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From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

Good evening and welcome to a special 4th of July edition of NJ Spotlight News.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

As the summer heats up, the race for the highest office in New Jersey is not expected to cool down.

Governor Murphy, who's term limited, leaves in January after serving in the position for eight years.

And voters will get their say in November, choosing his replacement.

Will it be Trump-backed Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who came oh so close to ousting Murphy four years ago?

This is the former assemblyman and businessman's third attempt at winning the office.

And according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll out this week, Ciattarelli has some real distance to make up behind his opponent, Democrat Mikie Sherrill.

The four-term congresswoman is a former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor, and leads Ciattarelli in the poll by double digits.

But the odds aren't all in her favor either.

No party has held the governor's office for three consecutive terms in more than 60 years.

And the race is also considered a barometer for voters' mood about President Trump's first year back in office.

Plus, the months between now and November are an eternity in politics.

It's anyone's game to win.

Our senior correspondents Brenda Flanagan and Joanna Gagis did a deep dive on each candidate the day after they secured their party's nomination.

A landslide for Ciattarelli, a closer battle for Sherrill.

Here's what day one of this matchup looked like and what to expect ahead.

A state like this is not going to be led by a Trump lackey like Jack Ciattarelli.

She came out swinging as she took her victory lap last night.

Four-term congresswoman Mikie Sherrill locking up the nomination to run as the Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey.

She immediately took aim at her Republican opponent.

I am ready to make life more affordable for families.

Jack has raised taxes at every level of government.

He raised taxes as a council member.

He raised taxes as a commissioner.

And you guessed it, your taxes went up when he was an assembly member.

Some say this election is a referendum on President Donald Trump, the DNC, the Democratic National Committee is counting on that.

The national organization is jumping into this race alongside Sherrill to capitalize on the anti-Trump sentiment among Democrats and undecided voters here.

This is where we stop Donald Trump.

That is where that begins.

And that is about investing time, energy and resources.

But it is not just that.

It's about showing New Jerseyans that you care about them.

She has won a historically red congressional district.

She won it back in 2018.

She has appeal across the aisle.

Former state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli told his supporters last night he'll make a drinking game out of how many times Sherrill invokes Trump when coming after him.

But she wasted no time going after Jack directly.

I fought for Superstorm Sandy relief and helped bring home millions for hard-hit New Jersey families.

Jack voted against relief for Sandy victims three times, screwing thousands of homeowners at one of the worst moments of their lives.

So listen, I'm going to protect our rights, including the right to an abortion.

Jack has pledged to implement an abortion ban and to defund Planned Parenthood.

I am ready to shake up the status quo.

And Jack is the status quo.

Sherrill won handily against five other opponents, namely Newark Mayor Raz Baraka, who surprised political insiders by coming in second over third place challenger Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fulop.

Fulop signaled in his concession speech last night that he'd back Sherrill in the general election.

Look, the state and what I said over the last couple months, I couldn't be more sincere.

The state is at a crossroads.

And although tonight wasn't what we wanted, it's important that we work hard to make sure a Democrat gets elected in November.

That's important.

But Baraka's speech was much less conciliatory.

He signaled that he's not going anywhere.

My voice is going to grow and grow and grow and grow.

I'm excited about what the future portends in this state, that these bosses, their days are over.

That this line is finished.

That we're going to put it all the way in the ground.

And that they no longer can pick candidates for us.

The county line may be gone, but it's impossible to deny the role of the Democratic Party establishment in Congresswoman Sherrill's campaign, which New Jersey State Democratic Committee Chair Leroy Jones acknowledged last night.

It's organization, organization, organization.

I was never a believer in the line.

I don't think that mattered.

What mattered was good candidates, good operation, good execution.

And that wins elections.

Jones said today begins the work of uniting the other candidates to rebuild a solid Democratic Party that can win in November.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Joanna Gagis.

Feeling great.

We've got work to do.

And today that work begins.

