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FORT LEE, N.J – He’s not on the ballot, but President Donald Trump and his sweeping and controversial second-term agenda weigh heavily on this year’s ballot box battle for governor of New Jersey.
And Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli, who enjoys the president’s support, says Democratic nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill is trying to use Trump as a cudgel.
“Listen, if you get a flat tire on the way home from work today, she’s going to blame it on the president. There isn’t anything she doesn’t blame on the president,” Ciattarelli argued, as he sat this week for an interview with Fox News Digital.
New Jersey is just one of two states, along with Virginia, that hold statewide elections for governor this November. And the contests, which traditionally grab outsized national attention, are viewed as crucial early tests of the president’s popularity and agenda, and key barometers ahead of next year’s midterm showdowns for the House and Senate.
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“As Trump has inflicted all this damage on our country, Republican politicians like Jack Ciattarelli have cheered him on every step of the way,” Sherrill emphasized in a recent fundraising email to supporters.
On Sunday, at the first debate between the gubernatorial nominees, Sherrill pointed to Ciattarelli and charged that “he’ll do whatever Trump tells him to do.”
And in her closing statement, she argued that “Jack’s going to go in lockstep with Washington as he drives — as Trump drives — up your energy costs.”
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Interviewed a couple of days later, as he met with voters of Korean heritage at a restaurant in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Ciattarelli said Trump is “certainly something that all my opponent wants to talk about.”
And Ciattarelli, who came close to upsetting Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago, discounted talk that Trump is the dominant issue in the race.
“We’ve got a property tax crisis in the state. The president doesn’t have anything to do with that. We’ve got a public safety crisis in the state. Nonviolent crime is through the roof. He doesn’t have anything to do with that. We’ve got a public education crisis, an overdevelopment crisis. Look at your monthly electric bill. The President doesn’t have anything to do with those things,” Ciattarelli insisted.
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Ciattarelli, as he cruised to a second straight GOP gubernatorial primary victory in June thanks to the president’s endorsement, said that Sherrill would nationalize the race.
“If this campaign were a drinking game, and you took a shot every time Mikie Sherrill says Trump, you’re going to be drunk off your a– every day…between now and Nov. 4,” Ciattarelli said at the time.
While New Jersey has long been a blue state in presidential elections, Trump improved from a 16-point loss in the state in the 2020 election to a 6-point deficit last November.
And Ciattarelli isn’t shying away from Trump’s support. He said last month at an event at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey that “we’re going to look to deploy the president, the White House, in every way that we can.”
While the president praised Ciattarelli on Thursday in a social media post, saying, “He will be a GREAT Governor,” Trump has yet to join his party’s nominee on the campaign trail.
Asked if a joint campaign trail appearance with Trump will take place before Election Day, Ciattarelli said he’s “really pleased that the White House has offered to help us in any way that we see fit.”
But he added, “I’ve got to earn this thing. I’ve been doing that for the past 15 months. I’m gonna go out there and do it for the last six weeks.”
While Sherrill has consistently aimed to tie Ciattarelli to Trump, she’s also been shining a campaign spotlight on affordability, as inflation concerns persist.
“I am laser-focused on driving down costs for families like yours. I’m going to declare a state of emergency on day one, freezing your rate hikes. I’m going to demand transparency and accountability from our government to save you time and money,” she said at the start of the first debate.
Ciattarelli countered that the Democrats are to blame, as he works overtime trying to link Sherrill to Murphy, who’s term-limited, and the Democrats who’ve long controlled the state legislature in Trenton.
“They’ve controlled the legislature for 25 years. They’ve had the governorship the past eight years,” Ciattarelli told Fox News as he pointed to the Democrats. “And look where we are today. The highest property tax in the nation. Your monthly electric bill is going through the roof. We got non-violent crime that’s spiking.”
“It’s been a failure, and she’s a continuation of those policies,” he argued.
The latest public opinion polls suggest a close contest between Sherrill, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who later served as a helicopter pilot, and a former federal prosecutor, before first winning election to Congress in 2018, and Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and a certified public accountant who started a medical publishing company before getting into politics.
Ciattarelli said he’ll continue what he describes as a relentless campaign trail schedule.
“Each and every day we touch four counties, we go out and talk about how it is we’re gonna fix New Jersey, and you gotta press the flesh,” he said.
And he claimed that “my opponent hasn’t done that, and she’s ducking appearances left and right.”
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