Ciattarelli easily secures GOP nomination for governor

In November, Jack Ciattarelli will find out if the third time truly is the charm. 

The former assemblyman won the GOP nomination for governor in dominant fashion tonight, winning a Trump-focused race in which he had become the clear frontrunner. He bested four competitors to secure the nomination, including former conservative radio host Bill Spadea and state Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield). 

This is the 63-year-old Ciattarelli’s third time seeking the governorship. In 2017, he lost in the GOP primary; in 2021, he won his party’s nomination and nearly pulled off a shocking upset against Gov. Phil Murphy, who defeated him by 3 percentage points.

Ciattarelli won all 21 counties. As of 2 a.m., he was leading with 68% of the vote. Spadea earned about 22%, while Bramnick received about 6%.

“We are not done. … 14 months ago, we kicked off this campaign with one goal in mind: fixing and saving our great state,” Ciattarelli said in his victory speech. “Tonight, we took the next step in achieving our mission with a clear and convincing primary victory.”

Spadea was seen as the biggest threat to Ciattarelli throughout the campaign. The pair openly competed for Trump’s endorsement, but Spadea, a former personality on New Jersey 101.5, failed to maximize fundraising or garner establishment support. The pair traded blows for months, accusing one another of being insufficiently loyal to the president, but Trump himself drove the final nail in the coffin when he endorsed Ciattarelli last month.

Bramnick, meanwhile, was the sole Trump-skeptic moderate in the race, and while the senator fundraised decently, he was unable to carve out a lane in the increasingly MAGA-centric Republican electorate.

Two other candidates, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac and contractor Justin Barbera, failed to raise the money required to qualify for public matching funds and the two debates, and never posed a serious threat in the race. Another candidate, former state Sen. Ed Durr (R-Logan), dropped out before the filing deadline.

Ciattarelli dominated polling throughout the year, and he was the only Republican to reach the fundraising cap that granted him $5.5 million in public matching funds.

The general election is likely to be a duel of referendums — Ciattarelli will work to make the election about Murphy’s eight-year record as governor, arguing the state cannot afford another four years with a Democrat at the helm, while Democrats will want to try to tie him to Trump, long a controversial figure in the state. One Democratic candidate, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, has already attacked Ciattarelli on his ties to Trump; images of the two Republicans together were featured prominently in her late-stage advertisements.

Historical indicators cut both for and against Ciattarelli. For one, New Jerseyans tend to search for partisan equilibrium in state leadership; a party hasn’t won three consecutive gubernatorial elections since Democrats won four straight in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

At the same time, New Jerseyans tend to punish the president’s party when choosing their governor. While Ciattarelli has insisted that Trump’s presence in the Oval Office will help him secure four years in Drumthwacket, it might not be that simple.

Raised in the working-class borough of Raritan, Ciattarelli represented the 16th legislative district for three terms in the Assembly, from 2011 to 2018. He had previously served on the Raritan Borough Council for five years in the 1990s and went on to serve on the Somerset County Board of Freeholders from 2007 to 2011.

Ciattarelli first ran for governor in 2017, but he finished second in the primary behind eventual nominee Kim Guadagno, whom Murphy went on to defeat in November. Ciattarelli bounced back to win the 2021 GOP primary, beating a split field with 49% of the vote.

He then nearly shocked the New Jersey political world that November, coming within 3 points of beating Murphy, who, in addition to the normal challenges of running a statewide campaign, began to suffer under the falling approval ratings of then-President Joe Biden. While he didn’t win, he immediately made it clear that he planned to run again, and he officially launched his third bid last April.

Over the course of those three campaigns, Ciattarelli steadily evolved from a Trump skeptic into a Trump booster. In 2015, Ciattarelli put out a statement calling Trump a “charlatan” who was “out of step with the Party of Lincoln”; by 2021, he was somewhat more amenable to Trump, but still kept him at arm’s length as he campaigned to flip his Democratic-leaning state.

This time, though, Ciattarelli has not been shy to praise Trump by name and promote his policies related to illegal immigration, eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government, and more. Ciattarelli’s overtures to the president finally paid off last month, when Trump gave him his all-important endorsement and essentially ended the primary in one fell swoop.

“Jack is the Republican Candidate who is best positioned to STAND TALL against the Radical Left Democrats and, most importantly, ensure a Big Victory in this Very Important Gubernatorial Election,” Trump wrote in a lengthy post. “Jack Ciattarelli is a WINNER, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement – HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN.”