Trump’s policies and inflation drive governor’s race in New Jersey, where GOP has been making gains

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey voters are electing their next governor Tuesday in a race that will reveal whether Democrats maintain their grip on a state that has been reliably blue but has shown signs of shifting toward Republicans in recent years.

Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator endorsed by President Donald Trump, is trying to become New Jersey's first Republican governor since 2018. He faces U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat in her fourth term in Congress who would become the state's second female governor if elected.

The outcome could gauge how the electorate is responding to Trump's policies and whether some groups of core Democratic Party voters still have faith in the party's leadership.

The start of voting on Tuesday was disrupted after officials in seven counties received emailed bomb threats later determined by law enforcement to be unfounded, said the state’s top election official, Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way. It was similar to a series of bomb threats received by local election offices during last year’s presidential election, mostly in battleground states.

The threats involved polling places in Bergen, Essex, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Passaic — the swing county where the Department of Justice had deployed election monitors. Some polling locations reopened quickly, while voters at others were being directed to nearby polling locations to cast their ballot.

Voting in Montclair, New Jersey, Sherrill condemned the threats as aimed at voter suppression.

“Obviously this is an attempt to suppress the vote here, and I don’t think New Jerseyans take very kindly to that kind of tampering in our election system,” she said.

Ciattarelli, 63, is running for governor for the third time. He lost a Republican primary in 2017, then narrowly lost the general election in 2021 to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who is term-limited.

This time, he has cast the election as an opportunity for voters to oust Democrats who have controlled both the governor’s office and the state Legislature for nearly eight years. He’s touted his background as a business owner with deep roots in the state and experience as a state and local elected official. He says his close relationship with Trump will help New Jersey.

“Make no mistake. We cannot afford another four years of Phil Murphy’s failed policies,” Ciattarelli said during a rally earlier in the campaign.

Sherrill, 53, built her campaign around pushing back against Trump. She recently seized on the administration's decision to abruptly freeze funding for a multibillion-dollar project to replace the aging rail tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York City beneath the Hudson River.

“This is what we’re fighting for in this country — to make sure that we have a president who has to follow the law,” she said.

Sherrill also has leaned into her biography, which includes serving as a U.S. Navy officer and helicopter pilot and working as a prosecutor. She cast Ciattarelli as someone who would go along with Trump's actions no matter what. If elected, Sherrill would join Christine Todd Whitman, who served from 1994 to 2001, as the state's only female governors.

Both candidates have talked about wanting to help people address rising living costs. Sherrill has said she would declare a state of emergency to freeze electrical utility rate hikes.

Trump campaigned for Ciattarelli in telephone rallies and has been urging voters to back the Republican, saying he would “rapidly” bring energy and other costs down, without specifying how.

In last year's presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris won New Jersey, but Trump shaved his margin of loss significantly, shifting Hispanic voters toward him. The Democrats’ registration edge has eroded in recent years.

Ciattarelli has walked a fine line on Trump, praising him and giving the president an “A” grade, but he’s also campaigned to attract Hispanic voters.

While he has said he supports the president’s effort to end birthright citizenship, he’s also talked about a “pathway to recognition,” and giving driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers to immigrants who are in the country illegally but do not have a criminal record. That puts him at odds with the Trump administration's current policies.

Ciattarelli has not explained what he means by a “pathway to recognition." New Jersey already issues driver's licenses to some immigrants in the country illegally and the federal government issues Social Security numbers.

With a close race possible, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would monitor polling sites in Passaic County, a former Democratic stronghold that Trump won in 2024. New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, called the monitoring program “highly inappropriate” after it was requested by the state Republican Party.

Sherrill and Ciattarelli debatedtwo times and have been crisscrossing the state, meeting voters at diners and leaning on surrogates to get their messages out. Democratic governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Wes Moore of Maryland, as well as former President Barack Obama, all came to New Jersey to rally voters for Sherrill.

Also on the ballot are all 80 seats in the state Assembly, which Democrats control 52-28.

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Assocaited Press writer David Collins contributed from Montclair, New Jersey.