Day one in Jack Ciattarelli hit the ground running for governor at a Colombian bakery in Dover, a solidly Democratic town where 75 percent of residents identify as Latino, including Mexican, Dominican and Puerto Rican.

The venue made perfect political sense.

Ciattarelli's primary victory was virtually assured after his endorsement by Donald Trump, who posted a pat on the back on Truth Social.

The president pulled in 43 percent of Jersey's Latino vote last November, according to the Associated Press.

Do the math.

Here in Dover, the Hispanic conservative population is like an unclaimed jewel.

And we're hoping to get a lot of jack votes out of Dover.

The Hispanic community in New Jersey is critical to victory this November.

And we've seen over the last few years that in the state of New Jersey, the Hispanic community has been gravitating more and more towards the Republican Party.

And it's time to seal the deal.

New Jersey State GOP committee exec says Trump will campaign here beside Ciattarelli in the president's full court press to flip Jersey red.

It's a referendum on Trump that will unfold under a white hot media spotlight.

And the Somerville native savored his win last night.

Ciattarelli won yesterday's primary in a landslide with almost 68 percent of the Republican vote.

It's his third shot at the front office in Trenton, and he took a preemptive strike against Democratic opponent Mikie Sherrill over the Trump factor.

Mark my words.

While we focus on these key New Jersey issues, my Democratic opponent will do everything in her power to change the subject.

Trust me, if this campaign were a drinking game and you took a shot every time Mikie Sherrill says Trump, you're going to be drunk off your ass every day.

Drunk off your ass every day between now and November 4th.

Ciattarelli called Sherrill, quote, Phil Murphy 2.0.

And his campaign will seek to tire to what Republicans claim is a Democratic Party legacy of high taxes, unaffordability and woke liberal policies.

The gloves came off immediately on Ciattarelli's new opposition website called Mikie made millions.

Mikie Sherrill, rich on stocks, broke on ethics.

Aside from being in Congress and voting the way she did, she also got filthy rich in Congress.

She tripled her net worth in Congress on one hundred seventy four thousand dollars salary.

Good luck explaining that to people who are struggling every day.

Sherrill's campaign replied Jack is beginning his campaign with desperate lies.

Mikie does not own or trade individual stocks and outside experts have said she's gone above and beyond House ethics rules.

Meanwhile, Ciattarelli told supporters he'll welcome Democrats and unaffiliated voters.

And he urged Republican unity after a bruising primary campaign against conservative talk show host Bill Spadea, who won almost 22 percent of the vote.

But Spadea is not offering Ciattarelli any support.

He slammed him last night.

They spent millions of dollars before we had raised our first dollar and they told a lot of lies and the attacks were vicious.

And it didn't help that the president of the United States came in and supported a never Trumper.

He didn't support me in '21.

I really didn't expect him to support me here in '25.

But if you look at the primary numbers, the Republican Party across this state is united.

We're going to win in November.

Ciattarelli's kickoff included multiple stops in several counties, the start of what promises to be a bitter and expensive political battle for what's arguably one of the most powerful governorships in the nation.

I'm Brenda Flanagan, NJ Spotlight News.

All right.

And that, again, was a look at both of the candidates just after they won the primary election getting out of the gate there on the campaign trail.

We're going to turn now, though, to look at the road ahead and turn to three people we've come to rely on quite frequently.

Our senior writer Colleen O'Dea here at NJ Spotlight News, Ashley Koning, who's the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, and Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for Politics at Rider University.

Thank you all for coming in.

Good to see you.

So we kind of got a look at how they are out of the gate, these candidates.

I want to talk a little bit about the road forward.

And Ashley, because Eagleton had a poll out this week, which was pretty interesting, a 20 percent difference between the candidates.

Again, there's a lot of time for things to change.

I want to get your take on why it is that we're seeing such a big gap, when Jack in particular really won by a landslide.

Yeah.

I mean, let's think about context, right?

We have a number of different things going on between our national political landscape.

