Republican NJ governor candidates focus on budget waste, immigration, Trump
This spring, the USA TODAY Network New Jersey Editorial Board convened conversations with nearly all of the major candidates. We talked broadly about their campaigns, their agendas if nominated and elected and about the impact of the administration of President Donald Trump.
Here are thoughts and impressions about candidates in the Republican field, presented alphabetically:
State Sen Jon Bramnick, first elected to the Assembly in 2003 and its longtime Republican leader, was elected to the upper chamber in 2021. Bramnick, 72, is a Plainfield attorney and was the first Republican to enter the race for governor.
An avowed Never-Trumper, Bramnick said that, when appropriate, he would continue some of the state's ongoing legal challenges that seek to block parts of the administration's policy agenda. He also said he would call on the New Jersey congressional delegation to protect Medicaid coverage for the state's most vulnerable residents.
Bramnick's campaign is designed to appeal to moderates in both parties who are concerned about New Jersey's tax burden and want to see the Garden State's economy grow.
'My feeling is we need balance. I don't believe in this one-party system. Now, you've had the Democrats control the Legislature for 20 years. And now you've had a Democratic governor for seven years. It doesn't work. What you want is balance because most people in New Jersey are in the middle.'
Bramnick is focused, too, on fixing New Jersey's housing crisis and suggested to the USA TODAY Network New Jersey Editorial Board that he would work with developers across the state to locate large tracts of land on which to construct affordable single-family and multi-family units to meet market demand.
Bramnick also outlined positions on reconfiguring the state budget to better fund NJ Transit, said he would work to reconfigure the state's complex school funding formula and suggested that he would regularly take questions from the public and from members of the Legislature if elected.
Jack Ciattarelli, a former state Assemblyman who lives in Somerville, nearly ousted Gov. Phil Murphy in the 2021 election. It was immediately clear that Ciattarelli, a sometime contributor to the opinion pages of the USA TODAY Network New Jersey, would seek his party's nomination again this year.
Ciattarelli, who once dismissed President Donald Trump as a "charlatan," earned the president's endorsement earlier this month. While Ciattarelli has positioned himself as a right-of-center moderate in earlier campaigns, this year, he has embraced the MAGA mood that holds grip over large swaths of the Republican primary electorate.
"The president's trying to hit the reset button," Ciattarelli said, pointing to Trump's efforts to stem the federal deficit and rebalance global trade.
In conversations with the USA TODAY Network New Jersey Editorial Board, Ciattarelli said New Jersey faced "an affordability crisis, a public safety crisis, a public education crisis" and also expressed deep concern about overdevelopment and housing affordability. To address affordability, Ciattarelli outlined specific proposals to tackle the school funding formula and said the state, on his watch, would fund special education across the state. He also called for a unified state department to oversee all of the state's transportation infrastructure, including NJ Transit, the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike.
Ciattarelli said he would also conduct a broad review of state spending with an eye toward trimming the budget as broadly as possible.
On energy, Ciattarelli put the blame for forthcoming utility rate hikes squarely on Gov. Phil Murphy and the Democratic Legislature and said he would work quickly to stand up natural gas generation. He also said he would explore expanding the state's existing nuclear footprint.
Bill Spadea, the longtime NJ 101.5 radio personality who lives in Princeton, is a stalwart supporter of President Donald Trump.
Spadea and his campaign did not respond to invitations to sit with the USA TODAY Network New Jersey Editorial Board.
Spadea has said his campaign is aimed at stemming New Jersey's affordability crisis, addressing what he calls an epidemic of illegal immigration and slowing down housing development that he says imperils New Jersey's suburban communities.
Immigration, he has said, is his top priority.
'We're going to rescind the 2018 executive order and get rid of the sanctuary state. We're going to rescind the 2019 Immigrant Trust Directive,' he said. 'We're going to issue a series of executive orders … to stop phase four of this high-density housing nonsense that is crushing our suburban communities."
Former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac and Justin Barbera, a Burlington County contractor, are also on the June 10 primary ballot but did not meet various qualifications to participate in debates this spring.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ governor 2025: Republican candidates focus on waste, immigration
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