New Jersey’s GOP Candidate for Governor Is Desperate for Voters to Ignore His Anti-Abortion Record

In the United States, anti-abortion politicians came in dozens of weird and rage-inducing forms: Some want to erect monuments to fetal tissue and some blame abortion activists for their state’s abortion bans; there are corrupt ones and dumb ones; subpoena-happy and “I monitor porn intake with my son” ones; some are tall with stupid faces, and some are slightly less tall with even stupider faces. But the worst kind of anti-abortion politician is the one who tries to convince voters that they’re not really an anti-abortion politician, they’re just a guy, standing in front of their state (for a second time), begging them to ignore their entire history of being an anti-abortion politician.

The midterms are 14 months away, but New Jersey’s future will be decided in November. Democrat Mikie Sherrill is running against Republican Giacchino Michael “Jack” Ciattarelli to replace Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, who’s termed out. I’ll give you one guess about who the anti-abortion candidate is.

Seemingly taking a page out of Donald Trump and JD Vance’s election playbook, Ciattarelli is trying to fashion himself as a moderate on abortion—meaning he largely avoids the topic, but when he can’t, he uses phrases like “abortion limit,” which is the GOP’s preference when they’re trying to avoid saying “ban.”

The Garden State is pretty comfortably blue and hasn’t elected a Republican governor in 12 years. But Kamala Harris only beat Donald Trump by six points in November, and Sherrill is only leading Ciattarelli by nine; in 2021, Ciattarelli lost to Murphy by three. Polls are getting a little too close for comfort, and voters could also be feeling a little too comfortable with the fact that abortion is completely legal in the state. Ciattarelli hasn’t really addressed this and seems focused on keeping up his facade; his campaign website reads, “Jack respects that this issue evokes strong feelings from well-intentioned people on both sides of the issue.” Luckily, his friendships and financial records have addressed it for him.

“I have never advocated for the repeal or overturn Roe v. Wade, and I’ve never not advocated for what is right to choose,” Ciattarelli said in 2021, during a debate with Murphy. But eight months later, on May 2, 2022, Ciattarelli donated $5,000 to Lou Barletta’s campaign for Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, according to never-before-reported financial filings from the Pennsylvania Department of State. That was the day the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health opinion leaked—a version of the opinion that would eventually overturn Roe. That night, Barletta tweeted: “If this is true, it would be an enormous, life-saving victory for unborn children,” along with the link to Politico’s coverage.

Which is to say: Barletta is a loud-and-proud anti-abortion politician. Before running for Pennsylvania governor, Barletta served in the House of Representatives between 2011 and 2019. During that time, he voted against adding an exception for the health of the mother to a federal 20-week abortion ban in 2017, according to Reproductive Freedom for All. (The bill has never made it out of the House, but Republicans continue to try and pass different versions of it.) Barletta was also one of the 150 co-sponsors of the Life At Conception Act that same year, which would have established fetal personhood and banned abortion from the moment of conception. In addition to his post the day the Dobbs memo leaked, Barletta regularly tweeted about his anti-abortion views, including this tweet from February 2022: “It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception.” It is not!

Screenshot: Pennsylvania State Department

All that is to say, Barletta’s anti-abortion views would be obvious to anyone who supported him enough to donate $5,000 to his gubernatorial campaign (which eventually failed). If that’s a view Ciattarelli supported for the people of Pennsylvania, does he support it for the very pro-choice New Jerseyans he hopes will vote him into office in a few months?

 

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Ciattarelli’s campaign did not respond to Jezebel’s request for comment on his 2022 donation to Barletta.

But Ciattarelli’s friendships don’t stop at failed gubernatorial candidates, and they’re also not confined to the tri-state area. As recently as August, Ciattarelli hung out with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp—the architect of one of the strictest abortion bans in the country—who traveled to Jersey to campaign for Ciattarelli. Kemp’s six-week ban, which has zero exceptions, was confirmed by ProPublica to have killed at least two women. And when a hospital in Georgia placed a brain-dead woman on life support in May because she was nine weeks pregnant, Kemp stayed silent.

I understand that MAGA birds of a feather must be Trump lackeys together, but if I were trying to come off as someone who didn’t support women dying from abortion bans, I would, at the very least, not take photos with Kemp.

Ciattarelli’s anti-abortion record is years long. While serving as a state assemblyman from 2011 to 2018, he voted against funding Planned Parenthood six times. In 2021, after Texas passed its Heartbeat Act, Ciattarelli said it was extreme but also that he wouldn’t support New Jersey’s Reproductive Freedom Act, which passed in 2022 and codified the right to abortion in the state constitution. Trump gave him an all-caps endorsement in May, writing on Truth Social: “Jack, who after getting to know and understand MAGA, has gone ALL IN, and is now 100% (PLUS!).” In July, he rubbed elbows with a local anti-abortion leader.

This gubernatorial election is already the most expensive race in New Jersey history, and may serve as a crystal ball for what’s to come in 2026. But despite his careful phrasing in this election, Ciattarelli jusst wasn’t careful enough.

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