Obviously, this poll was done before what happened in New York City.

And a lot of voters are still just not sure right now.

So we're talking this is the very beginning.

This is the kickoff of the campaign season.

In fact, if we rewind back to 2021, this is not all uncommon for Ciattarelli.

This is very familiar for him.

Started in a very similar position against Governor Murphy and came within three points of 2021.

So I think we need to think of the context of this is the baseline, this is the starting point, and perhaps we see it appears that Democrats and Sherrill adjacent supporters are maybe coalescing around her more quickly.

And maybe there needs to be more of that on the other side of the aisle for Ciattarelli.

But let's also remember, he's really neck and neck with her, if not within the margin of error on the top issues facing the state when we're talking about the economy, when we're talking about government spending and the state budget.

These are issues that he closed that gap in 2021 for, and with four months left, this is going to be the top issue talking about taxes and the economy.

That's interesting that you brought that up because another poll that you had out found that quite a few folks in New Jersey feel like the state's going in the wrong direction.

We're talking about a Democratic governor for the last year, eight years, a Democratic-controlled legislature for much longer than that.

And so Mikie Sherrill then in that case really has a lot to do to separate herself.

Yeah.

I mean, and I think we have to also look at the political figures that are looming over each one of these candidates.

So we saw that over half said that President Trump is a major factor in their vote choice as of right now.

And obviously that is much more influential for Sherrill supporters and anyone who would likely be a voting bloc for Sherrill than it is for Ciattarelli supporters and anyone who would possibly support Ciattarelli.

So I think we really need to know that the people don't necessarily think in New Jersey that the state is going in a great direction.

And again, it's going to be all about context, all about cost of living and affordability in these next several months.

Yeah.

Michael, let me come to you because part of that same poll, I mean, voters were given a choice.

Give me any issue that you would rank as your top and economic issues really landed there.

There's so much talk about what's going on at the national level.

Do the candidates need to really focus in on New Jersey or does that get some play from voters who are concerned about what's happening at the top level?

I think that one smart thing the Sherrill campaign has done is that they've started to talk about the federal budget in terms of its impacts on New Jersey.

It's not just a federal issue.

It's not just something that's far away.

Here is what it means to New Jersey.

And so I think when Jack says, you know, Jack Chiarelli says, this is about the state budget, this is about the size of the state budget and the size of our taxes here in New Jersey, she has said back, wait a minute, the federal budget contains plenty of impacts here in New Jersey that we need to be concerned about.

And so I think that's been a very smart take on what otherwise might look like she's coming at it from farther away or from 10,000 feet.

And so, you know, we'll see.

One thing I do want to say about the poll, though, is that I don't think anybody at this point on either side that I've heard has said that this is anything but a very competitive race, even at this stage.

I think that that's something that's just a general assumption.

Two well-matched candidates, you know, Jack Ciattarelli, we talked about coalescing his support.

He started with about double the amount of his party support than Sherrill did, 34 percent on her part that she got on election night versus high 60s for him.

And so it would be really record speed for her to have consolidated her whole base, gotten the undecided vote, wind up at 51 percent already within about a week of her, you know, 34 percent win on primary day.

But I do wonder, because the candidate, the Jack Ciattarelli candidate running now is a different candidate than we saw in 2021.

He's much less moderate.

He was asked and criticized, what, if anything, would you break away from the president on?

He said, I can't think of anything.

Does that come back to haunt him?

Oh, yeah.

We're going to be hearing a lot about that quote from here until election day, for sure.

Yes.

Every time Trump does something that's unpopular, any time there's something that isn't polling well, any time we talk about Medicaid cuts or, you know, cuts in food assistance for the poor, any of that, that's going to be around Jack's neck because he has made that quote.

I mean, to Micah's point, they're both sort of jostling for the middle at this point, right?

So the base is locked up, but there's a lot that they need to do to get the middle of the road folks.

Right.

So we know that we have probably about a hundred thousand more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state, but there are two million plus independents or unaffiliated voters.

