Double-edged sword of Trump cut New Jersey Republicans down to size

The New Jersey gubernatorial election was supposed to be a razor-thin race. It was to be the silver lining against two predictable Democratic victories in Virginia and New York City. Instead, Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill crushed Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 13 points, 56% to 43%. In the days to come we will analyze the results and pore over demographics, but as a person who has been involved in Jersey politics for several decades, and served as chair of a Republican county party, we have to acknowledge mistakes if we are going to win.

Terminating the Gateway project in the middle of a gubernatorial election will go down as one of the worst mistakes in political history. President Donald Trump is, and has been, the double-edged sword. Ciattarelli needed more of his voters to turn out, and Sherrill used Trump as the boogeyman to turn out democrats.

During Fox News election night coverage, anchor Martha MacCallum noted, "When you look at President Trump’s numbers in 2024 in New Jersey he was able to turn five counties solidly red and those counties did not follow that pattern with Jack Ciattarelli and it raises question, if it’s not Trump on the ballot, can you move the ball in some of these red districts?" The answer is a hard no.

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Trump voters vote for Trump. They don't vote for other Republicans. I joined Dana Perino for her "Perino on Politics" podcast and said that if we wake up Wednesday morning and the low-propensity Trump voters stayed home, it will be Gov.-elect Sherrill. Trump did two tele-rallies for Ciattarelli but would an in-person Trump rally have helped get those voters to turn out? Personally, I think it would have helped, but perhaps I have tunnel vision.

On Oct. 14, Trump announced the termination of the Gateway project, a multibillion-dollar commuter rail project. Sherrill was able to use this cancellation as a major line of attack in northern New Jersey, where hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans commute to New York and spend hours in brutal traffic. If the Democrats had voted to reopen the government, that issue would have been off the table, but it was a mistake to terminate the project in the middle of a gubernatorial election.

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Did Republicans have tunnel vision and not see that voters were angry and blaming them for the cancellation of a project that would make their commute easier? Back to the double-edged sword. If Ciattarelli had attacked Trump over the issue, even more Trump voters would have stayed home. Either way, it gave Sherrill a strong line of attack in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Sherrill said she would freeze electricity rates on day one. Even Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy conceded it was a fantasy, saying, "I’m not sure how you’d actually do that." Regardless, it’s a simple message and people think, great, my rates won’t go up.

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When asked at the town hall hosted by Sean Hannity what the first thing he would do as governor, Ciattarelli said he would sign an executive order ending sanctuary cities. While that message was necessary to turn out the low-propensity Trump voters, it clearly should not have been the first action as governor. First and foremost, people were looking for economic relief. Back to the double-edged sword.

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Highly respected polls that accurately predicted the presidential race in 2024 said this race was within the margin of error. AtlasIntel, which says, "AtlastIntel was the most accurate pollster of the US Presidential Election 2nd time in a row, both at the national level and in key swing states," released a poll on Oct. 31, saying, "The New Jersey governor race is close. The scenario below shows Mikie Sherrill (D) leading Jack Ciattarelli (R) by only 0.9pp – a difference within the margin of error."

As a former Republican Party county chairman and strategist, I can clearly say that we need additional methods to assess how voters are feeling because polling drives the message. We also have to figure out how the betting markets can be so right when some polls are so wrong.

There will be more to say but the double-edged sword struck hard and now the New Jersey Republican Party will be torn apart. The only question is whether New Jersey is truly a blue state or would a stronger embrace of President Trump have turned the tide Ciattarelli’s way? If he had announced he had talked to Trump and got the funding restored for the tunnel, would that have changed everything? It is hard to see how anything could have made up the 13% gap, but better polling might have helped redirect the message to one New Jerseyans actually cared about.