September 22, 2025

"Sherrill quickly brought up a central theme - Ciattarelli is a Trump acolyte. She challenged him to say where he disagrees with the president."

"Ciattarelli really did not go there. But he did talk about the good things he said Trump has done for New Jersey, He said they included opposition to wind farms off the Jersey shore, opposition to congestion pricing in New York City and increasing the deduction cap for state and local taxes, or SALT...."


Answering the question in the headline: "It is always worth wondering if debates change minds. This one probably didn't. No candidate, for example, said anything really stupid."

From Ciattarelli's Wikipedia page: "Although he initially criticized Donald Trump as a "charlatan" in 2015, he supported Donald Trump for reelection as president in 2020 and headlined a "Stop the Steal" rally.... Ciattarelli claims he was unaware it was a Stop the Steal rally until after the fact. Ciattarelli endorsed Donald Trump for the 2024 election. Trump in turn endorsed him in the 2025 election. Prior to this endorsement his main primary challenger, Bill Spadea, attacked him as a RINO due to his old anti-Trump comments."

36 comments:

bagoh20 said...

""It is always worth wondering if debates change minds. This one probably didn't. No candidate, for example, said anything really stupid.""

If only saying something stupid would change votes. That would help enormously in blue states. They don't even seem effected by candidates who do stupid things in office, or even personally damaging things. They can raise your taxes, lock you in your homes, release violent criminals into your cities, burn down your house, and refuse to let you rebuild it, and even that isn't enough to change minds.

wendybar said...

She wants us to pay more for electricity, and that we should be GLAD to do it if we are good people.
https://x.com/ShoreNewsNJ/status/1966480917465088091

Peachy said...

It's rarely about the people...
Collective left - it's TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUPMP.

hombre said...

New Jersey and the New England states may annex themselves back to England. Once Mamdani finishes with NYC no one will object.

Dave Begley said...

Running against Trump is the central theme for all the Dems in this next round of elections.

One Dem candidate for the House in Omaha posts about "stopping Trump" all the time. His sister is the state senator who had the meltdown about trans people on the floor of the Unicameral.

Wince said...

Where I've originally disagreed with Trump: No Tax on Tips.

I'm more of an economic purist. My gut is not to tax different sources of income differently (rather than by income level, i.e., the broad-based standard deduction or rate schedule).

But I've learned the countervailing reality is you have to get elected first. And Trump ever the salesman and closer knew how to reach a key voting and economic demographic. Once passed, you can broaden the exemption, but not until you're elected. Advantage Trump.

Keldonric said...

Running against Trump is the central theme for all the Dems in this next round of elections.

Thas is pretty spot on. Who else are they going to run against? Any Republican out of sync with Mr. Trump doesn’t last long. Like it or not, this is just the way it is.

Achilles said...

Can’t talk about what democrats want to do.

They can only talk about how evil and racist and fascist Trump and republicans are.

This is why they need to leave.

Iman said...

It’s all wind farms and chicks with dicks with the DemocRATs in NJ and elsewhere… it can’t get more stupid than that.

Achilles said...

Keldonric said...
Running against Trump is the central theme for all the Dems in this next round of elections.

Thas is pretty spot on. Who else are they going to run against? Any Republican out of sync with Mr. Trump doesn’t last long. Like it or not, this is just the way it is.

The problem is they are not running against Trump.

They are running against Hitler.

Humperdink said...

The one exchange I saw was he would raise sales taxes and Sherrill would not commit to that - to muffled but audible groans in the audience.

Jaq said...

I disagree with Trump a lot, I think he is erratic, but you know what? He also manages to escape the traps set for him, and for our country, time and time again. So compared to what the Democrats offered, and what you see in Europe right now, I will take the imperfect Donald John Trump any day.

Jaq said...

The Europeans are trying to get Trump to impose massive sanctions on China and India, it's a win-win for them, they get their sanctions, and the US economy gets hammered, and the Democrats win in the mid-terms It's a fool-proof plan, except the "fool" won't fall for it.

Peachy said...

"After attending several stops on the Colorado Democrats’ “Big Bad Bill” tour, I can report firsthand:

Their core strategy for this election season is to brand every Republican as a fascist."

Democrats in power in CO are also going full Pro-Soviet Antifa

Peachy said...

