New Jersey voters sick of the blue-state blues have a shot at some relief this November, by backing Republican Jack Ciattaralli for governor.
We heartily endorse Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman who came within three points of toppling incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy (D) in 2021 and now faces same-old, same-old hack Democrat Rep. Mikie Sherrill.
If Garden Staters want more of Murphy’s misery — through-the-roof utility bills, nation-leading taxes, woke schools, decaying infrastructure, oppressive crime and massive state debt — they should race to back Rep. Sherrill.
If not, Ciattarelli is the clear choice.
Start with Sherrill’s professed top priority: “affordability.”
Her plan to tame costs boils down to: more handouts (at taxpayer expense), targeting mysterious “bad actors,” locking in pricey “clean energy” and, of course, fighting big, bad Orange Man.
No joke: She actually blames Donald Trump for high prices — even though inflation struck during the Biden years (when Trump was out of office), and was fueled by reckless federal spending that she herself, along with her fellow Democrats in Congress, rammed through.
“There’s no cost higher than the price that all of us will have to pay if we don’t stand up” to Trump, she huffs.
Funny: Lots of other states manage to keep their utility bills and taxes down even while supporting Trump…
Her pathetic plan to lower grocery bills centers on going after “large corporations [that] jack up food prices and take advantage of consumers during a crisis.”
Sounds like she’s cribbing from socialist Zohran Mamdani’s book on magically repealing the laws of supply and demand.
She’d “transform New Jersey’s energy picture” by building “cheaper and cleaner energy generation” and “hit our emissions and clean-air goals.”
Hello? It’s precisely Democrats’ drive for zero emissions that has sent electric bills soaring: A report by Affordable Energy for New Jersey cites a $1.4 trillion price tag for Murphy’s greener-than-green Energy Master Plan.
Sherrill doesn’t just vow to lock in that plan, she wants to double down on it, .
In other words, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result — and that’s not remotely the only Sherrill policy that fits that definition of insanity.
She’ll stick to the Murphy policies that ram DEI into every school district, leave property and income taxes ever-growing and fail to control crime.
Hilariously, her idea for providing relief for the state’s onerous taxes (the nation’s second-highest, after New York) is (get this!) to “close tax loopholes” — i.e., raise taxes even more.
And, like Murphy, she opposes letting parents opt out of LGBTQ education.
Sherrill also has a trust problem: She pretended not to know that her stock holdings have soared by $7 million since she entered Congress — most likely because she doesn’t want to answer questions about her “good luck.”
By contrast, Ciattarelli, a CPA and former business owner, would reverse the Murphy agenda, relying on common-sense ideas to tackle Jersey’s biggest ills:
- Actually lowering income taxes, for both individuals and businesses, which could then pass the savings on to customers via lower prices.
- Chopping state spending dramatically and limiting budget growth to the inflation rate.
- Scrapping Jersey’s sanctuary-state policy and banning sanctuary cities.
- Pushing through a new Energy Master Plan to keep costs down by allowing for new sources of reliable and affordable electricity while repealing “unrealistic and unaffordable mandates” to electrify everything from cars to household appliances and home heating.
- Fixing bail-reform flaws and tapping sensible judges who’ll keep repeat offenders behind bars.
- Expanding charter schools and school choice for families.
Yes, the Garden State has leaned blue for years, but there’s a limit to how much pain even liberals can take.
Last November, Jersey voters gave Sherrill’s boogey man, Donald Trump, a full 46% of their votes, making Kamala Harris’ six-point margin of victory the smallest the Garden State’s given a Democratic presidential hopeful in 32 years.
And last week, an Emerson College poll had the race locked in a dead heat, with Sherrill and Ciattarelli each pulling 43% support.
Her party knows she’s in trouble: The Democratic National Committee just doubled its spending on the campaign to $3 million, the most it’s ever shelled out in Jersey for an off-year election.
So hopes are high for Ciattarelli. He’s the Garden State’s best chance at shedding the blues once and for all.
