A Jersey guy’s pitch to voters: My family’s ‘been here for 100 years’

Jack Ciattarelli is running a New Jersey nativist campaign.

The 63-year-old Republican nominee for governor was raised in a working-class Central Jersey town, and he’s playing up his Garden State bona fides against Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a transplant who moved to New Jersey 15 years ago.

“The Democrats tried this with Jon Corzine. He was from Illinois. You saw how that worked out. You’ve seen this with Phil Murphy. He was from Massachusetts. You saw how that worked out,” Ciattarelli said at an early August rally, referring to the past and current Democratic governors. “Now we have someone else who’s not from New Jersey. I’ve got a better idea. How about we elect a Jersey guy? The Ciattarellis have been here for 100 years.”

Sherrill, who's making her first run for governor, was born in Northern Virginia and grew up in various towns along the East Coast. Ciattarelli grew up in Raritan and is in the final stretch of his third consecutive run for governor.

As Ciattarelli alluded to, it’s not the first time being from New Jersey has come up. Or even the first campaign in which he’s brought it up.

Just being from somewhere else likely isn't enough to turn off New Jerseyans. Just over half of the state's residents were born elsewhere, according to the Census Bureau. New Jersey has the 16th-lowest proportion of native-born residents of any state. And New Jersey has the second-highest rate of foreign-born residents in the country.

When it comes to debates about who’s from where, New Jersey politicians have often focused on claims that the Statue of Liberty — that nation’s biggest symbol of people coming to America from elsewhere — is rightfully in New Jersey, not New York.

But a pollster and political strategist told POLITICO that it could be an effective way of painting Sherrill as inauthentic and out of touch.

Dan Cassino, director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, said that the Ciattarelli campaign is seeking to challenge Sherrill’s “authenticity” in a campaign where both sides are focusing on the state’s affordability “but we’re not hearing a deep debate about the issues."

“Voters are deciding mostly on the basis of identity and biography, and if that’s the case, identity-based attacks are going to be effective,” Cassino said.

Mike DuHaime, who was chief strategist for Republican Chris Christie’s 2009 campaign against Corzine, said pointing out Corzine was from elsewhere was more about painting him as a wealthy outsider who was out of touch with regular New Jerseyans' concerns.

“This was a guy who went to the Hamptons instead of the Jersey Shore,” DuHaime said.

DuHaime said it’s an effective attack if coupled with the out-of-touch sentiment. “If Jack can connect those dots, it can be effective. But it was important that it was not simply that he wasn’t from here. It helped paint a bigger picture,” he said.

Ciattarelli used the same attack against Murphy, a Democrat who grew up in Boston's suburbs, in his campaign for governor four years ago, when he came within three points of ousting the incumbent. “Phil Murphy doesn’t get it,” Ciattarelli said in kicking off that campaign. “Maybe it’s because he’s not from New Jersey. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t understand New Jersey. But the bottom line is: He’s not New Jersey.”

But the attacks also can highlight a demographic contrast in North Jersey that’s only grown more stark since the pandemic. While New Jersey has always attracted immigrants and ex-New Yorkers, already-high real estate values and the cost of living spiked as high-earning New York professionals increasingly headed across the Hudson post-pandemic, with many attracted by North Jersey’s walkable suburbs and high-ranking schools.

The line of attack could be read as being as much about class as it is where someone is born. Sherrill lives in Montclair, a wealthy suburb well-served by mass transit and a top destination of the professional class. The well-educated, well-heeled suburban vote that shifted many of New Jersey’s towns from red to blue helped propel her into Congress in 2018.

But while Sherrill’s wealth has been a subject of the campaign — Ciattarelli, who sold a medical publishing business he used to run, and his allies have gone after her for the increase in her family’s net worth since she entered Congress — it pales in comparison to Corzine and Murphy. They were Goldman Sachs executives who made fortunes that funded their political aspirations.

Sherrill in a statement said that after serving around the world in the Navy, she and her husband chose New Jersey to raise their kids “because of all the opportunities it offers.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m running for governor, so every family has a better future. I’m a proud Jersey mom, I love this state, and I am not going to stand by as Donald Trump jacks up costs and Jack Ciattarelli vows to bring that agenda that hurts hardworking families,” she said. “This race is about who will fight for New Jerseyans: Jack’s running to serve Trump, I’m running to serve New Jersey.”

Ciattarelli campaign manager Eric Arpert in a statement said Ciattarelli's family has been in New Jersey 100 years and suggested he has no political ambitions besides leading the state government.

"He grew up here, went to school here, started two small businesses and raised a family here. He’s running for Governor because the state he loves is broken, and he wants to fix it," he said. "When he’s done, he’ll retire to Surf City, LBI right here on the Jersey Shore. Mikie Sherrill isn’t from New Jersey, she doesn’t understand the problems we face or how to fix them. Her campaign is fighting to keep the status quo that has broken our state in power. "

Democratic State Chair LeRoy Jones, a close Sherrill ally, called Ciattarelli’s line of attack “nonsense.”

“Mikie Sherrill has chosen New Jersey as the place to raise her family. She has decided she’s going to be very much a part of New Jersey,” he said. “Some of us have a conviction for public service, and she does.”

But Democrats haven’t entirely ignored the attacks. They hit back by unearthing old footage of a Ciattarelli interview that suggested his New Jersey loyalty was suspect. The state Democratic Party in an August post on X, for instance, highlighted a clip of Ciattarelli saying he’s a fan of Green Bay Packers and by implication not the New York Giants, New York Jets or Philadelphia Eagles. (Ciattarelli allies note that when he was a young child, the Packers were coached by Vince Lombardi, who lived in New Jersey for years and is the namesake of the state’s northernmost New Jersey Turnpike rest stop).