What's the way forward for NJ's GOP? 'Dump Trump,' says this governor hopeful | Stile

As New Jersey Republicans struggle to make sense of last week’s momentum-killing losses in the legislative races, state Sen. Jon Bramnick of Union County was quick to share his own diagnosis.

The party, he said, needs to repudiate former President Donald Trump and restore its brand of pragmatic moderation if it is ever to reclaim power and statewide relevance. Trumpism, he said, scares away swing voters, who are crucial to winning general election contests.

The shadows of MAGA rage remain the meta problem for the New Jersey Republican Party.

"We have to win the swing voters, the people in the middle," Bramnick said last week. “And if you want to win them, they have to trust you. And if swing voters believe that the Republicans are not trustworthy because they won't stand up against ridiculous comments such as the election was fake, or Jan. 6 wasn’t a serious situation, then the image of the Republican Party will be defined by Donald Trump in New Jersey, and we will stay in the minority.”

He summarized his Never-Trump Gospel this way: “So you have to stand up and tell the truth or you're gonna get beat.”

A run for governor?

Bramnick has been preaching this message in the GOP wilderness from the moderate confines of the Union County suburbs since the Trump defeat. But now he says he very well may make it the overarching theme of a campaign for governor in 2025.

Bramnick, who moonlights as a stand-up comedian, has flirted with running for governor before. But this time the electoral schedule makes it a more attractive option.

Although his name was floated as a possible Republican candidate for governor in 2021, Bramnick was also on the ballot that year seeking his first election to the Senate in the 21^st Legislative District, representing parts of Morris, Somerset and Union counties. He was replacing former state Sen. Thomas H. Kean Jr., who resigned to run for Congress.

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Last week, Bramnick was easily reelected to his first four-year term as senator, which means he now has the luxury of keeping his Senate seat if he runs for governor in 2025 but loses in a primary. That also gives him the freedom to speak his mind.

“If I lose a primary, it’s no big deal," he said. “I got my message out, which I’ve been trying to get out for a long time.”

But he also believes it’s a message that will resonate with GOP voters who are sick of losses and irrelevance in the Legislature for the past two decades. After making surprising gains in the 2021 contests, state Republicans shaped their campaign themes this year around culture war issues that targeted LGBTQ+ youth and stoked fears that Gov. Phil Murphy’s wind power plan was killing whales and dolphins. The result: a humiliating setback for the party.

“You didn’t see that on any of my mailers," he said.

NJ doesn't want 'hateful rhetoric'

Those GOP losses — coupled with the success of more moderate Republicans sweeping council races in Westfield and Summit — has also convinced Bramnick that his anti-Trump evangelizing might give him an advantage in a potentially crowded primary, which is likely to include former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, the party’s nominee in 2021, and possibly right-wing radio host Bill Spadea.

Bramnick gave an early preview of the possible fight to come by sending out a text early Wednesday morning that took a swipe at Spadea, an anti-vaccine Trump supporter.

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“Most New Jerseyans don’t want hateful rhetoric from a ‘know it all radio talking head’ who has never had to make a decision as an ELECTED OFFICIAL," Bramnick wrote. “They also do not want to support candidates who are neutral on Donald Trump’s denial of the election outcome or his support of the January 6^th riot at our capital.”

He reasons that that he might have enough of an opening to pull it off. While Ciattarelli is considered more a career centrist, he leaned to the right in the 2021 race to solidify the Trump base. In 2025, Ciattarelli and Spadea could end up competing and splitting the same voting bloc, giving the anti-Trump evangelist Bramnick a shot.

He cites President Joe Biden’s 2020 journey to the nomination as a model. Biden effectively made the electability argument — that his centrist, moderate style offered the Democratic Party its best hope of defeating the right-wing nationalist Trump.

"My theory is if I was to run and win [the nomination], I could stop the Democrats from going too far left, which I think they have done," he said. “And if you don't win, then you cannot stop any of their policies.”

It sounds persuasive on paper, but the Never-Trump rallying cry isn't getting much traction for Gov. Chris Christie on the presidential campaign trail. Christie, who is openly attacking Trump as a danger to the party's hopes of victory, is treading water with low-single-digit support in national polls.

Bramnick will make his decision sometime early next year.

But in the short term, he plans to participate in a “Gubernatorial Conversations” forum at Fairleigh Dickinson University next Thursday and is to be a featured guest at a “Balance for New Jersey” cocktail party at this week's League of Municipalities Convention in Atlantic City. It will be beside the indoor pool at the Borgata Casino.

That seems as good a place as any to test the waters.

Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stile@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Republicans 2023 elections: Trump must go, Bramnick says