Trump front-and-center in Republican primary for governor as early voting kicks off

Fox News

3 days ago

PINE HILL, NEW JERSEY – One week to go until primary day in New Jersey, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli was getting a shoutout from the most powerful and influential politician in the GOP.
"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," President Donald Trump told supporters as he dialed into a tele-rally on the eve of Tuesday's kickoff of early voting in New Jersey.
Trump's praise came two weeks after he endorsed Ciattarelli for the Republican nomination in a primary race that turned into a battle for the president's support.
"It's a really big deal," Ciattarelli said in a Monday interview with Fox News Digital after meeting with local GOP politicians and leaders at the Trump National Golf Club-Philadelphia in this South Jersey borough, when asked about the significance of Trump's endorsement. "The president's doing very, very well in New Jersey."
Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker, is making his third bid for governor. He ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination in 2017. Four years later, in 2021, as the Republican nominee, Ciattarelli overperformed and came close to ousting Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy, losing by just three points.
In the showdown to succeed Murphy, who is term-limited and prevented from running for re-election, polls suggest that Ciattarelli is the front-runner in a Republican nomination race that includes two other prominent candidates – former businessman and popular conservative talk radio host Bill Spadea and state Sen. Jon Bramnick, a lawyer who served for a decade as state Assembly GOP leader.
And Ciattarelli and Spadea spent months trading fire over which of them was a bigger Trump supporter.
"It was certainly disappointing," Spadea said of Trump's endorsement of 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."
And in a Fox News Digital interview, Spadea emphasized that "I have been a supporter of President Trump since he came down the escalator," as he referenced Trump's announcement in 2015 of his first presidential campaign.
"There is no question that I am the common-sense conservative. I am the actual Republican in this primary," Spadea claimed.
And Spadea questioned Ciattarelli's support for Trump, claiming that his rival "has disrespected him for the better part of the last eight years…We thought that that endorsement would have been better served with me."
Four years ago, after he won the GOP gubernatorial nomination, Ciattarelli, when asked if he was seeking the then-former president's endorsement, told Fox News Digital "there's only one endorsement I seek, and that's the endorsement of the voters of New Jersey. That's the only one that matters."
Fast forward to 2025, and Ciattarelli emphasized that "people really appreciate what he [Trump] is doing for New Jerseyans. He's put a temporary hold on the wind farms off the Jersey Shore. He's beating up on the New York Democrats over congestion pricing. He supports a quadrupling of the SALT [state and local tax] deduction on our federal tax returns. Those are big deals to New Jersey, and that's why he's got so much great support here. And I'm honored to have his endorsement."
While he lost out on Trump's endorsement, Spadea said there's been a silver lining.
"Our supporters are galvanized. Matter of fact, the Tuesday and Wednesday after Trump endorsed Jack, we had a surge, our two best days ever in low-dollar fundraising," Spadea said. "So it actually has had the opposite effect, our low-dollar surge, our volunteer surge, we're now knocking on more than 3,000 doors a week, and we're getting an unbelievable response from the grassroots."
Spadea said that "almost every Trump supporter that we've talked to face-to-face on the ground thinks that Donald Trump made a huge mistake" in endorsing Ciattarelli.
And Spadea, who was interviewed in downtown Princeton, New Jersey, added that "Trump supporters believe in common-sense policies, populism, patriotism. It's not about being told who to vote for."
Asked why Trump endorsed him rather than Spadea, Ciattarelli said that "the president wants to win. He knows that I provide the best opportunity to win in November."
"He knows we're going to raise the necessary money. We've raised more money than the other five Republican gubernatorial candidates combined," added Ciattarelli, a certified public accountant who started a medical publishing company before getting into politics.
The fundraising advantage has allowed Ciattarelli to dominate the ad wars, although Spadea said that "in the last couple of weeks we've actually outspent my opponent on the air" and predicted that "we're going to win."
And Spadea, pointing to his media career, touted that "I built the largest audience in the state, a third Democrat, a third independent, a third Republican. So my appeal is not just that conservative base in the Republican Party. I'm the only candidate running for the Republican nomination that can pull in Democrats and independents."
New Jersey has long been a blue-leaning state, but Republicans have had success in gubernatorial elections.
"It's not a blue state when it comes to Governor races, Republicans have won six of the last 11. That's better than 50%," Ciattarelli said.
And Trump, who spends summer weekends at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, held a very large rally last year in Wildwood, N.J. And he improved from a 16-point loss in the state in the 2020 election to a 6-point deficit last November.
"The president's doing very, very well in New Jersey. He performed well here last election day," Ciattarelli said.
And Ciattarelli, looking ahead to the general election campaign, said he's "really looking forward" to Trump's "active participation…I think New Jerseyans are anxious to have him on the campaign trail with me and help deliver a win for us in November."
New Jersey's governor's race will likely grab plenty of national attention as Election Day nears, as it's one of just two states, along with Virginia, to hold gubernatorial contests in the year after a presidential election.
Ciattarelli, pointing to his ballot box performance against Murphy four years ago, said that "we were the spark that lit the fuse in '21 with that very close race. The president before performed well here last November."
"The country is watching and I think we're gonna deliver a very loud and clear message that New Jersey's going Republican this year," he predicted.