The bruises on New Jersey Republican candidate for governor have not yet fully healed after an embarrassing loss to Governor Phil Murphy last November, but Jack Ciattarelli isn’t going to let a good political whooping get him down. On Monday, Ciattarelli visited Lakewood and Jackson, because he knows in 2025, he’s going to have to wrestle the Lakewood vote in his favor if he wants to be a challenge to the likes of New Jersey State Senator Vin Gopal, or perhaps Steve Sweeney in 2025.
Yes, you heard it right, 2025. It’s a long way off, but for a guy who has become a perennial candidate for the last several years, he is back on the horse.
Ciattarelli met with Lakewood business leaders at a kosher pizzeria in the Jackson Crossing Plaza in Jackson Township. Among those leaders included Avi Schnall, New Jersey director of Agudath Israel who is heading up a lawsuit against the Township of Jackson. Ciattarelli lost to Governor Phil Murphy after shunning the Trump contingent of the Republican voter base and carrying out a lackluster campaign that failed to give the candidate the name recognition needed to overcome New Jersey’s more populous Democrat-leaning cities.
Cittarelli sported a “Jack for Governor” kippah, a religious head covering worn by members of the Jewish faith during his visit to downtown Lakewood earlier in the day. Ciattarelli lost favor with diehard supporters of President Donald J. Trump, calling the former president, “A charlatan…unfit to be president.”
Now, as the New Jersey GOP moves forward without Trump, Ciattarelli is hoping the state GOP’s topdown dislike for the former President will spread and position him to win in four years.