Copyright New York Post
Recent Republican gains among New Jersey’s Latino and Hispanic voters evaporated in this year’s gubernatorial race, helping propel Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill to victory and sending a major warning signal to the GOP ahead of next year’s midterms. Hispanic and Latino voters in the Garden State favored Sherrill by more than two-to-one (68% to 31%), according to an exit poll commissioned by NBC News. By contrast, President Trump only lost the nationwide demographic by five percentage points (51% to 46%) to Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election, with some Hispanic-majority towns in New Jersey shifting toward the Republican ticket by up to 33 percentage points. On Tuesay, however, three of the state’s most heavily Hispanic counties — Cumberland, Hudson, and Passaic — swung left by 7.9 percentage points, 22 percentage points, and 18 percentage points, respectively. “I think they’re saying, ‘We can go in either direction based on whether we feel our needs are being served.’ They heard [Sherrill’s] affordability message,” Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, told The Post. “Sometimes we think ethnic voters need to hear an ethnic appeal,” he continued. “But you know what Sometimes they just need to hear [about] the same stuff that’s bothering everybody, whether it’s the economy or whether it’s inflation or whether it’s utility prices.” Passaic County, which is 45% Hispanic, backed former President Joe Biden by 16 points in 2020, outgoing Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy by four points in 2021, and Trump by three points last year. On Tuesday, Passaic went for Sherrill by 15 points. In New Jersey municipalities that are more than 60% Hispanic, Sherrill completely wiped out the gains Trump made in 2024 — and in many cases, built on Murphy’s margin in 2021. “In this area, there is no fault to be found in the Ciattarelli campaign,” said Alex Wilkes, a New Jersey-based GOP consultant who worked for Ciattarelli’s 2021 gubernatorial bid. “This was a campaign that went into large Hispanic neighborhoods, made partnerships, built real relationships over the last four years. It clearly just didn’t translate on Election Day.” Prominent Hispanic and Latino Republicans warned that future election days won’t go much better for the GOP if things don’t change. “Hispanics that helped deliver a tremendous victory to President Trump are slipping away, right under our own watch,” Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) observed on X. “Last night, in New Jersey and Virginia, Hispanics swung more than 25 points to the LEFT. Those states are swing states only if you bring Hispanics to the GOP.” Former Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) was more dramatic, warning that without investing in the Hispanic community, “the future of the Republican Party is at risk.” New Jersey-based GOP strategist Jeannate Hoffman suggested that Ciattarelli faced one major obstacle he didn’t four years ago: With Democrats the out-party in Washington and Trump off the ballot, their voters were more fired up to turn out and make a statement about the GOP administration’s actions. “Trump wasn’t at the top of the ticket,” Hoffman pointed out. “Certainly, now, the immigration policies could be having a negative effect when we’re talking about ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids on a lot of those communities.” Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Farleigh Dickinson University and executive director of the FDU Poll, argued it was too early to tell whether the leftward shift among Hispanics was a blip or a sign of a more substantial pendulum swing. “My sense is, what’s going on is much more about turnout than it is about persuasion, because the turnout in those areas was severely depressed in both ’21 and ’24,” he said. “I’m not sure there’s much of any persuasion going on.” Cassino added that Trump is a figure who drives “thermostatic” shifts in public opinion, meaning “whenever the government goes one way, the public goes the other.” “I think that’s what we saw [Tuesday night],” he added.
