President Trump has played a starring role throughout the race for governor of New Jersey, thanks to his stronger-than-expected showing last November in the Democrat-led state. But his influence on the Republican and Democratic primaries, set for Tuesday, was impossible to miss this week.
On Monday night, just hours before the start of early voting, Trump held a dial-in telephone rally for the candidate he endorsed last month, a Republican former assemblyman named Jack Ciattarelli, who is making his third run for governor. Ciattarelli was at the front of a five-candidate G.O.P. pack long before he earned Trump’s backing.
Still, if Ciattarelli wins Tuesday’s primary and beats the Democratic nominee in November, the president will rightly be able to claim some credit.
Only New Jersey and Virginia are holding races for governor this year, and the contests will offer an early gauge of voter attitudes toward Trump, five months into his second term as president. He seemed to allude to that looming scorecard on the call, reminding listeners that the race was “being watched, actually, all over the world.”
“New Jersey’s ready to pop out of that blue horror show,” he said, making clear his ultimate goal: turning the blue state red.
The six Democrats running for governor have also placed Trump at the center of their campaigns, emphasizing how they would fight him from the Statehouse as voters have grown hungry for a more forceful response to his divisive policies. Representative Mikie Sherrill, the front-runner, has used her platform in the House to decry Trump’s policy moves. One candidate, Representative Josh Gottheimer, went so far as to step shirtless into a boxing ring and throw punches at Trump in a TV ad his campaign said it had created using artificial intelligence.
On Tuesday, Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark lobbed a legal haymaker at the Trump administration. Baraka was arrested on federal trespassing charges last month outside an immigration detention center that has become a hub of dissent over the president’s mass deportation efforts. In a new lawsuit, he accused Alina Habba — Trump’s former personal lawyer, who is now serving as the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey — of malicious prosecution, false arrest and defamation.
Habba, whose office declined to comment, had abruptly dropped the trespassing charge 13 days after Baraka’s arrest, prompting a federal judge, André Espinosa, to upbraid Habba’s office for pursuing a “hasty arrest.”
Espinosa, who once worked in the office that Habba now leads, warned prosecutors, “Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas.”
Baraka’s lawsuit says the decision to place him in handcuffs and hold him for five hours on a misdemeanor charge was designed for “maximum humiliation.”
That may be true. But there is little doubt that the timing of the mayor’s lawsuit was also designed to achieve maximum publicity, seven days before a consequential election.
PUSHBACK
Incoming, on tariff flip-flops and his big bill
My colleague Lisa Lerer, a national political correspondent, has a look at how Trump is suddenly taking fire from several directions, including an unexpected one — and how Democrats are capitalizing.
It was a weather report that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was thrilled to deliver.
“It’s raining tacos,” he declared, deploying the derisive acronym used by Wall Street to describe Trump’s tariff policy. It stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
Newsom was far from the only Democrat celebrating after two federal court rulings struck down Trump’s tariffs on imports from dozens of countries. From the halls of Congress to congressional campaigns, Democratic officials and candidates have seized on the insult to drive their message that Trump’s trade policies are hurting American consumers.
“Taco Tuesday Came Early,” the Democratic National Committee chortled, circulating news articles about what it called the president’s “erratic flip-flop” on tariffs.
But Trump’s policies aren’t just taking hits from the left. On Tuesday, Elon Musk denounced the far-reaching Republican bill intended to enact the president’s domestic policy agenda for failing to cut the federal deficit sufficiently. Attacking it on X, he added an ominous political warning: “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.”
It’s a promise that Democrats, too, would be happy to keep.
“Can’t believe i’m saying this, but Mr. Musk has a point,” Representative Suzan DelBene, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, posted on X, tacking on a melting-face emoji.
One Number
Get stuff done, the people say
The last 50 years in America have been characterized by profoundly low levels of public trust in the federal government. But one indicator of how Americans feel about the government may be shifting.
For the first time in two decades, a clear majority of Americans, 58 percent, say the government should be doing more to solve the country’s problems. That’s a record high since the question was first asked in the early 1990s.
By contrast, a shrinking share of Americans — particularly among Republicans and independents — say that the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to businesses and individuals, according to a new CNN/SSRS poll taken last month.
The broad-based impatience for action is especially relevant as Senate Republicans work on Trump’s signature budget bill. While he hopes to sell it as advancing a sweeping domestic policy agenda, Democrats — and now Elon Musk — have criticized it for cutting essential government services and adding to the deficit.
Still, the survey shows that few trust either party to actually deliver. More Americans say that neither party can get things done than say that either the Republicans or the Democrats can get things done.
— Ruth Igielnik
ONE LAST THING
Warmer eyes, but carrying bags
Trump unveiled a new official photograph, his fourth since 2017, and my colleague Jason Farago, a critic at large for The Times, trained his well-trained eye upon it. In particular, he contrasted it with the more stern-looking portrait that Trump released in January, before he took office for his second term, which was noted for its “egregious spotlighting from below.” That, Jason said, gave Trump “the mien of a horror movie villain.”
This time, Jason notes more relaxed shoulders, a slight warmth in the eyes and what a younger generation calls “smizing.” “What is most interesting in the new portrait,” he writes, “is the obscurity of the edges, the Gloria Swanson soft focus.”
Trump “seems to have consented to leave visible the bags under his eyes that the lit-from-below transition portrait eliminated, whether through makeup or Photoshop,” Jason observes. He also discerns “numerous hallmarks of A.I. imagery: symmetrical composition, imprecise detail, blurring at the edges and shallow depth of field.”
Ruth Igielnik contributed reporting to this newsletter.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
The post Even Offstage, Trump Is Everywhere in New Jersey’s Governor’s Race appeared first on New York Times.
