Former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli on Tuesday won the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in this year’s race for New Jersey governor, triumphing over a pair of unabashedly pro-Donald Trump opponents in a four-way GOP primary.
The 59-year-old Ciattarelli — a more traditional Republican who promises to lower taxes and once called Trump a “charlatan” — easily beat pastor Phil Rizzo, engineer Hirsh Singh, and former Franklin Mayor Brian Levine, according to projections by the Associated Press, which called the race at about 9:45 p.m.
Ciattarelli, a lifelong Somerset County resident who has painted himself as the opposite of the wealthy, Massachusetts-born incumbent, will now face Murphy in the Nov. 2 general election.
Murphy, a former Wall Street executive and U.S. ambassador to Germany who returned the governor’s office to his party after eight years of Republican Gov. Chris Christie, ran unopposed for the Democratic nod Tuesday as he vies for a second term.
“Here’s Phil Murphy’s problem: He wasn’t raised here, never went to school here, never owned a business here,” Ciattarelli told supporters in his victory speech at a banquet hall in Somerset. “He’s somebody else. I’m you. I mean, have you seen this guy eat pizza?”
(That’s an apparent reference to this tweet.)
”He’s not New Jersey,” CiattarellI added about Murphy, who has lived in Middletown with his family for more than 20 years. “And in January 2022, he’s not our governor.”
”How about we elect a Jersey guy?” the former lawmaker asked.
MORE: Murphy officially wins Democratic nomination as he runs for 2nd term
Rizzo and Singh both ran as fervent Trump supporters in a primary that was shaded heavily by the former president’s lingering influence on the Republican Party, despite polls showing he’s deeply unpopular in the blue-leaning Garden State.
But Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by local party leaders across the state, ended up scoring close about 49% of the vote, according to the AP, and carried all 21 counties.
The results suggest had only one pro-Trump candidate been in the race, it might have been closer. Rizzo drew about 26% and Singh 22%. Levine got 3%.
Denying Murphy re-election is expected to be an uphill battle for Ciattarelli, who is running his second campaign for governor. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll published Tuesday found Murphy leading Ciattarelli by 26 percentage points, while 52% of New Jersey voters don’t know who Ciattarelli is.
Ciattarelli is a former accountant and the former owner of a medical publishing company who served as a Raritan Borough councilman, a Somerset County freeholder, and then a member of the Assembly from 2011-18. He finished second to then-Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno in the 2017 Republican primary for governor. (Guadagno wound up losing to Murphy in the general election.)
Ciattarelli got a jump this time, launching his campaign in January 2020, nearly two years before voters cast their final votes for governor.
“Jack Ciattarelli is exactly the kind of fighter Garden Staters need to get the state headed in the right direction again,” Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement Tuesday. “After years of ineffective tax and spend policies from Phil Murphy, I know Jack will work hard to make it once again easily achievable for New Jersey families, senior citizens and small businesses to prosper.”
Ciattarelli on Tuesday repeated a vow many New Jersey Republicans have made throughout the years: He’ll work to lower the state’s notoriously high property taxes and revamp its tax code. He also attacked Murphy, an avowed progressive, for being too far-left and for his management of the coronavirus pandemic, while also noting the governor has been hounded by investigations into his administration’s handling of a rape allegation and patronage hires.
”He will do everything possible to distract you from his failed record,” Ciattarelli said. “Come hell or high water, we will make New Jersey more affordable by lowering property taxes. We will create jobs. We will bring Main Street small business back to life. We will reduce the size and cost of government. New Jersey, we can do better.”
Murphy has pushed the state in a more progressive direction the last four years, signing laws to raise the minimum wage, institute equal pay, guarantee sick pay, tighten gun control, and install a millionaires tax. His campaign has already painted Ciattarelli as having extreme conservative policies on guns, abortion, and more, while hammering him over any pro-Trump comments and stances, despite his relatively moderate record in the Assembly.
“The choice in November is clear,” Murphy said in a statement Tuesday, without mentioning Ciattarelli by name. “We can either keep New Jersey moving forward or go backward.”
