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POINT PLEASANT, N.J. – With six days to go until Election Day and one of only two races for governor in the nation this year careening towards a potential tight finish, New Jersey Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli is highlighting the state’s robust early voting numbers.
“We’ve seen more Republicans return vote by mail ballots than ever before,” Ciattarelli said Thursday during a town hall on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
The town hall, hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity in this seaside community along the Jersey Shore, took place six days into state’s early in-person voting period. Nearly one million voters have already cast a ballot, either in-person or through mail-in voting, far ahead of the pace four years ago when Ciattarelli came close to upsetting Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Now, in his third bid for Garden State governor, Ciattarelli is facing off with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rep. Mikie Sherrill in an extremely competitive and combustible race to succeed the term-limited Murphy.
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“The return rate’s been phenomenal. And here through the first five or six days of early voting, which goes through Sunday, we’ve been matching them voter for voter. That puts us in a really good position to win,” Ciattarelli said.
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But Sherrill, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who flew helicopters during her military career and briefly served as a federal prosecutor before first winning election to Congress in 2018, is also touting the early voting numbers, calling them “really great news.”
“We’re seeing such great results in the vote by mails and the early voting,” she told Fox News Digital on Wednesday after a meet and greet at a senior center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. “Certainly the trend is much better than ’21.”
Ciattarelli, a one-time certified public accountant who started a medical publishing company before getting into politics and winning election as a state lawmaker, landed President Donald Trump’s endorsement earlier this year, in the closing stretch of the GOP gubernatorial nomination race. Trump’s backing helped Ciattarelli cruise to an easy and convincing primary victory in a nomination race that centered on support for the president.
Ciattarelli was joined on the campaign trail the past two weeks by two top MAGA stars and leading allies of President Donald Trump allies – former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy of Ohio and Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida.
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Trump headlined a tele-rally for Ciattarelli last Friday, on the eve of the start of early voting, and his campaign told Fox News Digital that another tele-rally with the president is expected before Election Day.
In a likely close election where getting base voters to the polls will be crucial, the hope is that the tele-rallies with the president, and the recent campaign trail stops by Ramaswamy and Donalds will energize MAGA supporters, many of whom are low-propensity voters who often skip casting ballots in non-presidential election years.
“We go after those one out of four Republicans …who typically only vote in presidential years,” Ciattarelli said during the Hannity town hall. “We’ve done a magnificent job, our local Republican organizations have, in getting those people to vote by mail or vote early.”
While Democrats have long dominated federal and state legislative elections in blue-leaning New Jersey, Republicans are very competitive in gubernatorial contests, winning five out of the past 10 elections.
While Democrats still have a large voter registration advantage over Republicans in New Jersey, the GOP has narrowed the gap in the four years since Ciattarelli fell short of victory.
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And Trump made major gains in New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, losing the state by only six percentage points, a vast improvement over his 16-point deficit four years earlier.
Ciattarelli, pointing to Trump’s 2024 finish in New Jersey, said “that improvement means there’s 300,000 more people today that are favorable to the president than back in 2021.”
Ciattarelli was not only predicting a win at the top of the ticket, he was also forecasting down-ballot victories for the GOP in the state legislature, which the Democrats have controlled for nearly a quarter-century.
Noting that the GOP flipped eight seats in 2021 “with the wind at my face,” Ciattarelli predicted that “with the wind at my back this time around I can flip 13 seats and that gives us a Republican majority for the first time in close to three decades.”
The town hall took place as three new public opinion polls released on Thursday pointed to a single digit contest, with Sherrill holding the advantage.
A Fox News poll conducted last Friday through Tuesday (Oct. 24–28) indicated Sherrill leading Ciattarelli 52%-45% among likely voters in New Jersey. A Quinnipiac University survey suggested Sherrill up by nine points, while a Suffolk University poll indicated Ciattarelli trailing by just four points.
But other recent surveys indicated an even tighter contest between Sherrill and Ciattarelli.
New Jersey traditionally elects a governor from the party out of power in the White House, which this year favors the Democrats.
But Garden State voters haven’t elected a governor from the same party in three straight elections in over a half century, which would favor the Republicans.
One of those political trends will be busted in next month’s election.
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