Bramnick Facebook ads feature mostly Bramnick

Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) has spent $1,326 on seven Facebook ads boosting his re-election campaign so far this week, but only one includes the name of his running mate, Nancy Muñoz (R-Summit).

That ad touts the New Jersey Education Association endorsement of the two incumbent Union County legislators: “Jon Bramnick and Nancy Muñoz are endorsed by our teachers because they fight for our public schools.”

Two of Bramnick’s Facebook ads seek to “stop higher taxes” and “cap state spending,” while two more say that “Phil Murphy is raising millions of dollars to push a tax and spend agenda in Trenton.”

“Don’t sit back and watch,” Bramnick says.

Bramnick is also plugging two TV ads that don’t mention Munoz.

At least seven waves of Bramnick mail don’t include his running mate.

Both incumbents are battling to keep their seats in the increasingly Democratic 21st legislative district, where voter registration has shifted away from the Republicans since the district was drawn in 2011.

Munoz, an assemblywoman since 2009 and the current Minority Whip, was re-elected in 2017 by 1,554 votes.  Bramnick ran 1,010 votes ahead of her.

After legislative districts were redrawn following the 2010 census, the 21st had 4,357 more Republicans than Democrats.  Now the district has 5,021 more Democrats than Republicans, up from 4,796 just one month ago.

In addition to Democrats Lisa Mandelblatt and Stacey Gunderman, the Republican incumbents face two conservatives running as pro-Donald Trump conservatives: former Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks and Harry P. Pappas, a former Union County Democratic Chairman in the 1970s who served as a Republican on the Springfield Township Committee in the 1990s.