MORE: Live primary election results for N.J. governor, Senate, Assembly, county and municipal races
New Jersey and Virginia are the only states with governor’s races this year and are the first major races after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, unseated Trump, a Republican. Thus, the races are seen as possible bellwethers for next year’s midterm congressional elections.
Ciattarelli’s path the Republican nomination appeared to get easier in January, when former state Republican Party chairman Doug Steinhardt — another pro-Trump contender — abruptly dropped out of the primary. But Ciattarelli still faced a conundrum in Trump, who remains popular among many Republicans even in New Jersey.
In 2015, he called then-candidate Trump a “charlatan” who was embarrassing America and was “not fit to be president.” Ciattarelli, however, appeared at Trump’s political rally in Wildwood in January 2020 and said the then-president “earned my support” with policies that have “worked for us on a national level.”
Singh cast Ciattarelli as a an anti-Trump, career politician. Ciattarelli countered by labeling Singh a liar who had no significant fundraising record and lost numerous elections in recent years.
Both Singh and Rizzo also repeated unfounded claims that Trump actually won the 2020 election. Ciattarelli acknowledged Biden won.
Despite the pro-Trump heat, Ciattarelli was always considered the favorite for the Republican nod. He had endorsements from all 21 county parties and a major fundraising advantage, outspending his three opponents by five times.
On Tuesday, Ciattarelli didn’t mention Trump by name but declared himself ”an Abraham Lincoln Republican“ — “one who believes in tolerance, mutual respect, and the power and beauty of diversity.”
Still, Democratic Governors Association Executive Director Noam Lee said in a statement Tuesday that Ciattarelli has “managed to crawl into the general election.”
“Ciattarelli spent the primary running scared in an attempt to win over the far-right and now heads into November as an extreme candidate who’s out of touch with New Jersey values,” Lee said.
In a speech Tuesday night, Murphy said ”truth is on the ballot“ in November.
“We make decisions based on the truth,” he said. “Look at the debates the other side of the aisle was having at this Republican gubernatorial primary. These folks made decisions based on a pack of lies, made on myths, or they put their finger in the air and see which way the political winds are blowing.”
New Jersey has a history of electing Republicans governor. No Democrat has been re-elected to the job since Brendan Byrne in 1977 (though voters went for Democratic gubernatorial candidates in consecutive elections in 2001 and 2005.) Three Republicans — Tom Kean, Christie Whitman, and Chris Christie — have been re-elected in that time.
But there are now nearly one million more registered Democrats than Republicans in the Garden State, with the party having added more than 200,000 in recent years thanks in part to backlash against Trump. Still, the largest bloc in the state is unaffiliated voters, at nearly 2.4 million.
The question now is if Ciattarelli can unify pro- and anti-Trump Republican voters as he takes on Murphy. He’ll likely need all of them, plus a good portion of unaffiliated voters, to win.
Ciattarelli also has the shadow of Christie, even though he was often critical of the Republican governor during his time in Trenton. Christie continues to have low approval ratings among New Jerseyans, according to a recent Monmouth University Poll.
“This campaign isn’t going to be easy,” Ciattarelli said Tuesday night. “It’s going to be hard. Real hard. And that’s OK by me.”
MORE: Ciattarelli wastes no time slamming Murphy after winning GOP primary: ‘He’s not New Jersey!’
Ciattarelli also slammed Murphy for telling NJ Advance Media on the eve of taking office in 2018 that he wanted to remold New Jersey in the image of left-leaning California.
”This out-of-touch governor has the audacity and the arrogance to say he wants to make New Jersey the California of the East Coast,” Ciattarelli said. “Are you kidding me? Who says that? We’re New Jersey, and if that’s what Phil Murphy wants, then he should move to California.”
“Here’s what I want, here’s what you want, here’s what New Jersey wants: Fix the damn state,” Ciattarelli added. “I’m here to fix New Jersey.”
A number of third-party and independent candidates have also filed to run for governor: Gregg Melee of the Libertarian Party; Madelyn Hoffman of the Green Party; Joanne Kuniansky of the Socialist Workers Party; and Edward Forchion, also known as “NJ Weedman.”
Former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, enters the polling booth at the Hillsborough Municipal Building during the GOP primary Tuesday.Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for
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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.