So, yeah, you've got to you've got to get them.

You've got to get your message out to them and convince them to vote for you.

I mean, I think one of the challenges that Sherrill has is that she's not only have has to be middle of the road, and I think she she pretty much was that during the primary, but she's also got to convince all of the progressives and the Democratic side who did not vote for her, who voted for two thirds, right, for Steve Fulop or Ross Baraka.

She's got to convince them to also vote for her and to come out.

The difference there, though, at least in my mind, is you had maybe not Baraka so much, but you had certainly Spiller and Steve Fulop in their concession speeches, at least.

And I think in the day's since, I've seen some posts on on social media from them saying we have to elect a Democrat in November.

And yeah, everything I said still stands.

But we've got to coalesce behind.

That's not necessarily the case for Jack Ciattarelli.

Bill Spadea didn't support him and his his supporters didn't support Ciattarelli in 2021.

So do you see that as a big difference as well?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

I don't know if if Spadea is going to come out and say, yes, please vote for Jack Ciattarelli.

He's better than a Democrat.

- Sure.

- But we certainly haven't heard that yet.

There will be some independence.

There's a libertarian candidates.

I mean, might they pull off a few votes here and there?

I think so.

But, you know, I think that the problem that the Democrats certainly had in 2024 was getting the vote out, getting their people out.

So the question is, how effective will the party be this time?

And if the progressives that really pushed for Ras Baraka and who pushed for these couple of assembly candidates who are coming in, who beat the county line, the party line candidates, if they don't feel very, you know, engaged and really supporting Sherrill, they may not come out and in a very tight race that could make a difference.

Ashley, what's your sense moving forward?

I mean, what are you at the polling institute really looking at as you dive into what will be, I'm assuming, a lot of work and a lot of surveying in these next few months?

Yeah, you know, I think we've really hit the nail on the head with these two themes of independence.

Who are these middle of the road voters?

Our latest poll did show that they're perceiving Sherrill as more moderate slightly and Ciattarelli as somebody who is more somewhat or very conservative.

So I think those independent voters are key.

Even if we ignore the Democrats, ignore the Republicans, that's how either one of these candidates is going to get over the finish line.

So no matter what the numbers say, we know this will be a competitive race because that gap will inevitably close.

But I think, as Micah and Colleen also pointed out, it's independence, but it's also let's talk about the Trump factor.

And that appears to be huge for one side right now and not so much for the other side.

And this could really obviously will play very differently in the general than it did in the primary for Jack Ciattarelli.

And it could potentially be a strong detriment to him in the months to come, depending on what we see on the national stage.

And like Micah pointed out, is already affecting how Sherrill campaign messages and potentially how people are interpreting Ciattarelli's allegiance with Trump.

Something very different from what we saw in 2021.

I know that we talked about this, but I just I feel like it can't be overstated.

The gap in almost all of the polling shows that it narrows between the two.

When asked about who would handle economic issues better, budget issues, taxes, Jack Ciattarelli comes out on top.

Is that a matter of Democrats having been in control?

Micah, maybe I'll toss this over to you.

Having a bad record of taxing and spending, perhaps.

And is that an area where if you were advising a Jack Ciattarelli, you would say, just hit on this.

We know that this is what voters care about.

Yes.

And he's talked very, very sharply and crisply about how the size of the state budget has nearly doubled over the course of the last eight years.

Right.

He's talked very, very sharply about his criticisms of what he would do differently.

And that is resonating to some extent.

I don't mean that people are necessarily registering what he says out there, but I do think that there's a penalty for the party that's been in power for 25 years and owns that and has to defend that.

Even though the pendulum usually swings when it comes to electing our governors.

Yes, it does.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, we haven't had a third consecutive term for the same party since the 1960s.

And so Sherrill's got to defy that.

She's got to either explain, defend it, which I don't think she necessarily wants to do, or she's got to create a difference from the status quo.

She's got to explain how she's not the same thing.

