Trenton (New Jersey), Jun 11 (AP) Jack Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and small businessman, won the Republican primary in New Jersey's race for governor, cruising to victory with the support of President Donald Trump.
Ciattarelli now heads into the general election seeking to win back the governorship after two straight Democratic victories. He's hoping to build on his 2021 performance when he came within a few percentage points of defeating Democratic Governor Phil Murphy.
New Jersey is one of two states with a governor's race this year — the other is Virginia — and could give both parties a chance to test strategies with voters ahead of next year's high-stakes mid-term elections.
As he turns his attention to the general election, Ciattarelli confronts a balancing act in a state that leans toward Democrats but has shown a willingness to elect Republicans as governor.
On one hand, he and the president have embraced one another, and Ciattarelli remains popular with the GOP base, which has largely unified after eight years of Democratic control of state government. But to win in November, Ciattarelli will have to appeal to New Jersey's wider electorate, which has never supported Trump in his three presidential campaigns despite the president's strong ties to New Jersey, where he has owned casinos and other high-profile properties.
Ciattarelli's campaign touts the president's 2024 performance in the state, where he lost by 6 percentage points compared to a 16-point defeat in 2020, as a sign that the GOP is poised for a comeback. It also notes a decline for Democrats in registration as an indicator that voters are disillusioned with the party that has long prevailed in most statewide elections, though they occasionally have tapped Republicans as governor.
Ciattarelli defeated former talk radio host Bill Spadea, state Senator Jon Bramnick, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac and contractor Justin Barbera to win the GOP primary.
A state Assembly member until 2018 when he stepped down to run for governor, Ciattarelli founded medical publishing company Galen Publishing and held local and county positions in Somerset.
Trump's endorsement of Ciattarelli in the final month of the primary came after the candidate got to know and understand the "Make America Great Again" movement, the president said in a social media post. Trump's backing hinted at Ciattarelli's earlier criticism of Trump during his first run for the White House a decade ago, when he said Trump wasn't fit for the presidency.
Now Ciattarelli is "ALL IN," Trump said.
Trump wasn't a factor for Thomas Walton, 45, who supported Ciattarelli because he said he thinks he's best suited to handle the state's financial matters.
"We've had the nation's highest property taxes for years, and no one ever does anything about them, especially the Democrats. He deserves the chance to change the way Trenton works," Walton said.
The two open races for governor this year could offer signals about how the public is responding to Trump's agenda and whether Democrats have succeeded in their efforts to rebuild after defeat in 2024.
Both parties will look to build their general election campaigns on widespread voter frustrations. For New Jersey Democrats, that means focusing on the parts of Trump's aggressive second-term agenda that are unpopular. Republicans, meanwhile, are casting blame for economic hardships on Democrats who've run state government for the last eight years.
New Jersey has been reliably Democratic in Senate and presidential contests for decades. But the odd-year races for governor have tended to swing back and forth, and each of the last three GOP governors has won a second term.
Democrats have the largest share of registered voters in the state, followed closely by independent voters and then Republicans, who have roughly 800,000 fewer registrations than the Democratic Party. But the GOP has made gains in recent years, shaving the Democrats' lead of more than 1 million more registrations to the current level. (AP) RUK
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