HILLSBOROUGH – It’s tough for Jack to get in the door these days. Especially here.
Supporters jammed Old Man Rafferty’s saloon Thursday night as Jack Ciattarelli waded through the crowd to where a speaker’s area had been assembled. The standing room only crowd overflowed the dining room and everyone was happy.
So was Ciattarelli.
“This was home for 25 years. It’s good to be back,” he said, referring to the town.
Ciattarelli gave his standard stump speech and when he finished – as he always does – by pledging to bring back plastic bags, there was a loud cheer. There always is.
He presented his usual attacks on Mikie Sherrill – she flies helicopters but doesn’t know anything about running New Jersey. And she is geographically challenged.
Ciattarelli of late had been referencing a campaign video in which Sherrill said she was leaving Middlesex County and “heading up” to Burlington County.
The point? A Jersey girl would not say that.
“My opponent is on the run,” he said.
And then there is the state Assembly.
John DiMaio, the GOP Assembly Leader, made the trip down Route 206 from Hackettstown. Ciattarelli said that come next year, DiMaio may be Speaker.
That is a tall order, although Ciattarelli says it all the time. Republicans would have to take over 13 seats for that to happen.
After all of the above, Ciattarelli got to something truly important – early voting begins Saturday.
Republicans have had a love and mostly hate relationship with early voting thanks to Donald Trump, who used to condemn the idea. But that has changed.
GOP leaders are now encouraging their supporters to vote early and “bank” their votes. Who knows what will happen on Election Day?
The Ciattarelli campaign will spend much of the next few days holding early “get out the vote” rallies throughout the state.
Last year, Republicans did well in the early voting.
But there is a caveat. We are talking about early machine voting that begins Saturday.
Early mail-in voting has been going on for a few weeks. And Democrats continue to dominate.
The latest data from VoteHub shows that about 276,000 registered Dems have so far returned mail-in ballots compared to about 94,000 registered Republicans.
That makes those upcoming early vote rallies even more important for Team Jack.
