How Trump and Jack Ciattarelli made gains in New Jersey taking two different paths
New Jersey is perhaps emerged as the marquee in the November elections, with new indications that the Republican candidate for Governor Jack Ciattarelli has a real chance of challenging the history of the folded partisan vote and out of the state.
An Emerson College / Pix11 / The Hill Surveying survey last week in Ciattarelli in a link of 43% to 43% with representative Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate. Sherrill found himself trying to repel the controversy linked to his military files and faces potential benefits of an announcement from Ciattarelli who shows a video of her who has trouble answering an apparently banal question in an interview.
That said, the New Jersey remains a blue condition. Other recent public inquiries still show Sherrill in mind. And in governors’ races, New Jersey voters have also shown a pronounced trend against the party controlling the White House.
This presents important obstacles for Ciattarelli, in particular with the Emerson survey giving President Donald Trump a 41% approval rating in the state. But the unpopularity of the Democrats who run Trenton can give him the means to compensate for this. In the same survey, the approval rating of the Democratic Governor Phil Murphy is only 35%.
The prospect of winning an upset victory is enticing for the Republicans after the progress they made during recent state competitions. In 2020, Joe Biden crushed Trump by 16 points in New Jersey. But the following year, Ciattarelli dropped only 3 points when he challenged Murphy. And last year, Trump lost 6 -point Kamala Harris – one of his biggest improvements across the country.
What is notable by looking at these past races is that the gains brought by Trump last year do not overlap with those that Ciattarelli achieved in 2021. Instead, everyone has reached surprising support levels in the areas where the other fought.
If we look at each municipality of the State and use Trump’s dubbing in 2020 as a reference, we note that there are 117 municipalities where Ciattarelli in 2021 improved this performance at least 10 points more than Trump last year. These municipalities tend to be white, rich and formed by the University than New Jersey as a whole.
Conversely, we also find 59 municipalities where the improvement of Trump in 2024 of Trump was that the baseline of 2020 was at least 10 points better than that of Ciattarelli in 2021. These places tend to be more densely populated, diversified and blue.
An example of the type of place where Ciattarelli has outperformed Trump would be the canton of Chatham, a suburb of New York suburb of around 10,000. He is full of white adults, a group with which Trump has fought since his first campaign. Trump lost Chatham in 19 points in 2020 and 15 last year. But Ciattarelli won it in 2021, beating Murphy by two points.
Obviously, Ciattarelli managed to win a large number of white voters who are allergic to Trump. But it is worth remembering that he did it when Trump was no longer president. Now that Trump is back according to, will these same voters be available for Ciattarelli? Or will they stay away from the GOP as a means of expressing their dissatisfaction with Trump?
At the other end of the scale, Union City represents the type of municipality where Trump has outdoed the most in Ciattarelli. Not far from the Hudson river and the city of New York, it is 82% Hispanic and a longtime democratic bastion. In 2020, Trump lost 45 points and in 2021, Ciattarelli was crushed by 70. But last year, Trump reduced the democratic advantage up to 17 points.
The success of the Union City of Trump was one of the broader national gains which he made among the Hispanic voters in 2024 – including much younger voters who tend not to participate in non -presidential elections. It is questionable how much, if necessary, this success is reproducible for a non-trump republican which presents itself in an out of year election.
Obviously, Ciattarelli was close to the victory of his last campaign. But he needs more. A key question is whether it can draw at least one Trump advantage in places like Union City – without losing ground in places like Catham because of Trump.
