Why Jack Ciattarelli is rallying with MAGA influencer Scott Presler at the Jersey Shore

President Donald Trump’s pick for New Jersey governor, Jack Ciattarelli, will rally with rising MAGA force Scott Presler in New Jersey’s most Republican county on Saturday.

The “New Jersey Unites” rally in Seaside Heights on the Jersey Shore is part of Presler’s effort to unite Republicans in the state behind GOP nominee Ciattarelli in his campaign against U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee.

It will take place at Beachcomber Bar & Grill in Seaside Heights in heavily Republican Ocean County.

Ciattarelli, a former Assembly member, has been running for governor for the better part of the last decade. After rejecting Trump in 2016, the Jersey Republican largely avoided the subject in 2021 in an effort to reach moderates without alienating the MAGA base. This time around, he “has gone ALL IN” on MAGA, as Trump said in his endorsement of Ciattarelli in a Truth Social post before Ciattarelli won the primary by a large margin.

Presler may help motivate Trump loyalists to show up in a year the president isn’t on the ballot.

Presler has made a name for himself nationally as a MAGA voter-registration activist who takes credit for helping swing Pennsylvania to Trump in the 2024 election. A social media celebrity who shares updates on his Jersey Shore body goals alongside political outreach to upward of 2 million followers on X, he fills rooms with life-coach-style speeches about turning out the Republican vote.

Democrats, meanwhile, point to Presler’s past involvement with efforts to overturn the 2020 election, support of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and organizing a nationwide protest criticized as anti-Muslim.

The Saturday rally demonstrates Ciattarelli’s embrace of the party’s MAGA wing this election.

In a state where Democrats hold a roughly 800,000 voter registration advantage, Ciattarelli’s rightward swing could be a gamble. But he’s betting that it will pay off as the state has shifted right.

Ciattarelli and Presler appeared together last month at a private event in Red Bank with Paula Scanlan, a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer who has publicly spoken against the university for having allowed transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete on the women’s team. Scanlan works as the external director for Presler’s Early Vote Action.

Ciattarelli has praised Presler as the “X factor” and “get-out-the-vote extraordinaire” multiple times.

Carly Jones, a spokesperson for Sherrill, called Presler “a conspiracy theorist” and criticized Ciattarelli for affiliating with him.

“Jack Ciattarelli hitting the trail alongside him is yet more proof that Jack will roll over and let Trump turn New Jersey into his stomping ground to drive up prices and take away our rights,” Jones said in a statement, referencing Trump’s tariffs and other policies.

Ciattarelli has spoken out against 2020 election denialism. Earlier this year, he said that he supports pardons for people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, citing “overzealous and politically motivated prosecutions,” but that those who assaulted law enforcement should be held accountable. That was a change in tone from last summer, when he said that people who broke the law on Jan. 6 should be prosecuted and not be pardoned.

Conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg, who has his fair share of controversy and has been described as a “shock jock, will also speak at the rally. The New York City-based commentator and former Jersey resident has “a loyal listening audience in New Jersey that loves” him, Ciattarelli noted during one of his numerous appearances on the show.

Last year, Rosenberg said that all Democrats are “degenerates, lowlives, Jew-haters” at the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden last year garnered widespread attention after one speaker, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

While Ciattarelli’s embrace of these MAGA figures could be a turnoff to moderates, Democrats have already gone after his Trump ties and will likely continue to do so until Election Day, Nov. 4.

In 2021, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy ran ads showing Ciattarelli at a “Stop the Steal” rally, and Ciattarelli claimed that he wasn’t aware of the purpose of the rally and condemned the cause.

The rally on Saturday is just one of several campaign stops for Ciattarelli, who is also seeking favor with Republicans who haven’t always been in lock step with Trump.

Just on Wednesday, Ciattarelli attended three private fundraisers with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the head of the Republican Governors Association, who resisted pressure from the president to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, which favored Joe Biden.

Trump and Kemp had a longtime feud that has recently simmered, with Trump slamming the Georgia governor as “disloyal” last year before praising him more recently.

Ciattarelli plans to visit the Ocean County Federation of Republican Women, the New Jersey Association of Federal Women, and the Ocean Township Italian Festival the day of the rally.

Presler said he invited all of Ciattarelli’s primary opponents to Saturday’s rally in an effort to build party unity, although they won’t all be in attendance. Mario Kranjack, who received less than 3% of the vote, and Ed Durr, a former state senator and truck driver who dropped out before the primary, both plan to speak.

Bill Spadea, who came in second place with 21.5% of the vote, has mostly kept his head down since the primary when he and Ciattarelli competed for Trump’s base. Sources confirmed that he was invited but will not be attending Saturday’s rally.

“Certain people are still being party poopers, but that’s their call,” Durr said. “You’re either supporting her or you’re supporting him; there is no third option.”