Government shutdown sparks blame game in New Jersey governor race

MADISON, N.J. – EXCLUSIVE: The nation’s capital isn’t the only battlefield in the blame game between Democrats and Republicans over the first federal government shutdown in seven years.

The verbal crossfire is also playing out on the campaign trail in New Jersey, which is home to one of only two elections for governor across the nation this year.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli, in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital, pointed fingers at his Democratic rival, Rep. Mikie Sherrill.

After Sherrill, a four-term congresswoman, charged in a statement that “Washington Republicans have once again shown they’re willing to turn their backs on the American people in order to blindly follow Donald Trump’s demands,” Ciattarelli criticized his opponent in the combustible, competitive, and high-profile ballot box showdown.

FIVE RACES TO WATCH WITH FIVE WEEKS TO GO UNTIL ELECTION DAY 2025

“There’s nothing my opponent won’t blame on President Trump. As I like to say, if you get a flat [tire] today, it’s President Trump’s fault,” Ciattarelli argued, in a sit-down interview after taking part in a candidate forum hosted by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

With neither Trump and the Republican majority in Congress, nor congressional Democrats willing to lower the temperature, the government shut down early Wednesday morning.

BLAME GAME OVER SHUTDOWN INTENSIFIES 

Democrats insisted that any agreement to prevent a government shutdown, or now to end the shutdown, must extend tax credits for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) beyond the end of this year. Those credits, which millions of Americans rely on to reduce the costs of health care plans under the ACA, which was once known as Obamacare, are set to expire unless Congress acts.

But most Republicans oppose the extension of the credits and argue that the Democrats’ demands would lead to a huge increase in taxpayer-funded healthcare for immigrants who entered the country illegally.

Sherrill, along with every other House Democrat except Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted against a GOP stopgap measure that would have temporarily averted the shutdown.

Ciattarelli, pointing to his rival’s vote in Congress, said, “I do know that there’s a bipartisan group of congresspeople that are trying to keep the government open. My opponent has decided not to be part of that bipartisan group, and she voted no. And so here we are.”

Sherrill, who has repeatedly linked Ciattarrelli to Trump, placed the shutdown blame squarely on Trump’s shoulders, writing in a social media post, “This is precisely the extreme MAGA agenda that @Jack4NJ wants to bring to NJ.”

TRUMP LOOMS LARGE OVER THIS CRUCIAL RACE FOR GOVERNOR

And taking aim at congressional Republicans in a statement from her House office, Sherrill argued that “instead of working with Democrats to lower costs, protect health care, and support working people, Washington Republicans bent the knee to Donald Trump, shutting down the government in the process.”

With just over one month to go until Election Day in New Jersey — and early voting taking place Oct. 25-Nov. 2 — a new Fox News poll indicated Sherrill holding an upper single-digit lead over Ciattarelli.

But Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and a certified public accountant who started a medical publishing company before getting into politics, touted that “the energy is off the charts, and the fact that I’m being endorsed by Democratic mayors around the state says a whole lot about people wanting change here in the state of New Jersey.”

HEAD HERE FOR FOX NEWS’ 2025 ELECTION COVERAGE

The two candidates will face off next week in their second and final debate before voters head to the polls in the election to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

Asked about his debate game plan, Ciattarelli said he would “be very, very specific with policy proposals that fix our problems here in New Jersey, and point out every single time she doesn’t answer the questions.”

Gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey run on a party ticket and Democrats on Wednesday were spotlighting a comment by the GOP lieutenant governor nominee Jim Gannon, the Morris County Sheriff, in a debate earlier this week that “taxes are on the table.”

Asked about his running mate’s comment, Ciattarelli emphasized that “there will be no tax increases under Governor Ciattarelli. And I would put forth a very specific plan on how to decrease the income tax and the property tax here in New Jersey.”

The race was rocked last week after a New Jersey Globe report revealed that Sherrill’s military records indicated that the United States Naval Academy blocked her from taking part in her 1994 graduation amid the cheating scandal.

Sherrill claims that Ciattarelli is going on a “witch hunt” over her improperly released military records, which raised questions about her possible involvement in a cheating scandal that rocked the U.S. Naval Academy three decades ago.

“He has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, if you will. He’s now trying to divert from that,” Sherrill told reporters on Tuesday following a campaign event in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey.

Ciattarelli and his campaign are calling on Sherrill, who went on to pilot helicopters during her military career after graduating from the Naval Academy, to release her military records to explain why she was prevented from attending her graduation ceremony.

But a separate report from CBS News revealed that the National Personnel Records Center, which is a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration, mistakenly released Sherrill’s improperly redacted military personnel files, which included private information like her Social Security number, to a Ciattarelli ally. 

“To have a guy I’m running against, it will stop at nothing, it will stop at nothing, who will illegally obtain records. It’s just beyond the pale,” Sherrill, who served as a federal prosecutor before winning election to Congress, charged last week.

The National Archives, in a letter last week, apologized to Sherrill, saying the improper release was due to a government worker’s error over a legal records request.

Following the breach of the records, Sherrill’s campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to the National Archives and to Ciattarelli’s campaign, as well as to Ciattarelli’s top strategist, Chris Russell and Nicholas De Gregorio, who is described by Sherrill’s team as “an agent of the campaign working at the direction of” Russell.

The Sherrill campaign on Monday launched a digital ad taking aim at Ciattarelli.

“They broke the law to attack a veteran,” the narrator in the spot charged.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Asked about the ad, Ciattarelli charged in his Fox News Digital interview that Sherrill “did something at the Naval Academy that caused them to punish her. She wasn’t allowed to participate in the graduation. Her name is not listed in the commencement exercise program. She was, in fact, punished. She needs to come clean on what she did to be punished by the Naval Academy.”

And asked about the release of her military files and criticism from Democrats of possible dirty tricks, Ciattarelli said “somebody filed a Freedom of Information Act request, and it was fulfilled by the National Archives. And so it’s all a smokescreen. The information that came out of there is what the National Archives provided, but this is a smokescreen and spin on what really took place at the Naval Academy, and that’s her punishment.”