Latino voters shifted toward Trump last November. Now they could be key to picking New Jersey’s next governor

By Arlette Saenz, CNN

Passaic County, New Jersey (CNN) — In the race for New Jersey governor, Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill is trying to reverse Donald Trump’s gains with Latino voters in the 2024 election while her Republican rival, Jack Ciattarelli, is seeking to build on them.

Their dueling missions collided on recent back-to-back days in this northern New Jersey county, where Ciattarelli worked to turn out early voters in Clifton with the governor of Puerto Rico, Republican Jenniffer González-Colón.

In neighboring Paterson one day later, Sherrill campaigned with Democratic Rep. Nellie Pou, who represents the area, sprinkling in some Spanish to rev up the crowd.

“Recuerda, este estado no es rojo. No es morado. Es azul,” Sherrill said, which translates to, “Remember, this state is not red. It is not purple. It is blue.”

One year after Trump made inroads with Latino voters in the Garden State and beyond, the race for New Jersey governor is serving as a fresh test of where the key voting bloc stands 10 months into the president’s second term. The results of next week’s contest could offer roadmaps for both parties as they look to build support among one of the country’s fastest growing demographics.

“We will make the difference,” Patricia Campos-Medina, a vice chair of Sherrill’s campaign, said of Latino voters. “This is a getting-voters-out election at this moment.”

Latino residents make up nearly 22% of New Jersey’s population, and no county saw a bigger move toward Trump than Passaic, where Latinos account for roughly 43% of the population — the largest share in the state.

In 2020, Trump lost the county to Joe Biden by 16 points. Four years later, Trump bested then-Vice President Kamala Harris here by nearly 3 points. In the city of Passaic, where more than 70% of residents are Hispanic, Trump defeated Harris by nearly 1,100 votes, a swing from Biden’s almost 5,000-vote advantage.

“President Trump could not have done as well as he did without getting Democrat Hispanics to vote for him, and Jack Ciattarelli is not going to win this election without getting Democrat Hispanics to vote for him,” said Kenny Gonzalez, Hispanic spokesperson for the New Jersey Republican State Committee. “So many Democrats are leaving the Democrat Party simply because the Democrat Party has gone too far left.”

While Passaic County voters chose Trump at the top of the ticket, they elected Pou to the US House, making her one of only 13 Democrats nationwide representing a congressional seat won by Trump.

“Voters went, voted for President Trump, and then moved over and voted right down the line for the Democratic candidates,” said Passaic Mayor Hector Lora, who is supporting Sherrill. “People say that somehow the city went red. The city didn’t go red. The city went with President Trump.”

Trump’s gains with Latino voters in New Jersey mirror an improvement with the community that played out across the country in the 2024 presidential election. But there are questions about whether that support will hold and extend to other Republican candidates, especially at a time when the president has seen some erosion in his standing among Latinos.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in October found 25% of Hispanic adults nationally have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the president — dropping from 44% in January just before Trump took office.

In New Jersey, a slim majority of Hispanic registered voters (53%) said they would vote for Sherrill, according to a Fox News poll conducted earlier this month.

Lora, a former evangelical pastor, hosted both candidates for meetings with religious leaders in Passaic this summer.

“I think what’s on the ballot today for those to consider … is not just the candidates, but the very identity of cities like ours and the state of New Jersey,” he added.

Building off Trump’s gains

On Thursday night, Ciattarelli was surrounded by a group of Latino pastors who endorsed and prayed over him at the Bonfire Mofongo House and Lounge in Paterson — his first stop on a four-day swing through Passaic County as early in-person voting kicked off this weekend.

“Es hora!” Ciattarelli told the mostly Latino crowd, a phrase translating to, “It’s time.”

“I want you to continue to grow. I want you to continue to prosper, and that’s what my governorship is all about for every one of our minority communities,” he said.

In an interview with CNN, Ciattarelli, who lost by a little more than 3 points to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021, cited Trump’s improvement with the Latino community and said he hopes to extend those gains.

“There’s 2 million Hispanic Americans that call New Jersey home,” he said. “We’ve worked every minority community hard all across the state.”

