Former New Jersey State Rep. Jack Ciattarelli told Newsmax on Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump's narrow loss in November in the Garden State and other trends are favoring the GOP heading into this year's gubernatorial election.
Trump lost New Jersey in November by 5.9 percentage points, the best performance by a Republican presidential candidate in the state since George W. Bush lost by 6.7 to John Kerry in 2004.
New Jersey Republicans outpaced Democrats by a more than a 2-to-1 margin on voter registration in 2024, the New Jersey Globe reported Monday. Republicans have consistently outpaced Democrats in voter registration every month since Joe Biden took office. According to the New Jersey Division of Elections, the total number of voters increased by 244,598 in 2024, including 37,519 Democrats, 95,784 Republicans, and 112,115 unaffiliated voters.
It could bode well for the GOP as Ciattarelli seeks again to unseat Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy, who narrowly defeated Ciattarelli by 3.2 percentage points in 2021.
"This really isn't a deep blue state, at least not when it's come to gubernatorial elections," Ciattarelli told "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "Going into '21, we had won 6 of the last 10 races. We're now 6 for 11. We're going [to go] 7 for 12. Thirty-eight months in a row, new Republican registrations have outpaced new Democratic registrations.
"We were the spark that lit the fuse back in '21 with that very close race, Trump did phenomenally well [in November]. Despite the loss this past Election Day, people have had it.
"They've had it with being the most overtaxed people in the nation. They've had it with a lack of public safety because our governor and our attorney general [Democrat Matt Platkin] don't support local police. And they've had it with what's going on in public education," he said.
"Those are all the reasons why people are registering Republican and leaning right."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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