(CN) --- In the deeply blue state of New Jersey where Trump lost the 2020 election by 17 points, Republicans are still using him in their effort to become the candidate to deny Democratic Governor Phil Murphy a second term in Tuesday’s primary.
Running unopposed in the primary, Murphy’s likely competition in the fall will be either former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli or businessman Hirsh Singh.
Ciattarelli and Singh share similar views on the economy, infrastructure, immigration and guns, but the main contention between the two is former President Donald Trump.
Singh was born and raised in South Jersey, and received his engineering degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. This is not Singh’s first shot at governor. He ran in 2017 but never made it past the primary.
Singh is taking the pro-Trump approach in his efforts to push Murphy out, labeling himself as the only conservative in the race. Plastered on the homepage of Hirsh’s campaign website is a photo of former President Trump with the caption “God, Guns, Trump: The three things that keep us free."
His platform focuses on growing the state’s economy, school choice, infrastructure and a zero-tolerance policy on undocumented immigration.
Singh has been highly critical of Murphy and even sued him last year over an executive order that allowed the general election to be done mostly by mail due to Covid-19, and demanded a recount for the U.S. Senate seat won by incumbent Democrat Cory Booker. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
Frontrunner Ciattarelli is also born and raised in New Jersey, a former assemblyman and the owner of a medical publishing company.
Taking the family man approach to his campaign, Ciattarelli is running on the idea that New Jersey needs to be fixed.
Ciattarelli’s key issues include making the Garden State an affordable place to live by lowering property taxes, growing the economy, ending New Jersey’s status as a “sanctuary state” and providing affordable and accessible health care.
But Ciattarelli has flip-flopped on his support for Trump several times and his opponents are not shy in pointing it out.
Back in 2015 Ciattarelli called Trump a “charlatan” and said he was an embarrassment to the nation, unfit to be president. Yet in 2016 Ciattarelli said he had every intention to vote for Trump merely to end gridlock, but changed his mind after he heard the Access Hollywood tape where Trump boasted about touching women without their consent. Ciattarelli said he did not vote in the 2016 election for any presidential candidate.
Nowadays, Ciattarelli treads lightly when it comes to Trump, knowing the party’s loyalty to the former president. Ciattarelli tends to leave Trump out of the conversation, trying to focus strictly on policy, but he did attend a “Stop the Steal” rally in December 2020. He later said Joe Biden won fair and square.
At a debate hosted by a local radio station on May 25 between Singh and Ciattarelli, the only two candidates that qualified for the debate, Singh called Ciattarelli out for being a Never Trumper. But Ciattarelli dodged the attack by saying Trump had good policies and that he roots for any president to do well because he’s an American.
Singh did not back down, as he pulled out a red hat that read “Trump Won," pressing Ciattarelli for saying that Joe Biden won, adding that Trump was the “greatest president of my lifetime."
Ciattarelli was quick to defend himself.
“The Trump team filed 62 lawsuits around the country in regard to voter fraud and voter irregularity, two of those cases made their way to the Supreme Court which has a majority of Trump appointments and conservative justices, and both of those decisions went against the Trump team 9-0,” Ciattarelli said at the debate. “Joe Biden is our president.”
