Kim Guadagno (R-Monmouth) made no apology for saying “no” to Donald Trump back during the 2016 general election.
She told NJ Advance Media back in October that she “can’t support Hillary Clinton, and I won’t vote for Donald Trump.”
The Republican Lieutenant Governor has a kindred spirit in her supporter Leo Cervantes, the owner of the restaurant (La Playa in Keansburg) where she plans to launch her own bid this Tuesday.
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“I feel that (Trump) represents power, money. Not heart. Not being kind,” Cervantes told The Asbury Park Press in an interview back in November, one conducted shortly after the President-elect’s victory.
The political angle: Does the selection of Cervantes’s establishment suggest the LG doesn’t consider her past opposition to the President-elect much of an issue moving forward despite Trump’s ultra-strong performance in last June’s N.J. GOP primary? And that she’s looking ahead to the general when the electorate is decidedly less pro-Trump?
Or did Cervantes’s national political positions not enter into the launch decision calculus?
Guadango’s attitude towards Trump — and how voters weight it — could prove an interesting 2017 story-line well beyond Tuesday’s launch event and this Friday’s inaugural festivities.
Her most vocal primary opponent/critic, Jack Ciattarelli, was also a strong critic of Trump during the primary, but the two other announced candidates (and candidate-in-waiting Joe Piscopo) are strong Trump boosters. Her boss Chris Christie’s Trumpie status is a matter of public record; more recently, her chief political operative Bill Stepien left the state to take on the role of Donald Trump’s White House Political Director.
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