10 days left... how would you grade Jack Ciattarelli's campaign?

[Woody]

?

[kwabbit]

It's hard to tell. He's exceeded some expectations in keeping the race this close, but that's mostly because expectations for Murphy were set too high in the first place.

If he can keep it within 5 points that A- or above. Right now I give him a B+ because I expect a Murphy +7 win.

[SnowLabrador]

B+. The race is a lot closer than it should be, so clearly he's doing something right.

[Schiff for Senate]

The race is at least Murphy+12, and most likely more. But I'd give him a B+ or so.

[Progressive Pessimist]

As irritated to death as I have been over seeing his God damn ads every ten minutes on cable or on Youtube, I have to give him credit for that. In fact, I ahve probably seen three of his ads for every one of Murphy's. He has gone from a relative statewide unknown to a known presence that is doing the best thing possible for a New Jersey Republican candidate and focusing almost exclusively on taxes as his campaign issues. That's what Guadagno did in 2017 which curbed how badly she could have lost, and Ciatarelli's campaign seems to have taken note of that. Add not having the baggage of being very closely associated with Christie and having a Democrat in the White House instead of Trump, and Ciatarelli does indeed seem to have the makings of keeping the race relatively close and deflecting connections to Christie and Trump that the Murphy campaign wants to make.

He will still lose though. The historical pattern of the state electing a Governor of the opposite party of the President is over, just as it ended in Virginia in 2013. Polarization is too much to overcome these days in many states.

So I'll begrudgingly give Ciatarelli a B+.

[Non Swing Voter]

I want to see what percent of the vote he gets compared to Youngkin (and how it compares to 2017) before I grade it. 

[Xing]

Since I think he'll overperform the 2020 results by more than Youngkin, I'll say B+. Obviously nowhere near enough for him to win, but he'll do relatively respectably for a Republican.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

C- which is still far better than Youngkin’s