformation and investments linked to the Chinese Communist Party.”
The frequently cited $7 million figure stems from a Washington Free Beacon analysis that used the average of a range of values provided in congressional financial disclosures.
In 2019, Sherrill’s net worth would’ve been between $730,000 and $4.3 million, per her House financial disclosure records. By 2024, it jumped to between $4.8 million and $14 million.
Additionally, that analysis looked at all her assets, not just stocks. And a key reason why her net worth jumped so sharply in that analysis is that she added a Washington, DC, townhouse, purchased in a tony neighborhood in 2021, with a listed value between $1 million and $5 million in disclosure forms.
That property is worth around $1.6 million, The Post found.
As Ciattarelli noted, Sherrill was forced to pay a $400 fee in 2021 for STOCK Act violations, after blowing past a 45-day deadline to disclose her husband’s stock trades — something that is not uncommon in Congress.
What is Mikie Sherrill’s net worth?
The Garden State Democrat’s net worth is somewhere between $9.4 million and $14.61 million.
Quiver Quantitative, which provides estimates for most members of Congress, pegged Sherrill’s fortune at $14.61 million, which would place her just behind Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s (D-NJ) $42.19 million net worth as the second-richest Garden State pol in Washington.
An August analysis by the New Jersey Globe pegged her and her husband’s net worth at $9.4 million.
How did Mikie Sherrill get so rich?
Most of Sherrill’s fortune stems from her banker husband, Jason Hedberg.
Hedberg gets partially compensated through stocks from UBS, which they frequently sell off, according to financial disclosures.
He has raked in more than $2.6 million each year since 2021 — topping out at $2.9 million last year, the New Jersey Globe reported.
For comparison, Sherrill’s congressional salary is $174,000.
Shortly after taking office, Sherrilly began offloading individual stocks in favor of exchange-traded funds to mitigate conflict of interest concerns.
She had $4.4 million in her brokerage account, and her husband reportedly had $1.9 million in unvested stocks. The pair also had about $1.5 million between their checking accounts, retirement accounts and life insurance policies.
The New Jersey Democrat’s investment portfolio fared 1.9% worse than the S&P 500, according to insider trading watchdog Unusual Whales.
Lux properties
Sherrill and her husband also own three homes: a large mansion in wealthy Montclair, a vacation home in Vermont, and the Washington, DC, townhouse.
Zillow records indicate that her Montclair home is worth about $3 million, her vacation home is about $780,000, and her DC home, which she once rented to former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), was pegged at $1.6 million.
Records indicate those three homes have mortgages on them.
At least two of her children went to the tony Montclair Kimberly Academy, which has tuition as high as $53,340 annually.
Ciattarelli’s wealth
Following pressure from Sherrill’s allies to release more of his tax documentation, the Ciattarelli campaign let media outlets examine 13 years of his tax returns.
While his net worth isn’t fully clear, tax records show that he has raked in close to $14.9 million since 2012 and paid at least $4 million in taxes, the New Jersey Monitor reported.
Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman, had made his fortune off two medical publication businesses, one of which he sold in 2017, the same year he made $7.1 million in total income, per the outlet.
Tax records showed that his income fluctuated throughout the years, from $600,946 in 2014 to $854,966 in 2018 and $168,433 in 2022, according to the report.
Additional reporting by Steven Vago.