Ciattarelli is banking on voters like Leonardo Pomales, a Passaic resident originally from Puerto Rico, who voted in a governor’s race for the first time on Saturday.

“The taxes, the electric bills and the schools, that’s very important to me,” Pomales said as he explained his vote for Ciattarelli.

Pomales said he voted for Hillary Clinton in her matchup against Trump in 2016 but then backed the president in his next two runs, pointing to his policies on the economy, border and education.

“The Democratic Party has always said they’re going to do something. They don’t. They only want our votes, and they don’t do nothing,” Pomales said. “He’s not perfect, but hey, that’s what we want. We want to feel safe in our own country.”

Orietta Fernandez, a Republican living in Clifton, said she’s frustrated with immigration, crediting Trump for his approach after she said Biden’s border policies allowed in people with “no good behavior.” More people respected the immigration process when she came to the country from Peru 25 years ago, she said.

“People come to the United States because they want to have everything for free, and that is not fair,” said Fernandez, who voted for Ciattarelli and supported Trump last year. “I never took advantage of the system. I worked hard.”

Democratic outreach centers on costs

Democratic leaders in the state, including Sherrill, acknowledged Trump’s appeal to Latino voters in 2024 stemmed from how he spoke about the economy. But they argued the Latino community is starting to see he’s failed to fulfill those promises.

“I think there was a movement towards the president because he promised to cut costs and people are very cost sensitive here,” Sherrill told CNN, noting Latino voters are a “huge” part of her strategy. “He committed to driving those down and in fact has done the opposite.”

Campos-Medina said their campaign’s outreach to Latino voters has drilled in on reducing utility costs, investing in small businesses and tackling rising rents. “Those are three things that resonate very closely with where the Latino vote is at,” she said.

But Lora also argued some Latino voters, particularly those from religious backgrounds, have struggled with some of the Democratic Party’s social stances.

“There are some issues that don’t need to be shoved down the throat of everyone,” he said. “The big-tent party needs to stop looking for ways of pushing other people out of the tent and understand that you’re going to get different views within the party.”

Several Democratic voters expressed concern with how the Trump administration has approached immigration.

“I have a special place in my heart for all immigrants and people trying to make their lives better,” said Jennifer Suarez, who cited immigration and education as her top issues after voting on Saturday.

Suarez, the daughter of Cuban immigrants, said it was “disappointing” to see the Latino community shift toward Trump.

“It’s like folks that … climb the ladder and cut it down below them, and I’m not about that life. My family’s not about that life,” said Suarez, a Democrat living in Clifton who voted for Sherrill. “You want a better world for the future.”

Juan Arroyo, a retired teacher from Passaic who immigrated from Peru, said he’s “nervous” the Latino community in New Jersey could boost Republicans again and argued the GOP’s rhetoric about immigrants is damaging.

“The campaign of the other party is coming with a lot of trash talk and people lately are going for that,” said Arroyo, who has run for school board and voted for Sherrill. “Saying that Hispanic people came to this country because they just want to grab jobs from other people and stuff, and that’s not true.”

Monitoring votes in Passaic

Passaic will be one of the most closely watched counties in the state as votes are counted next week. Latino voters in the county could help determine whether Democrats extend control in governor’s office for a third straight term or whether a Republican aligned with Trump’s agenda will lead the state.

The race has already attracted attention from the Trump administration. On Friday, the Department of Justice announced it will monitor polling sites in Passaic County — along with five counties in California, where redistricting is on the ballot.

The New Jersey Republican State Committee asked US Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to send election monitors to the county, alleging a “long and sordid history” of vote-by-mail fraud.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who leads the state’s voter protection initiative, criticized the DOJ’s move, saying his team is “considering all of our options to prevent any effort to intimidate voters or interfere with our election.”

“The Trump Department of Justice’s announcement that it is sending federal ‘election monitors’ to Passaic County is highly inappropriate, and DOJ has not even attempted to identify a legitimate basis for its actions,” Platkin said in a statement.

CNN’s Jeff Simon contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.