New Jersey’s 2024 U.S. Senate race is already high on the interesting scale owing to Bob Menendez’s sensational legal woes. But just when you thought it couldn’t get any more interesting…
Save Jersey has learned that Melinda Ciattarelli (R-Hillsborough) is seriously weighing and actively exploring a run for the GOP Senate nomination.
“She’s chatted with close friends and two county chairs, and she’s planning to make phone calls over the next couple of weeks,” confirmed Steve Kush, a veteran Republican operative as well as a friend and advisor to Ciattarelli.
Ciattarelli is best known to the general electorate as the wife of Jack Ciattarelli, a now three-time candidate for governor and the 2021 GOP nominee. The pair announced their separation in June 2023. Kush told Save Jersey that Melinda’s “decisions are about her and no one else’s campaign.”
“She has raised a family, she ran a small business which got crushed by Covid-19, and now she’s taking a new step,” added Kush.
Kush confirmed that Ciattarelli intends to make a final decision concerning a run in a matter of weeks.
(Jack) Ciattarelli is already an announced candidate for the 2025 gubernatorial nomination setting up a novel dynamic where husband and wife could headline the NJGOP ballot in back-to-back cycles. Both Ciattarelli’s have spent the past few months criss-crossing the state, attending banquets and holiday gatherings but seated separately and declining to interact with one another. Melinda’s years on the trail – first alongside her husband as a surrogate and later independent of his campaigning – have helped her establish fairly strong roots at the county committee-level. Coupled with her name recognition, she could prove a formidable candidate in a statewide Republican nominating contest.
The 2024 GOP Senate field is currently wide-open after Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R, NJ-02) decided to take a pass last week despite the urgings of former President Trump. Incumbent Mendham Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner, Cape May County hotelier Curtis Bashaw, and former New12 reporter Alex Zdan are among the other GOP hopefuls considering or already building a campaign for the Republican nomination.
The Democrat nomination is contested (for the time being) but Tammy Murphy, wife of the current governor, is the early Democrat frontrunner. If Melinda Ciattarelli secured the Republican nod, it could set up a “Ciattarelli vs. Murphy” rematch of 2021 with an obviously different twist.
Garden State voters haven’t elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since before the Watergate scandal.
