Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) called for her 2025 running mate, Democratic Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell, to resign from her administration after the results of an investigation into his alleged inappropriate sexual misconduct were released Thursday.
“The investigation found that the Lieutenant Governor engaged in serious, repeated violations of state policy and failed to uphold the responsibilities of his office,” Sherrill said in a statement released Thursday. “I’m calling for his resignation and giving him until tomorrow to do so.”
According to the report, the investigation found that Caldwell made several ethics violations while in office, including making crude comments to a female staffer, seeking a promotion for an employee he had a romantic relationship with, and bringing unauthorized guests to ticketed events.
“These violations substantiated in the investigation reflect a pattern of behavior that does not meet the standards of this Administration,” Sherrill said. “The ethical lapses persisted despite multiple warnings and trainings. The substantiated finding of sexual harassment is extremely troubling. I’ve seen firsthand how a hostile culture can undermine everyone’s ability to succeed. It’s insidious and ruptures the trust within an organization.”
The report of the investigation’s findings details that Caldwell “made a romantic advance” toward a staffer’s female friend. When he was rejected, he told the young female staffer, “You young women are looking for young sperm.” The independent investigators wrote in the report that they found Caldwell’s behavior “constituted sexual harassment, and was derogatory or demeaning in reference to the staffer’s sex.”
According to the report, Caldwell denied making the comment to the female staffer, though the investigators “did not find his denial credible.”
The report also detailed that, in response to questions about his attempts to promote an employee with whom he had a romantic relationship, Caldwell “admitted to investigators that he did not disclose the romantic nature of his relationship with the state employee while making these promotion requests.”
The investigation was conducted by Lowenstein Sandler, the law firm of former state Attorney General Christopher Porrino.
In a May letter to the State Ethics Commission shared in the report, Caldwell called the ethics violation accusations against him “inaccurate, misleading, and completely false.”
“I fully welcome a fair, objective, and professional review of these allegations by the attorneys and investigators assigned to this matter because I am confident that the facts will fully clear my name,” Caldwell wrote in the May letter.
Caldwell has not publicly commented on the investigation or Sherrill’s call for him to resign.
NEW JERSEY LT. GOV. DALE CALDWELL FACES INVESTIGATION OVER ALLEGED MISCONDUCT
In addition to serving as New Jersey’s lieutenant governor, Caldwell is a pastor at the Covenant United Methodist Church in Plainfield, New Jersey.
Sherrill picked Caldwell as her running mate in July 2025 and named him as her administration’s secretary of state in December 2025 after the pair won their November election by a double-digit margin. Before winning the November 2025 election, Caldwell had not served in a political office and was instead president of Centenary University.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
