In 1961, after the failed attempt to invade Cuba, President John F. Kennedy said, “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” Kennedy knew that many people come forward to claim success, yet, in the event of failure, quickly distance themselves.
The 2024 election in Pennsylvania saw countless people and organizations claim they delivered the Keystone State for President Donald Trump – bragging in their taglines on the X platform, media appearances, and pitches to donors. Other than the candidate himself, can any one person or organization solely take credit for President Trump’s victory? If one such magic solution exists, shouldn’t the Republicans be able to replicate it and prevail in future elections? And of course, Pennsylvania Republicans lose their share of elections – who takes responsibility for those?
Victory truly had a hundred fathers in the case of the 2024 presidential election in Pennsylvania. The main credit goes to President Trump and his historic political comeback. But his candidacy benefited from a robust, organized, and well-funded Republican National Committee, equally committed to getting out the vote and protecting the integrity of the election. Combine that effort with local parties, interest groups, and activists who worked to register Republicans, chase mail-in ballots, knock on doors, and drum up interest to a fever pitch. President Trump provided messaging that resonated with many previously reluctant voting blocs. Finally, an unpopular Democratic candidate backed by a party that made multiple missteps did not motivate Democratic voters to participate in the numbers needed to carry Pennsylvania.
Can Republicans make that Pennsylvania magic happen across the river in the 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial race? Hopefully. That will require the recognition that no one person or organization can deliver the state, but rather a multidisciplinary approach like that used in Pennsylvania, tailored to the peculiarities of the Garden State.
The 2025 New Jersey Republican nominee, Jack Ciattarelli, came within striking distance of winning in 2021, losing to Democrat Phil Murphy by roughly three percentage points, monumentally improving upon the Republican Party’s loss to Murphy in 2017 by over 14 percentage points. President Trump only lost New Jersey by less than six percentage points, an impressive feat considering that the last Republican presidential candidate to win New Jersey was President George H.W. Bush in 1988.
To get across the finish line in November, the Ciattarelli campaign must employ the panoply of campaign tactics that Republicans used in Pennsylvania. But that will not be enough due to two New Jersey idiosyncrasies.
One New Jersey oddity is its inordinately high number of unaffiliated voters. Currently, about 36 percent are simply not registered with a party. Democrats make up about 37 percent and Republicans about 25 percent. The rest of the voters affiliate with minority parties. It will not be enough to just turn out Republicans.
Ciattarelli will have to identify like-minded unaffiliated voters among that 36 percent and convince them to vote for him. He faces a slightly better position than 2021 because, although the percentage of unaffiliated voters has remained consistent, Republicans have increased their ranks by about two percentage points, while Democrats have dipped about the same two percentage points. Finding and identifying the voting tendencies of unaffiliated voters takes both time and a massive amount of resources. But pinpointing these voters leads to the second New Jersey oddity and hurdle for candidates: turnout.
New Jerseyans simply do not show up for their gubernatorial elections. Voter turnout in 2021, 2017, and 2013 hovered at around 40 percent of registered voters. Back in 2009, for Gov. Chris Christie’s first election, turnout was about 47 percent. Christie got 1,174,445 votes, which was significantly more than the state’s 1,061,171 registered New Jersey Republicans at the time. Similarly, in 2013, Christie received more votes than Republican voters in the state. If Ciattarelli can pull off a comparable feat, he will likely cruise to victory.
It would be nice to think that simply registering new Republicans before November will turn the tide. However, New Jersey has a long history of an outsized number of affiliated voters, due to the New Jersey quirk of allowing those voters to choose a party right up to and on primary election day, decreasing the incentive to consistently align with one party. Combine that with an automatic voter registration system that can often result in people not even realizing they are registered.
The key for Ciattarelli will be finding and wooing like-minded unaffiliated voters, and making sure he turns out every Republican possible. While it sounds like a straightforward plan, unwrapping the mystery of the political alignment of voters who never chose a political party takes a monumental effort. The Republican National Committee’s 2024 playbook of robust voter turnout efforts with a solid election integrity plan provides a solid foundation because voters must believe that if they make the effort to vote, it will be properly counted. That focus on keeping votes safe and secure might resonate with enough Ciattarelli voters to make a difference.
Let’s hope that, come November, the usual cast of characters is out in full force, claiming credit for the Republican win. I would rather have everyone fighting over kudos and claims in their social media taglines, than distancing themselves from a Republican loss.
