The Democratic primary for the New Jersey governor’s race is a jump ball just more than a month before voters head to the polls.

Public polling of the race has been sparse, but the available public and internal surveys have shown Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) with a small lead over the other five candidates running. But her leads have generally been no more than a few points, often with another candidate within the margin of error behind her.

That’s given candidates hope that anyone could pull off a win next month in a race where Democrats are favored.

“All of these candidates are within striking distance from one another,” said Ashley Koning, the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University. “It seems like a lot of the voters still aren't sure, still very undecided and can't coalesce around a single candidate.”

The race to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D) gradually became more crowded as a half dozen major Democratic candidates launched bids to replace them.

All of them bring extensive resumes in New Jersey politics: two House members, two mayors of major cities who have served for more than a decade, a former mayor and current president of the state education labor union, and a former state Senate president who’s been an influential powerbroker in state politics for years.

Sherrill, a fourth-term House member and former Navy helicopter pilot, appears to be the slight favorite, at least on paper.

One of the only consistent trends in polling has been a slight lead for Sherrill. In the most recent public polling from the Eagleton Center, Sherrill led by 5 points over her next-closest opponent, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.

She’s also led by varying small amounts in internal polls, including those conducted by other campaigns. Along with receiving the endorsement from most of the county parties in North Jersey, which has the largest population in the state, Sherrill isn’t in a bad spot.

But her lead in the Eagleton poll was within the margin of error and her leads in other surveys have consistently been in the single digits. With the percentage of undecided voters often being as high as the percentage of Sherrill's support and predicting turnout in an off-year primary being difficult, Koning warned that the state of the race may be different than it appears.

“Just because she's having consistent but small........

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