Politics
WATCH: Prominent GOP Activist Holds Massive Election Rally As Early Voting Opens In New Jersey
Republican elections activist Scott Presler drew hundreds of New Jersey residents to a get out the vote rally in deep blue New Jersey on Saturday. The state has become arguably the most closely watched battleground of the off-year cycle as Republicans hope to build on gains in 2024 and flip the gubernatorial race.
“To anyone who thinks that New Jersey is not winnable this November, I want to remind you that in 2021, that election was decided by 84,000 votes,” Presler told Fox News in a Zoom interview. “Six hundred thousand Republicans did not vote in that election. That election was winnable. Did you know that there are 250,000 gun owners in New Jersey that are not registered to vote? If simply every Second Amendment supporter got registered and voted, we would flip New Jersey from blue to red.”
The prominent conservative activist is in the Garden State as part of a “flip it red” initiative aimed at drawing first-time or low propensity voters to the polls. Presler is the founder of Early Vote Action, a PAC he operates that focuses on voter registration, which played a key role in registering voters in battleground Pennsylvania ahead of last year’s election.
He is now focusing on New Jersey, where Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli is currently locked in a razor close race with Democrat challenger Mikie Sherrill.
“We just won a landslide victory for Donald Trump, winning all seven swing states and winning the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with our work at Early Vote Action. In December of 2024, I announced that we were going to focus next on helping to flip the New Jersey governorship from blue to red. So we have currently 14 full-time staff on the ground across New Jersey’s 21 counties. We have been working tirelessly all throughout 2025, helping to register voters. And our message is: leave no county untouched,” Presler told Fox News.
He went on to point to Republican voter registration gains in 2024, a trend that has continued throughout the current race, as reason to be optimistic. Presler further stressed that the state is in the midst of a “Lord of the Rings moment,” however. “This is their opportunity to save the state. This election in 2025 is gonna be seen as a referendum. The final opportunity, this is your ‘Lord of the Rings,’ This is your ‘Star Wars’ moment, when people have the chance to save their state,” he said.
Jack Ciattarelli w/ Puerto Rican Governor Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon in Clifton, NJ.
📍Passaic County, NJ pic.twitter.com/zjMilcKYMg
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) October 25, 2025
In 2020, Democrats accounted for 38 percent of registered voters in New Jersey while Republicans comprised just 22 percent of the electorate. Ahead of the 2024 Election between President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Republican share of the electorate had climbed to 24 percent, cutting into the share of both Democrat and unaffiliated voters in the state.
New Jersey ultimately shocked election analysts this past November, when the state experienced one of the widest rightward shifts in the country. Former Vice President Kamala Harris defeated President Trump by just under six percentage points in the state, securing 51.8 percent of the vote to Trump’s 45.9 percent. For comparison, President Biden carried New Jersey with 57.3 percent of the vote in 2020, while just 41.4 percent voted for Trump.
The last gubernatorial race in New Jersey was also defined by a massive polling miss, further raising GOP hopes in the Garden State.
A National Research survey conducted in June of 2021 found incumbent Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, who is set to be term-limited, leading Ciattarelli by 12 percentage points. Murphy enjoyed a massive polling advantage leading up to Election Day, though the race ended up being razor close despite a massive fundraising advantage for the Democrat incumbent.
Murphy ultimately won by roughly three percentage points after polling averages projected a double-digit victory.
Polling has projected another close race in the traditionally blue stronghold in 2025. Sherrill currently holds a lead of 4.1 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics polling average, down from 8.3 in early September.
The most recent poll added to the average, which was conducted by Trafalgar in conjunction with InsiderAdvantage, found the Democrat leading by just one point.