Bagoh - so true.
The left openly and proudly destroy our lives and our surroundings and our way of life - in every direction and still win.

john mosby said...

And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like "I love Trump"....CC, JSM

Joe Bar said...

At least they're debating. Here in VA, the democrat candidate flat out refused to debate the republican candidate, an African-American female Marine.

narciso said...

sherill is just a terrible person, all they do is destroy,

narciso said...

she didn't go as far as baraka jr, but she agrees with him, did they ask her about it, rhetorical

narciso said...

where does she differ with witch hochul and fat bastard pritzker that is the question,

Aggie said...

..."New Jersey and the New England states may annex themselves back to England. Once Mamdani finishes with NYC no one will object...."

Once Mamdani is finished with NYC, nobody there will know the difference anymore.

narciso said...

well Perfidious Albion is much like New York at this point,

Yancey Ward said...

The Democrat lean in NJ is about 10%+- the GOP candidate has no chance at all. Even with everything leaning the GOP way in 2021, the Democrat still won by a few percent.

Goldenpause said...

Debates on occasion can change minds in unpredictable ways. Think Biden in 2024 and Dukakis in 1988. Neither said anything objectively stupid. Biden acted like a dementia patient and Dukakis gave an emotionless response to a hypothetical question about whether he would oppose the death penalty for someone who had murdered his wife Kitty.

RCOCEAN II said...

C'mon guys, its New Joisey. What difference does it make who gets to be Governor? As long as the graft gets evenly spread around they're happy.

RCOCEAN II said...

All these blue states in the Northeast are the same. The voters want to elect Liberal/left democrats year after year. Except sometimes the Democrats go a little funny in the head and do things so outrageous even some Democrats get upset.

So, they elect a Good Government Republican for a few years to make the trains run on time and not do anything crazy. But after a few years, they just have to go back to the Democrats. Because this time it will be different. Its the unending cycle.

RCOCEAN II said...

This country would be so much better if we could get New England to leave and join Canada. Imagine if we didn't have 12 braindead leftist senators.

That was the South's big mistake. Instead of succeeding form the Union they should have demanded New England be kicked out.

wendybar said...

Iman said...
It’s all wind farms and chicks with dicks with the DemocRATs in NJ and elsewhere… it can’t get more stupid than that.

9/22/25, 10:12 AM

You forgot illegals. We have a sanctuary state, and they will do everything they can to keep the illegals here.

Achilles said...

You know how I know Ciattarelli won the debate?

The NYTs posts this:

Answering the question in the headline: "It is always worth wondering if debates change minds. This one probably didn't. No candidate, for example, said anything really stupid."

Ciattarelli cooked Sherrill. The video of him saying this is brutal:

“In the 7 years that she’s been in Congress, she’s tripled her net worth,” he said. “There’s another big difference between the two of us: she broke the law.”

“She had to pay fines for violating federal law on stock trades and stock reporting, and the New York Times reports that while you were sitting on the House Armed Services Committee, you were trading defense stocks.”

Really democrats are just corrupt pieces of shit and giving the NYTs oxygen at this point is just a cynical and nihilistic joke.

Achilles said...

narciso said...
where does she differ with witch hochul and fat bastard pritzker that is the question,

More like where does she differ with AOC, Crocket, and Tyler Robinson is the question.

Joe Bar said...

4 years ago, the gubernatorial debates here in VA swung the race to the Republican candidate. In the second debate, Terry McAuliffe said "I'm not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision... I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach."
This statement was used to great effect by Glenn Youngkin's campaign, and turned the tide in his favor.

narciso said...

point taken, but neither aoc nor crockett have been given any responsibility, I should have guessed it's another garbage paper

Rabel said...

Ciattarelli is only a pinkie ring away from looking perfectly like a mob boss.

Humperdink said...

Correction to my earlier post: “The one exchange I saw was he would NOT raise sales taxes and Sherrill would not commit to that - to muffled but audible groans in the audience.”

gspencer said...

Trump's ways are the winning ways for New Jersey. Her ways will continue Democrat ways. You choose.

wendybar said...

I live in Ocean County....a heavily Trump supporting County. Unfortunately...the cities vote for the fake freebies, and our state keeps circling the toilet bowl. Time for a change.

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