And Jack has to keep on doing what he's doing, which is to tie her to that.

I sort of hate this, but I want to bring it up anyway, because it matters when it comes to elections, the difference between being electable and likable.

And a lot of what I've been hearing from folks who worked on the campaigns, worked on the campaigns for their opponents, is that when it comes to that, you know, Jack's a Jersey guy.

He talks like a Jersey guy.

And that that resonates with voters when they feel like they can relate.

How much of a factor is that here?

And I mean, Colleen, is that also more of an uphill battle for Mikie Sherrill simply because she's a woman?

Yeah, I've heard the same thing, too.

And boy, I really bristle when you think of, you know, OK, so she's a woman.

We're going to say that.

I mean, she is, I think we all know from her commercials, mother of four, as well as a federal prosecutor, former Navy pilot.

Yeah, her resume is-- She's got an amazing resume.

So if you're-- you know, we've talked about those soccer moms or those moms that have swung from Republican to Democrat in the last, you know, three elections or so.

I would certainly think that she's got an edge there.

Yes, Jack Ciccarelli does talk like a Jersey person.

And so I think that probably will win him some votes in some areas.

I do want to note, too, that we're hearing a different kind of talk as well.

We're hearing kind of that Jersey talk.

We're hearing some of those mild expletives being thrown out there.

Why is that?

What's up with that?

I mean, it worked for Trump, right?

So I think that the Ciccarelli campaign thinks that, especially in New Jersey, where, you know, certainly people know what the state bird is.

Do they?

I don't know if that's the case.

If you're using your hand, I think there's a term for it, right, for what the state bird is.

You know, I think that it's a plain-talking state.

So this is certainly something that I think that they think will resonate here.

How it will play out ultimately, I don't know.

All right.

Let me move on in the few minutes that we have left.

As Ashley keenly noted at the top, there's a lot of time here for things to change.

A baseline, not a crystal ball.

I love that analogy.

What issues do you foresee really taking center stage in these next few months?

Can I say it's the economy, stupid?

And it always has been.

I mean, you know, we saw this back in 2021, where, let's be real, in 2021, Ciccarelli closed that gap with Murphy, and he was three points away when he started talking about kitchen table issues and when he dropped the Trump Act.

We don't know if this sequel is going to be the same as the first one four years later.

But by this initial polling, it looks like we're in the same situation of maybe the president isn't so helpful again.

Maybe let's focus on the economy, if I were Ciccarelli's campaign, to get over the finish line and focus on that.

I mean, we can talk about -- for New Jerseyans, it's perennially been taxes and property taxes in our 50-plus years of polling.

It's going to be taxes and property taxes again under the umbrella of cost of living and affordability.

How each one of these candidates translates that is going to be a different story.

We know that Republican voters are much more focused on taxes.

Democratic voters are much more focused on cost of living and affordability.

And whether or not the candidates cross over into those different territories or play to their bases remains to be seen.

But this is going to be the defining spotlight issue, umbrella issue of the entire campaign.

Very quickly, Micah, your take on that?

Well, you're going to hear a lot about affordable housing as well.

From the Republican side, it's going to be that it's intrusive, that the obligations of the state are too much on towns and they're trying to force it down the town's throats.

On the Democratic side, it's going to be we don't have enough affordable housing.

So it's another one of those affordability issues that Ashley's talking about.

Ten seconds, Colleen.

Absolutely.

And I think Mikie Sherrill , though, does have to try to distinguish herself from Phil Murphy.

Or she's going to be in trouble.

Murphy 2.0, she's been called.

That's right.

Colleen, Ashley, Micah, thanks so much for coming in.

I hope you all have a great holiday weekend.

Good to see you.

You too.

Thanks.

That's going to do it for us this week.

But a reminder, you can download our podcast wherever you listen and watch us anytime by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

Plus, you can follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky to stay up to date on all the state's big headlines.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi for the entire team at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

And we'll see you right back here on Monday.

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