Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
This article is the second in a two-part series on the campaign trail with the candidates for New Jersey governor. Read our story on Mikie Sherrill here. It’s Columbus Day in Rocco’s Town House in Hammonton, N.J. Italian flags line the room along with a buffet of sausage and peppers, a variety of cannoli, and a hoagie named after Jack Ciattarelli. The Republican nominee for New Jersey governor is spending the day darting between events in Burlington and Atlantic Counties as he searches for red votes in the blue-leaning state. Queen’s “We Are the Champions” blares on the speakers. It’s an anthem about victory, but Ciattarelli, 63, whose past two runs for governor came up short, has an uncertain path heading into Election Day. It’s also a song about paying your dues — something Ciattarelli is trying to do with South Jersey voters. “Here’s one of the big differences between me and my opponent: I know where the hell Hammonton is,” the Republican nominee told a crowd of laughing supporters at a bar in the South Jersey Italian enclave. It’s one of his signature lines of attack against Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill as he visits towns throughout the state and tells voters “no candidate” has been to their area as much as he has — even as Sherrill also crisscrosses through the region. The message appears to be resonating in South Jersey, where voters often say they feel they are forgotten by politicians in favor of the more populous New York suburbs farther north. Ciattarelli has been working to convince voters in this part of the state he’s different — and he needs them to overperform on Nov. 4 to pull off an upset in the Democratic-leaning state in a year when Donald Trump’s presidency could be a drag on Republicans. Despite GOP gains, Democrats have a statewide advantage of roughly 850,000 registered voters. Sherrill has consistently led in public polling, albeit in single digits. Many more Democrats have returned mail ballots, which is to be expected. But early in-person voting numbers have also been relatively low for Republicans, though more are showing up prior to Election Day than in the past. Ciattarelli needs a big turnout on Election Day in places like Hammonton to close the gap. Louie Pantalone, a Hammonton community leader and business owner, said Ciattarelli is the first statewide candidate to pay enough attention to the area since former Gov. Jim Florio, a Democrat elected in 1989. Florio was the first Italian American governor of New Jersey and the last governor from South Jersey. “The Italians have a passion, and the passion is always to do what’s right for people. No matter what, you do what’s right,” Pantalone said. “Jack’s that man.” The former state Assembly member’s strength as a candidate, his supporters say, is his ability to connect with voters in pockets all over the state who feel they have been left behind. It’s a skill he has been honing for nearly a decade. But he has not been successful yet, losing the Republican primary in 2017 and coming up short against Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy by 3 percentage points in 2021. The five counties south of Camden all went for Ciattarelli in 2021 and they went for Trump in the presidential race last year, making turnout in the region crucial for Ciattarelli’s campaign strategy. Three of those counties — Cumberland, Atlantic, and Gloucester — had gone for Murphy in 2017 and Biden in 2020. “South Jersey has moved incredibly rapidly to the right over the past eight to 10 years,” Ciattarelli’s deputy campaign manager Nick Poche said after attendees poured out of a high-energy rally at Geets Diner & Bar in Williamstown, Gloucester County, on Tuesday night, a week from Election Day. But will the enthusiasm for Ciattarelli — and Trump — in South Jersey, the Jersey Shore, and other red-leaning regions be enough to overcome the backlash the president’s brand is facing elsewhere in the state, especially in the populous New York suburbs? Ciattarelli’s closer-than-expected finish four years ago came when former President Joe Biden was in the White House and facing fallout over inflation. The cost of living is again the dominant issue in this year’s election, but this time around it’s Republicans who control Washington and are weathering the backlash. Trump’s support helped elevate Ciattarelli in the GOP primary, but it could sink him in the general election as Sherrill banks on tying him to Trump, who has a low approval rating in the state. New Jersey has not elected the same party to a third term for the governorship since 1961, but Republicans have not won the office while their party has held the White House since 1985. Ciattarelli’s team insists he has a shot. Even as Sherrill leads in the race, polling has shown that Ciattarelli’s supporters are more enthusiastic than hers — a dynamic that is often on display at his South Jersey campaign events, when supporters surround the Republican asking for photos and autographs. Poche, who worked as Ciattarelli’s South Jersey regional political director in 2021, said his supporters are more amped up this year. Ciattarelli also never went away, visiting communities up and down the state since the 2021 election. He pointed to the reaction the candidate received during a coffee run in Woodbridge Township two months before the election that rose to the level of excitement the campaign didn’t see until the week before Election Day last time around. “He’s walking out of his car and into the coffee shop, and all of a sudden, people on the street start beeping their horns and being like, ‘Go Jack!’ … I mean, the energy is truly different this time around.” Trump’s impact on the race On Oct. 1 in Haddon Township, protesters lined the road across from a Ciattarelli event at Reunion Hall, holding signs opposing Ciattarelli and Trump. Still, it was easy to walk right into the restaurant and wade through the crowd to hear Ciattarelli’s speech in a fenced-in back area, as he charmed the crowd with jokes. The protesters were background noise as he argued the demonstration showed the difference between the two parties. “They’re about division,” he said, using rhetoric similar to Trump’s. ”We’re about unity." Also like Trump, Ciattarelli relies on humor on the stump, generating laughs as he spoke about his mother dishing out discipline with a wooden spoon when he was a kid. “One time she broke it on my brother and I was laughing. She went down, got the other one, took it out on me,” he told the crowd. “I turned out OK, didn’t I?” Ciattarelli emulates the president with his unfiltered style, but he only recently converted to the MAGA movement. Hecalled