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For information on submitting an obituary, please contact Reading Eagle by phone at 610-371-5018, or email at obituaries@readingeagle.com or fax at 610-371-5193. Most obituaries published in the Reading Eagle are submitted through funeral homes and cremation services, but we will accept submissions from families. Obituaries can be emailed to obituaries@readingeagle.com. In addition to the text of the obituary, any photographs that you wish to include can be attached to this email. Please put the text of the obituary in a Word document, a Google document or in the body of the email. The Reading Eagle also requires a way to verify the death, so please include either the phone number of the funeral home or cremation service that is in charge of the deceased's care or a photo of his/her death certificate. We also request that your full name, phone number and address are all included in this email. All payments by families must be made with a credit card. We will send a proof of the completed obituary before we require payment. The obituary cannot run, however, until we receive payment in full. Obituaries can be submitted for any future date, but they must be received no later than 3:00 p.m. the day prior to its running for it to be published. Please call the obituary desk, at 610-371-5018, for information on pricing. TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey voters are electing their next governor Tuesday in a race that will reveal whether Democrats maintain their grip on a state that has been reliably blue but has shown signs of shifting toward Republicans in recent years. Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator endorsed by President Donald Trump, is trying to become New Jersey’s first Republican governor since 2018. He faces U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat in her fourth term in Congress who would become the state’s second female governor if elected. The outcome could gauge how the electorate is responding to Trump’s policies and whether some groups of core Democratic Party voters still have faith in the party’s leadership. Ciattarelli, 63, is running for governor for the third time. He lost a Republican primary in 2017, then narrowly lost the general election in 2021 to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who is term-limited. This time, he has cast the election as an opportunity for voters to oust Democrats who have controlled both the governor’s office and the state Legislature for nearly eight years. He’s touted his background as a business owner with deep roots in the state and experience as a state and local elected official. He says his close relationship with Trump will help New Jersey. “Make no mistake. We cannot afford another four years of Phil Murphy’s failed policies,” Ciattarelli said during a rally earlier in the campaign. Sherrill, 53, built her campaign around pushing back against Trump. She recently seized on the administration’s decision to abruptly freeze funding for a multibillion-dollar project to replace the aging rail tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York City beneath the Hudson River. “This is what we’re fighting for in this country — to make sure that we have a president who has to follow the law,” she said. Sherrill also has leaned into her biography, which includes serving as a U.S. Navy officer and helicopter pilot and working as a prosecutor. She cast Ciattarelli as someone who would go along with Trump’s actions no matter what. If elected, Sherrill would join Christine Todd Whitman, who served from 1994 to 2001, as the state’s only female governors. In last year’s presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris won New Jersey, but Trump shaved his margin of loss significantly, shifting Hispanic voters toward him. The Democrats’ registration edge has eroded in recent years. Ciattarelli has walked a fine line on Trump, praising him and giving the president an “A” grade, but he’s also campaigned to attract Hispanic voters. While he has said he supports the president’s effort to end birthright citizenship, he’s also talked about a “pathway to recognition,” and giving driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers to immigrants who are in the country illegally but do not have a criminal record. That puts him at odds with the Trump administration’s current policies. Ciattarelli has not explained what he means by a “pathway to recognition.” New Jersey already issues driver’s licenses to some immigrants in the country illegally and the federal government issues Social Security numbers. With a close race possible, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would monitor polling sites in Passaic County, a former Democratic stronghold that Trump won in 2024. New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, called the monitoring program “highly inappropriate” after it was requested by the state Republican Party. Sherrill and Ciattarelli debated two times and have been crisscrossing the state, meeting voters at diners and leaning on surrogates to get their messages out. Democratic governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Wes Moore of Maryland, as well as former President Barack Obama, all came to New Jersey to rally voters for Sherrill. Trump campaigned for Ciattarelli in telephone rallies and has been urging voters to back the Republican, saying he would “rapidly” bring energy and other costs down, without specifying how. Also on the ballot are all 80 seats in the state Assembly, which Democrats control 52-28.
