Jon Bramnick, a moderate state senator with a penchant for lower taxes and more civility in politics – and a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump — announced today that he will seek the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey in 2025 with a message that “hateful rhetoric is a threat to our democracy and a terrible message to our children.”
As governor, he pledged to support police and send more criminals to jail, make it easier to start or operate a business, control overdevelopment, improve the way New Jerseyans are treated at motor vehicle agencies, and get staff at the Department of Labor to “pick up the phone.”
“I understand the deep frustrations that many feel about government, and I understand why many citizens are angry and frustrated with government,” Bramnick said. I see it every day when I fight for my constituents, trying to get things done.”
Bramnick’s challenge is to get through a Republican primary. If he does, he could be formidable; despite being a blue state, Republicans have won the governorship as often as Democrats over the last 54 years. Democrats have not won three consecutive gubernatorial races since 1961.
“While Jon Bramnick has a tough primary path ahead of him, he is the general election candidate who the Democrats would lose the most sleep over,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “We saw as recently as this week in New Hampshire that there are Democrats and unaffiliated voters who are willing to crossover and support a Republican moderate. Crossover votes are what keep you up at night because you lost one, and the other side won one.”
In his re-election campaign last November, Bramnick carried Westfield and Summit, two suburban train station towns that have become Democratic strongholds in recent years. He won by six percentage points in a legislative district that Joe Biden carried by 17 points; in 2021, Bramnick ran nearly four points ahead of Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli, who won the 21st district by three-tenths of a percent.
His current district includes parts of Union, Morris, Middlesex, and Somerset counties.
Bramnick is the first Republican to formally enter the race to succeed term-limited Democrat Phil Murphy. Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who came within three points of unseating Murphy in 2021, has said he plans to run; Bill Spadea, a conservative who hosts a morning radio show on New Jersey 101.5, is viewed as a likely candidate.
His announcement, made from the stage at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, where he frequently appears as a standup comedian, was followed by endorsements from former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, former House Speaker John Boehner, and George P. Bush, the former Texas Land Commissioner and grandson of President George Bush.
Bramnick is expected to wage an unconventional campaign to win a GOP primary in a state where public polling has shown Trump exceedingly popular among Republicans. He supports abortion rights and gun control, voted to confirm liberal state Supreme Court justices, and has said Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election.
He refused to endorse Trump in 2016 and 2020 and supported former Gov. Chris Christie’s bid for the presidency until it ended earlier this month. He’s called Trump an egomaniac, a narcissist, and a showoff. In a television ad for his Senate re-election campaign, Bramnick hit extremists on the left and right,
The morning after he was re-elected to the Senate, Bramnick took clear aim at Spadea, predicting voters would reject candidates “who are neutral on Donald Trump’s denial of the election outcome or his support of the January 6th riot at our capital.”
“Moderate Republicans who treat everyone with respect win,” said Bramnick. “No harsh rhetoric, just results.”
As a State Senate candidate, Bramnick won endorsements from the New Jersey Education Association, police and firefighter unions, environmental groups, the AFL-CIO, and pro-business groups.
But sometimes, Bramnick confounds expectations by maintaining solid relationships with conservatives in the legislature and at the local level. He’s backing avid Trump supporter Christine Serrano Glassner for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination, has contributed to conservative candidates on the national and state levels, and hasn’t faced a Republican primary since 2009; he defeated a local elected official by a 3-1 margin.
He’s faced harsh criticism from conservative radio host and Save Jersey editor Matt Rooney, but still went on Rooney’s show last year to face some tough questions.
Bramnick appears fearless, authentic, completely comfortable in his own skin, and unrattled by criticism. A successful lawyer, the 70-year-old Bramnick doesn’t have to give up his Senate seat and has little to lose by seeking the governorship.
His campaigns for the legislature are largely self-managed; he frequently writes and directs his own TV ads and has an affinity for playing outside-the-box. Recent ads have included him performing in a comedy club, using a Western theme where he draws his cell phone and calls himself “the fastest return call in government, an endorsement from former New York Knicks star Earl Monroe, and grilling hamburgers and hot dogs while delivering his stump speech to his two dogs.
This time, Bramnick is relying on political professionals: he’s hired Russ Schriefer, an architect of Larry Hogan’s two campaigns for governor of Maryland. Schriefer has worked for Elise Stefanik, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, and Christie.
Today, he unveiled his first ad, featuring a group of friends – all fellow comedians — playing poker and touting Bramnick as a “real Jersey guy” who “has a way of making you feel like he’s just one of us.”
Speakers at Jon Bramnick’s announcement that he’s running for governor of New Jersey included: Morris County GOP Chair Laura Ali; Union County GOP Chairman
Glenn Mortimer; former Attorney General Christopher Porrino; his two Assembly running mates, Nancy Munoz (R-Summit) and Michele Matsikoudis (R-New Providence); two former colleagues on the Plainfield City Council, Gwen Crews and John Campbell, Sr.; Morris County Commissioner Tayfun Selen; and his wife, Patricia.
“Its clear to me that we must bring balanced public policy back to Trenton,” Bramnick said. “Policies that reflect the views of the majority of our citizens. In order to bring balance policy we need two political parties in Trenton and electing a Republican Governor will require the Democrats to compromise, ending the constant drumbeat of ballooning budgets, tax and fee hikes, and soft-on-crime policies rubber stamped by the Democrats.”
Bramnick grew up in Plainfield, a city that faced racial unrest in the 1960s. His father, Herbert Bramnick, owned a stationery store and sold school supplies, greeting cards, and Halloween costumes.
After graduating from Syracuse University and Hofstra Law School, he began his political career in 1984, winning a seat on the Plainfield City Council; he left after two terms and eventually moved to Westfield and became Republican municipal chairman. After Tom Kean, Jr. won a State Senate seat in 2003, Bramnick ran for Kean’s open Assembly seat; he won a Union County mini-convention by two votes against Cranford Mayor Phil Morin and then a special election convention by a 58%-22% margin against former Assemblyman James Barry (R-Harding) and two others.
He spent nineteen years as an assemblyman — and a decade as the minority leader — before going to the Senate in 2021, when Kean gave up his seat to focus on a congressional bid.
If he wins, Bramnick would become the state’s first Jewish governor.
Two Democrats, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and former Senate President Steve Sweeney, joined the governor’s race last year.