By Shlomo Schorr
New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, the only incumbent Governor in the country to face re-election this year, will face off against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli following the latter’s victory in Tuesday’s 4-way primary.
Ciattarelli, a former state Assemblyman and businessman, beat back two Trump-aligned candidates who split that faction of the vote as well as another candidate who had very little to none name recognition.
While Ciattarelli may have coasted to an easy victory on Tuesday, his next challenge will be a lot tougher.
Murphy, who faced no challengers on the Democratic side, is looking to become the first Democratic incumbent Governor of New Jersey to win re-election in the Garden State since Brendan Byrne in 1977.
In his victory speech Tuesday, Ciattarelli, described himself as the opposite of Murphy, a Massachusetts native who has lived in Middletown with his family for more than 20 years.
“Here’s Phil Murphy’s problem: He wasn’t raised here, never went to school here, never owned a business here,” Ciattarelli said. “He’s somebody else. I’m you. … He’s not New Jersey. And in January 2022, he’s not our governor.”
But to be successful in pushing out Murphy, Ciattarelli will have a steep hill to climb. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll published last week found Murphy leading Ciattarelli by 26 percentage points, while 52% of New Jersey voters said they don’t even know who Ciattarelli is.
In addition, there are now nearly one million more registered Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey, with the party having added more than 200,000 in the last several years.
In a statement released moments after the polls closed Tuesday night, Murphy said New Jersey has “made tremendous progress” over the last three and a half years “to build a stronger, fairer, and more resilient state not just for today, but for generations to come.”
“The choice in November is clear,” Murphy said. “We can either keep New Jersey moving forward or go backward. It’s a choice between standing for higher wages or going back to an economy that only worked for the wealthy and well-connected. It’s a choice to defend reproductive rights under threat from the U.S. Supreme Court or put political ideology over health care. It’s a choice to make education better and more affordable, from pre-K to college, or a state that only works for the few and not for all.”
In addition to the gubernatorial race, all 120 seats in the state Legislature will be on the ballot in November as well.
