That’s her win!
Incoming New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill threw shade at Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani Thursday for taking credit for hosting World Cup 2026 games next summer — as she floated a reverse congestion pricing plan for New York fans headed to the Garden State for the monumental event.
“With all due respect to mayor-elect Mamdani, maybe he doesn’t know where the games are gonna be played because that’s gonna be in New Jersey,” she told 1010 WINS.
Earlier this week, Mamdani told CBS News, “I’m so excited at the fact that we are going to be hosting eight games across the World Cup next summer.”
He made the comment while vowing to appoint a “World Cup czar” to manage surging FIFA ticket prices.
But the major crowd-drawing, economy-boosting sporting event will be held at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ in June and July — not New York City.
During the 1010 WINS interview, Sherrill also said she’s considering charging a congestion pricing toll to New Yorkers entering the Garden State for the games — much like the controversial fees NJ drivers must fork over below 60th Street during peak hours.
“Possibly people coming into our state from New York will be paying congestion fees so they can go enjoy the game,” she said.
She said the idea was a real possibility though it wasn’t immediately clear if the governor-elect has the unilateral power to enact the change.
Meanwhile, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she hasn’t yet discussed a traffic plan for the World Cup games with Sherrill.
“I will have conversations with the mayor-elect. We just spoke yesterday on other issues,” she said at an unrelated press conference Thursday morning.
“The expectation that there’s going to be massive crowds here, we’ll deal with that. We have a long range strategy to deal with what we’ll anticipate to be incredible, incredible numbers of people coming to this region, to celebrate one of the world’s greatest sporting events,” she said.
“So we’re excited about that. But from our point of view decisions have not been made. We look forward to working with New Jersey to have very robust traffic management plans for those events,” Hochul said.
