As Democrat field narrows, Republican Ciattarelli readies to launch challenge to Guadagno on Tuesday

Jack Ciattarelli

HILLSBOROUGH TWP., N.J. — If you ask any close observer of New Jersey politics, they’ll tell you that Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno of Monmouth County is the odds-on favorite to win next year’s Republican nomination to succeed Chris Christie.

Now the GOP legislator who once said her boss, Chris Christie, should ‘consider resigning’ and who also called Donald Trump ‘a charlatan‘ is ready to try and give the punditry a run for its money.

Jack Ciattarelli
Jack Ciattarelli

It’s being reported this morning that Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-16) will launch a gubernatorial primary campaign on Tuesday. The news comes one day after the Democrat’s primary lost Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.

A former member of the Raritan Borough Council and Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders, Ciattarelli is a successful businessman as the owner and publisher of Galen Publishing, L.L.C., a medical publishing company based in Somerville, New Jersey.

He’s a husband and father of four (who coaches local kids’ sports teams) when he’s not legislating or running his business. He served as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall from 1998 to 2001.

Assemblyman Ciattarelli’s entry into the race has been expected for months. What remains to be seen is whether New Jersey Republican voters can expect a conventional primary or, given the two candidates’ very different public stances on the incumbent Republican governor and the 2016 presidential nominee, a campaign that initiates an honest debate over the N.J. GOP’s direction over the past 8 years that Chris Christie has been at the helm.

The race will also pit popular N.J. GOP consultant Chris Russell, Ciattarelli’s political guru and veteran of numerous NJ-03 campaigns, against Christie-era campaign manager and current Trump National Field Director Bill Stepien who recently signed on to help administer the LG’s think tank.

A third likely candidate, Evesham Mayor Randy Brown, launched a PAC of his own back in May.

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