CNN
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The high-profile battles to become the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor of New Jersey are centered on a single summer Garden State resident: President Donald Trump.
While Democrats have debated their approaches to housing, affordability and immigration, they all agree that part of the role of the state’s next governor is to serve as a check on Trump. On the Republican side, Trump has endorsed a one-time critic who came close to winning the governor’s race four years ago.
New Jersey is one of two states featuring a governor’s race this year, offering a gauge of voter sentiment about both Trump and the Democratic Party ahead of the 2026 midterms. While Virginia voters will also select a governor this year, New Jersey is the only election featuring contested primaries that have already turned the gubernatorial race into the most expensive in state history. Ad spending has reached $80 million, according to tracking firm AdImpact.
For Democrats, Tuesday’s primary presents a key test of the party’s direction in its first months out of power against Trump. The six-candidate field covers the moderate and progressive lanes, and Tuesday’s winner could face a tough test in November.
Trump lost New Jersey last year by only 6 points to former Vice President Kamala Harris, four years after former President Joe Biden won the state by 16 points. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who is term limited, won reelection in 2021 by just 3 points against Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who is running again this year.
“Whatever we do in New Jersey is going to send ripples in my mind, around the country, in terms of what people believe, what Americans want and a direction that we should be going in in terms of fights,” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, one of the six Democratic candidates, said in an interview. “Do we lay down or do we go moderate? Do we acquiesce to Donald Trump? Do we chase Republican voters, or do we go hard in the other direction?”
Some political observers in the state view Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who has won the most county party endorsements, as having a slight edge.
Other candidates include Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who has billed himself as an anti-establishment candidate; moderate Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who has zeroed in on economic issues; Sean Spiller, the leader of a major teacher’s union; and former state Senate president and ironworker Steve Sweeney, a moderate hailing from the southern part of the state.
The message of fighting Trump has been central to the Democrats’ advertising. Sherrill has promoted her experience as a former Navy helicopter pilot to argue she’ll “stand up to Trump and Musk with all I’ve got.” Fulop vows to “fight Donald Trump’s Medicaid cuts.”
“It’s really important to have leadership in the state at the executive level, to really push back on the vision that’s coming from Washington,” Sherrill, who flipped a GOP district in 2018 to help Democrats win control of the House in Trump’s first term, said in an interview.
Gottheimer released one of the most provocative ads of the campaign, using AI-generated imagery to depict him duking it out, shirtless, with Trump in a boxing ring.
“They want to know that someone’s not afraid to fight and stand up for us,” Gottheimer said in an interview on CNN, arguing economic anxiety is part of what drove the rightward shift in the state last year. “People see what’s going on with Trump and the chaos and they want actually an alternative.”
Baraka had the most direct clash with Trump of anyone in the field. The progressive mayor of New Jersey’s largest city, Baraka was arrested last month on a trespassing charge at Delaney Hall, a federal immigration detention center in Newark that he attempted to visit with members of Congress. Video of his detention drew national attention.
Though the charge against him was dropped, Baraka then sued Alina Habba, the interim US attorney for New Jersey, seeking damages for “false arrest and malicious prosecution” and accusing her of defamation in the case.
“The problems that we’ve had in Newark, and our ability to mitigate them, makes us uniquely qualified to be able to do this at this moment and stand up for democracy and against Trump at the same time,” Baraka told CNN.
Dan Bryan, a New Jersey Democratic strategist who worked to elect Murphy as governor in 2017 during Trump’s first term in office, said the wrangling in the packed Democratic field will benefit the eventual nominee.
“I’m not sure there’s ever been an election cycle in American history where you have had six campaigns spending in most cases eight figures plus and running hard races,” Bryan said. “Whoever comes out of this field will come out of the field having been far more tested and far more battle ready than on the Republican side.”
Trump, who spends many summer weekends at his property in Bedminster, N.J., backed Ciattarelli last month. He held a tele-rally with Ciattarelli on Monday and tried to raise the stakes of the governor’s race.
“It’s being watched, actually, all over the world, because New Jersey is ready to pop out of that blue horror show and really get in there and vote for somebody that’s going to make things happen,” Trump said.
The Trump-Ciattarelli alliance was not always a likely one. In 2015, Ciattarelli described the then-presidential candidate as a “charlatan.”
“Sitting silently and allowing him to embarrass our country is unacceptable,” Ciattarelli said at the time. “He is not fit to be president of the United States.”
But Ciattarelli openly sought Trump’s endorsement this year, hoping the president would not only consolidate primary support for his candidacy but also turn out voters who shifted towards Trump in the 2024 general election.
“He’s going to help us with a win this November and send a powerful message to the entire country that New Jersey is turning red,” Ciattarelli said in the tele-rally.
Ciattarelli is considered the Republican front-runner. Conservative talk show host Bill Spadea, who has hosted the president on his radio program, is also vying for the support of Trump’s voters.
“Loyalty matters to President Trump,” Spadea said in the opening of his first campaign ad, playing an old clip of Trump calling into Spadea’s radio show to say “Bill, you’ve had my back from the beginning, and I really appreciate it.”
State Sen. Jon Bramnick, a more moderate Republican, has kept Trump at a distance. He criticized the president’s pardons of those convicted in the January 6, 2021 attack at the US capitol. While Ciattarelli and Spadea have signaled support for Medicaid changes included in Trump’s massive policy bill, Bramnick expressed reservations.
“To be honest with you, I hope the Republicans in Washington stand up, support New Jersey, and do not make those cuts,” Bramnick said in a recent debate.
Justin Barbera, a businessowner in Burlington County, and former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac are also on the GOP ballot.
The Democratic candidates are already eyeing the Trump-backed Ciattarelli as their main opponent, hoping that endorsement will backfire with general election voters who might be turned off by Trump’s actions in his first year in office.
But Bob Hugin, chairman of the New Jersey Republican State Party Committee, argued the contested Democratic primary will hurt their eventual nominee in a state where independent voters will also be key.
“They’re all falling over each other trying to get farther left and more extreme than the other guy. It’s been good for Republicans,” he said. “Trump being visible in New Jersey will help energize those hardcore Republican voters who only vote in presidential elections.”
