Some Republicans say talk show host Bill Spadea, right, is hurting the GOP by not endorsing the party’s nominee for governor, Jack Ciattarelli. (Ciattarelli photo by Amanda Burns/Spadea photo by Hal Brown)
New Jersey Republicans say radio talk show host and failed gubernatorial candidate Bill Spadea’s return to the airwaves may risk the GOP’s chance to win the governor’s race in November.
Spadea, who resumed his morning talk show on New Jersey 101.5 on Tuesday, prefaced his return by saying he will not endorse Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s gubernatorial bid. Spadea was one of three men Ciattarelli defeated in June’s GOP primary.
Assemblyman Brian Bergen (R-Morris) said he’s concerned that Spadea’s on-air presence will be a “total drain on the Republican Party.” Bergen did not support Spadea’s campaign for governor.
“It’s less about the act of not endorsing Jack,” Bergen told the New Jersey Monitor. “It’s a lack of support for Republicans, the Republican Party, and a Republican gubernatorial candidate in general.”
Former state Sen. Ed Durr is a Republican who briefly campaigned for the GOP nomination for governor before dropping out of the race in March. When Durr ended his gubernatorial campaign, he said he did so to boost Spadea’s chances. Now, he said he wants to see Spadea work to elect Ciattarelli.
Durr joked that Spadea may have his eye on running for governor again in four years, and to do that, “he needs to get Jack out of the way.”
“He’s actually actively participating and campaigning against him, and I think that’s shameful,” Durr said.
Spadea took a break from hosting his four-hour morning show in January amid complaints from some of his GOP rivals, including Ciattarelli, that New Jersey 101.5 was providing Spadea with an improper campaign advantage. His show on Tuesday was light on politics, though he did take a jab at Republicans who supported a Democratic push to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain New Jersey driver’s licenses. Ciattarelli has recently said that if elected, he would ban issuing licenses to undocumented drivers, though in 2021, he expressed support for the idea.
“Criminal aliens are rampant among us, sneaking in to get a driver’s license because some weak Republicans — you know who — and complicit Democrats, you also know who, allow this and push for it,” Spadea said Tuesday.
Bergen, who is seeking reelection in November, stressed he didn’t want to overstate one person’s significance, but said Spadea’s anti-Ciattarelli messaging bothers him because Bergen believes the governor’s race may be won by a “tiny amount of votes.”
“The only way that we won’t get what we want here is if we choose not to put the full effort forward to do it,” Bergen said. “And someone like Bill Spadea — or replace his name with anybody else that’s going to work to disrupt that or complicate that — I have a problem with at this time.”
Ciattarelli is facing Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill in November in the closely watched election, one of just two gubernatorial races nationwide this fall. The two are vying to succeed Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who can’t seek a third term in November.
While Sherrill is leading in the polls, Republicans note that many poll respondents remain undecided. Ciattarelli came within three points of unseating Murphy in 2021 despite polls showing Murphy with a much larger lead.
Spadea on Friday said he would not back Ciattarelli because Ciattarelli is “wrong for New Jersey.”
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