Republicans are smelling blood in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race next year following an unexpectedly close result in the presidential election.
Vice President Harris only carried the Garden State by about 6 points over President-elect Trump, the closest Republicans have come to winning the state’s electoral votes in three decades. This came after another closer-than-expected result in the gubernatorial race three years ago, during which Gov. Phil Murphy (D) won by just more than 3 points.
Now with Murphy term-limited, Republicans are hoping 2025 presents them with a strong chance to flip the governor’s mansion.
“This is a prime opportunity for New Jersey Republicans to capitalize on President Trump’s strong performance in the state,” said New Jersey GOP strategist Alex Zdan. “We’ve got a really competitive field, but a competitive field can yield a great result.”
New Jersey has regularly been viewed as a solidly Democratic state in the modern political era, having last voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 1988 and last elected a Republican senator in the 1970s. But the state also has a bit of a maverick quality of electing Republicans to the governorship, and Republicans there saw some of the party’s largest improvements in November.
“In terms of the difference in the top-of-the-ticket performance from ‘20 to ‘24, New Jersey was one of the worst on the Democratic side,” said Democratic strategist Henry de Koninck, calling the swing “substantial.”
Part of the decline in Democratic votes across the state is turnout in northern counties near New York City. Hudson, Essex and Passaic counties have traditionally been Democratic strongholds where party chairs turn out hundreds of thousands of voters. The power of those county machines has declined over the last two election cycles
“The reasons for that is that the Democratic leadership in the state party have largely been complacent for a long time and haven’t focused on building any infrastructure and because the state party has viewed New Jersey as reliably blue, they’ve alienated a lot of the activist base throughout New Jersey,” said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, one of the Democratic candidates for governor.
State Democratic Party Chair Leroy Jones, who also chairs the Essex County Democratic Party, said that the party’s messaging this cycle was not “direct enough” and that it failed to “connect with voters,” but he dismissed concerns that county parties will not rise to the occasion during the 2025 gubernatorial cycle.
“There needs to be a dialogue and a strategy that will improve and deploy, employ all the counties, getting us all on the same sheet of music and then coming out, and we’ll get there,” Jones said.
Jones added that he believes Democrats must “recalibrate” messaging to focus on the economy and cost of living during the race, saying voters cared the most about affordability in 2024 and that trend would continue into 2025.
Within the GOP, there is an ongoing fight between more establishment, moderate Republicans and “America First” Trump supporters.
Jack Ciattarelli, who was the Republican nominee against Murphy in 2021, is running in the establishment lane, while Bill Spadea, a conservative talk radio host, is running with much of the pro-Trump wing of the GOP backing him.
On the Democratic side, there are six major candidates: Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.); Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey teachers’ union; former state Senate President Steve Sweeney; Newark Mayor Ras Baraka; and Fulop.
This is the first gubernatorial election cycle without “the line,” a ballot design unique to New Jersey where county parties place their endorsed candidates in one line on the ballot instead of the office block ballot seen in most other states.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction earlier this year striking down the system as unconstitutional. Since then, most county clerks have reached agreements to forgo the county line system in favor of the office block ballot, while the state Legislature considers reforms on the ballot design.
According to Dan Cassino, a pollster with Fairleigh Dickinson University, this change makes it difficult to parse which of the six Democratic candidates is most likely to win the nomination.
“There will be a lot of out-of-state polling as we get closer to the primary, but we just do not know what the likely voter model will look like so I don’t know how accurate they’ll be,” Cassino said.
Zdan said the potential elimination of the county line for 2025 could also have uncertain implications for who emerges from the Republican primary. Along with Ciattarelli and Spadea, other candidates include state Sen. Jon Bramnick, who is a former state Assembly minority leader; former state Sen. Edward Durr; and former Burlington City Mayor Jim Fazzone.
Zdan said Ciattarelli has strength in counties like Monmouth, a key source of Republican support, while Spadea has establishment support, including from the county chair, in Ocean County, which has more Republicans than anywhere else. He noted that Ciattarelli almost immediately announced his 2025 gubernatorial bid after conceding in 2021, giving him an organizational and fundraising advantage, while Spadea has the platform of his radio show.
“The two of them are obviously the heavyweight contenders in the race,” he said.
According to Jeanette Hoffman, a GOP strategist based in Monmouth County, the state party has also been making inroads with voter registration, with more Republicans registering this year than Democrats, a watershed moment in the solidly blue state.
“That trend matters, and Republicans have their best shot after two terms of Gov. Murphy and a Democratic Legislature making everything more expensive,” Hoffman said.
Democrats acknowledged that the recent results are a “wake-up call” for the party, which they said need to take steps to hold off Republican gains.
De Koninck said he views the 2021 gubernatorial race as a “harbinger,” with softening support for Democrats in traditional strongholds in the state. He said he expects Democratic primary voters will be pragmatic in who they nominate, keeping in mind who is best positioned to prevail in a gubernatorial race in which Republicans are positioned to compete.
“Democrats are really going to need to make an appeal for hardworking everyday Americans and win back middle-class and working-class voters by speaking to their needs and their concerns,” de Koninck said, pointing to “kitchen-table issues” like the cost of food.
Several of the Democratic candidates have particularly emphasized lowering costs, including for housing and health care, in the early days of the campaign.
One trend of the past few decades that may bode well for Democrats in the state has been a seeming backlash effect to the party in the White House playing out in the gubernatorial race. Except for 2021, the party that lost the White House has won the New Jersey governor’s race the next year every cycle since 1989.
But de Koninck said recent history has shown whoever the Republican nominee is will likely be a viable candidate, with no candidate on either side clearly stronger than their competitors.
“The campaigns are going to have their work cut out for them,” he said. “This election is by no means a cakewalk, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that New Jersey is now a swing state.”
