New Jersey is not California, but it is highly blue nonetheless.
Democrats have had unified control of the state legislature for 24 years, and Republicans haven’t elected a U.S. senator since 1972 (the liberal Clifford Case). In 2021, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy won a second term, although narrowly. Murphy’s opponent at the time, onetime state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, substantially outperformed the polls and lost by a less than three-point margin.
New Jersey is difficult terrain for a Republican in any circumstance, and especially so in an off-year election when a Republican occupies the White House. But indications are that, once again, Ciattarelli is overperforming, this time in his race against Murphy’s would-be Democratic successor, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill.
A late-September Emerson College survey found that, among likely voters, the race is tied at 43 percent apiece. A Quantus Insights poll conducted one week later found a two-point race, with Sherrill leading Ciattarelli by just 48–46 percent.
Sherrill started out in the summer as the race’s prohibitive favorite. Today, the RealClearPolitics average of the race’s sparse polling finds her garnering less than a majority of the vote, with Ciattarelli just 4.7 points behind her.
What’s going on? Having run once before, the former assemblyman is a strong candidate. Republicans have been gaining in registrations in the state, which Trump lost by a much narrower margin in 2024 compared with 2020. And, most of all, there’s a deep discontent with the Democratic misgovernance of New Jersey, especially as energy costs skyrocket. Like a certain mayoral candidate across the river, Ciattarelli is emphasizing affordability, although with a better diagnosis and prescription.
Murphy has put a European-style emphasis on wind and has gotten European-style results. Not too long ago, the state was an energy exporter, but now it can’t affordably meet in-state demand. “New Jersey has insufficient generation in-state to meet its needs, and has to make up this difference through imports,” the electricity grid manager PJM observed earlier this year. “A seven-year-long effort by New Jersey to fill this gap with offshore wind has failed to deliver any results whatsoever, and consumers are now paying the price for this failure.”
Josh Shapiro, the governor of neighboring Pennsylvania, is no conservative, but his relatively moderate energy policy is a stark contrast to Murphy’s ideological devotion to wind above all else.
Ciattarelli’s battle cry is to “make New Jersey affordable again.” He wants an all-of-the-above approach to energy, and promises to cut and cap out-of-control property taxes.
Often the butt of jokes, New Jersey is a big, beautiful state that has one of the most important economies in the country. It has gotten unified Democratic governance good and hard over the last decade. It deserves something better, and Jack Ciattarelli is offering it.