Trump a “charlatan” unfit to be president in 2015, then largely avoided the topic during his 2021 run. But now, Ciattarelli’s events attract attendees decked out in Trump gear. Ciattarelli handily won the June primary after the president endorsed him, saying he is ”100% (PLUS!)” MAGA. Ciattarelli gave Trump an A rating on the debate stage and has attacked Sherrill for voting against the president’s “big, beautiful bill,” which extends income tax cuts but also reduced funding for Medicaid. The president has met with Ciattarelli at his Bedminster golf club, held tele-rallies on behalf on his campaign, and, in a rant about Sherrill on Truth Social, said that Ciattarelli calls him “constantly.” Ciattarelli’s embrace of Trump could cost him with unaffiliated voters, whose support he desperately needs to make up for Democrats’ registration advantage, said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics. Ciattarelli has not drawn a clear enough line between himself and the president, which could be a strategic blunder, Rasmussen argued. “He’s gone out of his way to present the sense that he’s with Trump 100% of the time, and he hasn’t struck out those areas of principal difference,” he said. Ciattarelli has mentioned only a few issues when asked where he breaks from Trump, such as using a local military base to house detained immigrants and claims about Tylenol. And over the summer, he said he didn’t disagree with the president on anything. Sherrill has relentlessly focused on tying Ciattarelli to Trump, but the GOP nominee argues that Democrats’ concerns about Trump have “nothing to do” with the local issues Jersey voters care about. “If you get a flat tire today, she’s blaming President Trump,” Ciattarelli told the crowd in Haddon Township, the protesters barely audible behind him. “If anything bad happens to you, it’s President Trump.” Ciattarelli’s supporters say the candidate — who refers to himself as a “Jersey guy” — has kept his focus on state-level issues. “The politics are local,” said Michael Torrissi Jr., a Republican Assembly member and Trump ally from Hammonton who represents parts of Atlantic and Burlington Counties. “We don’t care what’s going on nationally in New Jersey. Everybody wants to know: Can I pay my bills this week?” Whether that’s true could decide Ciattarelli’s fate Tuesday. Ashley Koning, the director of Rutgers University’s Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, said Trump in the White House could lose the governorship for Ciattarelli despite his yearslong focus on the economy and property taxes and his knack for talking about Jersey-specific issues, all of which go in his favor. Trump‘s administration is the “most damaging thing to him, and the thing that really puts a dent in his armor,” Koning said, noting that Ciattarelli needs the support of moderate voters, who give Trump subpar ratings. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll released last week shows that more than half of voters view Trump unfavorably, but nearly half view Murphy unfavorably. Ciattarelli calls Sherrill “Murphy 2.0.″ Sherrill has tried to distance herself from the governor on certain issues and gave him a B rating at the debate. The change candidate? As more than half of likely voters say the state is headed in the wrong direction, according to the Rutgers poll, Ciattarelli and his supporters argue he can bring change after eight years of a Democratic governor and 25 years of a Democratic-controlled legislature. “Jack at the top of the ticket brings energy to get people out, because they know that change is coming,” said Brandon Umba, a former Republican legislator running for the South Jersey seat he lost in the 2023 election. Joseph Bucs, the Springfield Township Republican Party chair and a state committee member representing Burlington County in the New Jersey GOP, said voters are tired of “one-party rule” in Trenton as they grapple with issues like affordability and parental control in schools. “I think Jack’s on the right side of those issues for a lot of people,” he said. Denis McDaniel, the former Springfield Township mayor, supports Ciattarelli’s stance against “sprawling development” and resists Democratic efforts to increase affordable housing throughout the state, calling it inefficient and unfriendly to rural areas. Ciattarelli has embraced this frustration on the trail, holding a news conference at a farm in Cranbury that was at risk of being seized for affordable housing. Ciattarelli says he will stop the “overdevelopment” of the Garden State and push affordable housing into cities. “Mikie Sherrill will bring us the status quo, which is totally unsatisfactory,” McDaniel said. McDaniel doesn’t support Trump but said it doesn’t bother him that Ciattarelli has leaned into the MAGA movement, noting “there are political realities that people running for governor have to deal with.” One of those realities is riling up a crowd, which, much like Trump, Ciattarelli knows how to do. At Geets Diner & Bar on Tuesday night, Ciattarelli said Sherrill’s campaign is based largely on “her disdain for the president and that she can fly a helicopter,“ taking a dig at her emphasis on her Navy experience. The crowd roared with excitement, waving American flags and chanting: “Jack! Jack! Jack!” At the previous stop in Cherry Hill, a supporter brought a plastic bag to hold for a photo with Ciattarelli. Supporters at these South Jersey stops feel aggrieved by Trenton. Ciattarelli is hoping their anger can fuel an upset on Tuesday. “Jack has made very, very clear that they’re not second-class citizens in his administration,” said Chris Russell, Ciattarelli’s campaign strategist. “They’re going to have a real seat at the table, and in this case … can be the determining factor in electing a governor.” During his Columbus Day campaign swing, Ciattarelli signed T-shirts with the slogan “Mikie Sherrill don’t know JACK CHIT!” at the Corner House Tavern in Columbus. His staffers struggled to get him out the door as supporters begged for photos. One young man reached through the swarming crowd and grabbed the candidate’s arm as his mother pushed him forward for a photo. Ciattarelli held his smile. After the event, Caroline Weber, a Seaside Park resident, said she supported Ciattarelli in 2021 but this time victory actually feels within reach. “I’m texting my daughter’s friends and saying, ‘Vote red, and if you’re blue, don’t vote,’” she said. “I think he won already,” she added. “You can’t think that,” Bruce Flynn, a Burlington County local, cut in from a barstool next to her. “Democrats are way overpowered in New Jersey,” he added. “We have to fight. … When you think it’s done, that’s when you get beat.”
