Assembly GOP avoids T-word in election post-mortem

Assembly Republicans identified President Donald Trump as an omnipresent force in New Jersey’s 2025 election, but strategically avoided using his name or placing much blame on him as they talked about how they lost five seats last November, during a closed-door, legislators-only dinner in Middletown last night.”

“The consultants in the room and the members in the room didn’t want to be quoted as bashing Trump, so everyone mostly just kept quiet,” said one lawmaker who spoke on the condition of anonymity.  “Nobody wants to get on Trump’s enemies list.”

Assembly Minority Leader John DiMaio organized the dinner as a post-mortem of the election, which left the Republican caucus with just 23 members – the lowest since Watergate.  Only Brian Rumpf (R-Little Egg Harbor) and Bob Auth (R-Old Tappan) were absent.

Some blame was put on the top of the ticket, but not as a criticism of Republican Jack Ciattarelli as much as an acknowledgement that now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill was an unstoppable force who was always going to win.

“In my opinion, this was 90% Trump’s fault, but some of it was our own,” said a second legislator.  “It’s not like we hung up a poster of Trump like he was Mao, but we all understood that people were talking in code.”

Three legislators in the room confirmed that their pollster, Brock McLeary, never once had a poll that showed Ciattarelli even in striking distance of Sherrill, data that appears to contradict what Ciattarelli’s own pollsters – and independent pollsters – were showing.

McLeary told the GOP officials that voters found Sherrill, who won by fourteen percentage points, relatable and liked her life story as a Navy helicopter pilot, federal prosecutor, and mother of four.

A focus group directed by McLeary, a New Jersey native, suggested that New Jersey Republicans got their messaging wrong: school funding formulas, crime, and immigration didn’t move voters.  And Sherrill won the economic message by connecting taxes to the overall affordability issue, allowing voters to draw their own conclusions.

“Mikie’s formula worked: bio plus electricity cost freeze equals affordability,” a third legislator said.

McLeary suggested that Republicans couldn’t tag Sherrill as a left-wing extremist because her military service made voters trust her on economic issues.

The biggest takeaway for the Assembly Republicans as they prepare to head into 2027 is to spend more time developing their own relationships with constituents in their districts.

“You can’t build a solid house when the foundation is unstable,” a fourth assemblymember said.  “You have to find a way to differentiate yourself from what’s happening in Washington from the things you can’t control.”

There was some chatter about the reliance on bad polling, with one legislator pointing out that Assemblywoman Claire Swift (R-Margate) lost narrowly despite having a healthy cash-on-hand at the close of the campaign.

Republicans didn’t discuss the uproar over DiMaio’s decision to remove Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) from leadership and from his seat on the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee after he criticized the loss of eleven seats over the last two elections.

There was a debate over State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), the former Assembly minority leader, and his willingness to criticize Trump and national Republicans.  Two Republican assemblywomen lost re-election in Bramnick’s district. Still, some lawmakers came to Bramnick’s defense, saying his ability to create his own brand in a Democratic-leaning district is what’s enabled him to keep winning.

The discussion also left out talk of how the 23-member minority can raise money without votes to affect legislation that reaches the Assembly floor. The legislators said they still want a post-mortem on Republican targeting and how much of the voter universe they were told to communicate with actually voted.

Republican strategist Peter Sheridan also participated in the meeting.