Former President Donald Trump is coming to the Shore town of Wildwood tomorrow for a presidential rally – and to hear him tell it, it could be the precursor to a colossal New Jersey upset in this November’s election.
“We’re going to try and win the state of New Jersey,” Trump said this morning on Bill Spadea’s radio show. “I want the people to know that I love it. You know, it’s not just going to be like, gee, maybe we can get close. We’re going to win it.”
One’s mileage may differ on whether that’s a realistic prediction or fanciful bluster; after all, Trump lost the Garden to Joe Biden 57%-41% in 2020. But by virtue of his mere presence in Wildwood, Trump will be putting New Jersey in the political spotlight – and according to Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, signaling to Democrats that he doesn’t plan to let them win the state without a fight.
“I think that to the extent that they can telegraph the message that they’re competing everywhere, maybe they feel that broadening the map is an effective strategy,” Rasmussen said. “It may not be that they think they can win New Jersey, but they’re going to force Democrats to pay some attention to New Jersey. I don’t think it’s a completely futile investment of their time.”
A spokesperson for the Biden campaign pushed back on that logic, saying that while Trump is free to waste his time in solid blue states like New Jersey, they’ll be continuing to build up infrastructure in battleground states like Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona.
“Here on Planet Earth, in the Biden campaign, we’re going to remain laser-focused on the pathway to 270 electoral votes,” Biden communications director Michael Tyler said. “We are focused on communicating directly with the voters who are actually going to decide this presidential election.”
It’s not just New Jerseyans, though, who are likely to flock to Wildwood tomorrow. The southern reaches of the Jersey Shore are typically where a huge number of Pennsylvanians spend their summer weekends, and their votes are critical to determining who the next President of the United States will be.
Trump himself has close ties to New Jersey via his golf club in Bedminster, where he has spent much of his time both during and after his presidency, and via his troubled attempts to set up a casino empire in Atlantic City. And one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) – who famously defected from the Democratic Party in 2019 in protest of the first Trump impeachment – is Trump’s New Jersey campaign chairman and the de facto host of tomorrow’s rally.
“President Trump has New Jersey in his heart,” Van Drew, who lives a few towns over from Wildwood in Cape May County, told the New Jersey Globe earlier this week. “This is a real thing with him. And he wants to win New Jersey. He spends half his time in New Jersey! He knows people in New Jersey; he’s got friends in New Jersey, family in New Jersey, investments in New Jersey. He really cares about this state, and he wants to win it.”
Two other people who will be in attendance at the rally are the GOP’s two leading contenders for the U.S. Senate, Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner and hotelier Curtis Bashaw.
Both Serrano Glassner and Bashaw are supporting Trump for president, but they took different paths to get there. Serrano Glassner, whose husband Michael Glassner is a longtime Trump campaign advisor, has been loudly pro-Trump since the beginning of her campaign; Bashaw, on the other hand, spent many years as a Never Trump Republican before having something of a change of heart for this year’s election.
“Curtis is excited to be there and looking forward to helping President Trump rally our united Republican base this Saturday,” Bashaw spokesperson Jeanette Hoffman said of tomorrow’s rally. “He looks forward to working with the former President to take back NJ and our country in November from the entrenched DC Democrats who’ve failed New Jerseyans on every major issue, from the open border to the weakened Biden economy.”
Bashaw has dramatically more money than Serrano Glassner and is running on the line in a majority of counties across the state, making him the presumptive frontrunner for the GOP nomination. If Trump were to make an endorsement of Serrano Glassner, though, that could turn the entire race around.
“Christine will be there [at the rally] – and like most Republicans not named Curtis Bashaw she’d be proud to receive President Trump’s endorsement,” a Serrano Glassner spokesperson said.
She probably shouldn’t be counting on one coming tomorrow, though. Van Drew, Trump’s sherpa for New Jersey politics, has known Bashaw, a fellow Cape May County denizen, for years; Van Drew is staying out of the Senate primary, and may advise Trump to do the same. And without a Trump endorsement, or at least a positive shout-out, Serrano Glassner’s campaign is likely to be headed for defeat.
New Jersey Republicans aren’t the only ones who have taken notice of the rally, of course. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) held an event today castigating Trump’s return to New Jersey, and Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) will host a “Stand Up to Trump: New Jersey Day of Action” rally tomorrow.
“Obviously, he’s entitled to come, but I think it’s an affront to our state and the values that we have in New Jersey that he’s going to be here,” Pallone said today.
Sherrill, meanwhile, said she’s confident that regardless of what happens in Wildwood tomorrow, New Jersey is not and will never be Trump country.
“The only people he really cares about, other than himself, are his donors. He doesn’t care about the American people, and he doesn’t care about New Jerseyans,” the congresswoman said. “I don’t think he’s going to find much welcome here in the Garden State.”