SCOTCH PLAINS, New Jersey — State Sen. Jon Bramnick is not the typical Trump-era Republican. He has vowed to not vote for the former president in the 2024 presidential election, describes himself a “pro-choice Republican” and has even hosted Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy at a cocktail party in his backyard.
But it’s that independent streak — combined with his support for what he describes as traditional Republican values — that Bramnick says can propel him to the New Jersey governor’s office in 2025. And he thinks he can win it by 10 points.
Bramnick has credibility winning in Democratic-leaning areas. His once-solidly Republican suburban district based around Union County swung significantly to the left in the Trump-era. His current district would have voted for President Joe Biden over Trump by around 17 points in 2020, but he was able to win election to the state Senate by 7 points in 2023.
Bramnick says he’s the only Republican who can win a Democratic-leaning state like New Jersey, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a million registered voters but the state’s large number of unaffiliated voters often sway elections. He served in the state Legislature for two decades, including as the Assembly minority leader during much of former Gov. Chris Christie’s tenure. He frequently preaches civility and bipartisanship in government — even as partisan clashes have spilled out in statehouses across the country and in Washington — and promises to be a check on Trenton’s current one-party rule.
“If you have two parties in Trenton and you have discussion and compromise, you’re going to get to the middle,” he said in an interview with POLITICO in late March near his law office. “That’s where I am, and that’s where most people are. So when you get some Republicans who say ‘I’m going to change everything in Trenton’ — no they’re not. Because there’s gonna be a Democratic Legislature.”
This interview has been edited for…
Read the full article here