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New Jersey’s GOP Primary Week in Review: Trump, Trump, and More Trump

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New Jersey’s GOP Primary Week in Review: Trump, Trump, and More Trump 

As New Jersey’s Republican primary between two-time failed gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli and former talk radio host Bill Spadea gets nastier by the day, both are making their case to be the Garden State’s next governor not to New Jersey families, but to Donald Trump.

As NorthJersey.com reports, “President Donald Trump looms large” in this race, especially after both Ciattarelli and Spadea met with Trump at his Bedminster golf course last weekend, and have spent every day since attacking each other in the press and on the airwaves to prove their MAGA bona fides.

Trump’s growing influence in New Jersey’s Republican primary hasn’t gone unnoticed. Read more below from outlets across the Garden State on New Jersey’s increasingly hostile MAGA GOP primary: 

  • NewJersey.com: What’s the top issue in the NJ gubernatorial primary? Donald Trump’s agenda

    • President Donald Trump looms large in both primary battles, though definitely more so for the Republicans.

    • Two Republican candidates, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and Bill Spadea, spent time with the president at his club in Bedminster last week and are vying for an endorsement that many feel is pivotal to securing the nomination.

  • New Jersey Globe: Ciattarelli campaign launches negative ad on Spadea

    • Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli’s gubernatorial campaign is pushing ads with a 2021 clip featuring radio host Bill Spadea saying Donald Trump should not run for president again, the first negative ad from the Ciattarelli campaign.

  • Philadelphia Inquirer: The battle for President Trump’s endorsement has reached new heights in the New Jersey GOP primary for governor

    • Jack Ciattarelli and Bill Spadea are top competitors for the New Jersey gubernatorial Republican primary, but their campaigns at times could be mistaken for a competition over who is more loyal to President Donald Trump.

    • Spadea and Ciattarelli’s rivalry over who is more aligned with Trump is the very reason so many Republicans decline to take a side when asked about the primary in fear of dipping their toes into the inner-party turmoil.

    • The two men were more focused on criticizing each other’s records on Trump than answering moderators’ questions at the first debate of the race in early February, which also featured former State Sen. Ed Durr, who dropped out of the race Monday, and State Sen. Jon Bramnick, who has been openly critical of Trump.

    • Spadea, a former conservative radio host, has presented himself as an antiestablishment politician who isn’t beholden to the machine while trying to frame Ciattarelli, a former Assembly member who has already run for governor twice, as too much of a politician. Ciattarelli, on the other hand, has tried to frame Spadea as a liar.

  • The New Jersey Monitor: In GOP primary for governor, fight escalates over winning support of Trump voters

    • Spadea and Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman, are sparring this year for the allegiance of Trump supporters and racing to prove their MAGA bona fides in a state where the GOP hopes it can bounce back after losing two gubernatorial races in a row.

    • Ashley Koning, director of Rutgers University’s Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, said it’s obvious both men would love to win the votes of Trump supporters — but there’s a “big question mark” about whether their pitch to appeal to them could hurt in November’s general election, when one of them could be facing one of six Democrats hoping to succeed a term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy.

    • …But Ciattarelli’s late-game shift shows he’s an “opportunist,” Spadea said. “It’s going to hurt him because it just shows he’s a typical politician who will just say anything for a vote,” Spadea said. “And I think he’s exposed himself because people aren’t buying it.”

    • When asked about Spadea’s jabs at Ciattarelli’s slow support for Trump, Ciattarelli replied, “Bill’s initials are B.S. for a reason.”

  • NJ.com: The fight for Trump’s endorsement in GOP gov primary

    • The bitter — no, make that nasty — Republican primary for New Jersey governor is much more than a battle over which candidate is most aligned with President Donald Trump.

    • The only public comments Trump has made about the contest came last May during his appearance on Spadea’s show. He told Spadea “you’ve had my back from the beginning” and chided Ciattarelli, though not by name.

    • “The guy never came to ask for my support,” Trump said. “When MAGA sees that, they don’t like it and they didn’t vote for him. He would have won easily if he did.”

    • Trump didn’t endorse in the last two Jersey governor’s races. Ciattarelli, walking a tight rope when Trump was more toxic in the state, didn’t ask for his endorsement in 2021.

    • Ciattarelli and Spadea continue to shine light on comments the other made about Trump. Ciattarelli called Trump a “charlatan” in 2015 and said he was “unfit to be president” — as highlighted in a Spadea ad calling Ciattarelli “fake.”

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