When U.S President Donald J. Trump was pushing his “Stop the Steal” agenda to protest the 2020 U.S. Presidential election results, New Jersey Republican candidate for Governor Jack Ciattarelli was not a fan.
“Joe Biden won the presidency,” Ciattarelli said. “Trump campaign and the Trump team filed 62 lawsuits around this country regarding voter fraud and voter irregularity, two of those cases made their way to the Supreme Court which has a majority of Trump appointments [Fact Check: This claim is false. Trump appointed just 3 members to the 9 member Supreme Court] and both of those decisions went against the Trump team. Joe Biden is our President.”
Now, with the shoe on the other foot and his campaign and followers claiming election fraud in Tuesday’s election, Ciattarelli sent a message today to his followers.
“This race is far from over,” Ciattarelli said in the email. “
Preparing for a looming legal battle, Ciattarelli asked Republicans for more money in the form of financial donations.
“Our team is making sure every legal vote is counted and the will of the people is heard loud and clear,” Ciattarelli said. “To make our path to victory as smooth as possible, we rely on assistance from grassroots supporters, like yourself, to help us get there.”
Prior to the election, Ciattarelli defended the New Jersey election process.
“Don’t let anybody stay home because they think we can’t win or because it’s rigged,” Ciattarelli said in October. “It’s not rigged here in New Jersey. We can win this race.”
Now, a team of lawyers from the RNC is headed to New Jersey to assist Ciattarelli should he challenge the election.
Today, Ciattarelli consultant Chris Russell launched an attack against the media for not giving his campaign support in a similar fashion to when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blamed the media for not supporting her $3.5 trillion spending bill in Congress.
Russell blasted the media after the Associated Press and Fox News called the election in favor of Murphy.
“No surprise that some in the media who swore @GovMurphy was winning in a landslide 48 hours ago are now willing to swallow the hook on this,” Russell grumbled on Twitter. “The Gov’s own CM, @mollieb45, said just 10 hours ago that they wanted “all the votes counted”? Did she leave out “till we’re ahead”? #NJGov.”
Earlier this week, Russell blamed pollsters for his candidate’s impending loss.
For a campaign that wanted to distance itself far from former President Trump, they are starting to look a whole lot like the Trump campaign in the days after the election.
Phil Stilton also contributed to this report.