Early voting in New Jersey’s hotly contested gubernatorial primary began Tuesday, hours after President Trump held a tele-rally to boost GOP hopeful Jack Ciattarelli.
The president bashed New Jersey as a “high-tax, high-crime sanctuary state” and hailed Ciattarelli, a former member of the Garden State’s General Assembly, as a “champion” who could turn the state red again.
“New Jersey is ready to pop out of that blue horror show and really get in there and vote for somebody that’s going to make things happen,” Trump said during remarks lasting roughly 10 minutes.
“I’m asking you to get out and vote for a true champion for the people of your state – Jack Ciattarelli. He’s been a friend of mine, and he’s been a real success story,” the president added.
Ciattarelli has promised that one of his first executive orders will be to scrap policies that bar state and local authorities from cooperating with federal immigration agents.
Sparse polling has pegged Ciattarelli as the odds-on favorite in the Republican primary, with conservative radio host Bill Spadea and state Sen. Jon Bramnick polling a distant second and third.
“It was certainly disappointing,” Spadea told Fox News about Trump backing Ciattarelli. “I mean, we made no bones about this. We absolutely wanted the president’s endorsement. Unfortunately, the president endorsed a poll and not a plan.”
“I have been a supporter of President Trump since he came down the escalator [in 2015].”
Trump owns several properties in New Jersey and periodically spends weekends at his golf club in Bedminster.
“It’s like Make America Great Again,” the president exhorted his audience. “It’s Make New Jersey Great Again.”
Off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia are often seen as key tests of a president’s popularity just shy of one year into office and a harbinger of what might come in the midterm elections the following year.
Ciattarelli was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2021, when he shocked observers by narrowly losing to incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy by just over three percentage points.
Last November, Trump lost New Jersey to Kamala Harris by just 5.9%, an improvement of 10 percentage points on his margin of defeat by Joe Biden in 2020.
Republicans have not won statewide office in New Jersey since Chris Christie was elected to a second term as governor in 2013.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Mikie Sherrill is the polling favorite to win the primary, followed in various orders by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, teachers’ union president Sean Spiller, and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney.
Sherrill, a former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor who flipped a longtime GOP House seat in 2018, has largely vowed to stick with policies pursued by the term-limited Murphy while vowing to protect the state from what she describes as Trump’s excesses.
There are roughly 800,000 more registered Democrats in New Jersey than Republicans, though independents have significant sway in state politics.
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