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President Trump and his divisive policies are helping to define the primary races for New Jersey governor.
March 9, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET
There are plenty of thorny policy issues facing the next governor of New Jersey. Housing and health care costs are high. Mass transit is on the ropes. Schools are among the most segregated in the country, and sea levels along the state’s 130-mile coastline are rising.
But on the campaign trail, nearly all the candidates in both parties have been forced to focus heavily on another topic altogether: President Trump.
He has dominated the rhetoric at Republican and Democratic debates. His photograph has been featured prominently in ads for candidates competing for their party’s nomination in June. At forums that draw each side’s most energized base of supporters, he is either the standard-bearer or the bête noir. Some candidates have even laced their comments with curse words in an apparent effort to emulate Mr. Trump’s blunt speaking style.
“You’re going to hear a couple of guys argue about who’s more Trump-like,” Edward Durr Jr., a Republican candidate, said at the start of one debate.
It was the inverse of a warning made days earlier by Ras J. Baraka, the mayor of Newark who is running for the Democratic nomination: “We’re moving too far to the right. We’re scared to be Democrats.”
New Jersey and Virginia are the only states that hold governor’s races the year after a presidential election. And every four years the results are scrutinized for clues about voter sentiment ahead of midterm contests that can determine party control of Congress.
