New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno’s (R) campaign fundraising has suffered in part because of her criticism of President Donald Trump, an unnamed source told NJ.com for a story published Wednesday.
Guadagno, currently the state’s lieutenant governor, is lagging far behind her Democratic challenger, Phil Murphy, in recent polling. Current New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s rock bottom approval numbers probably aren’t helping her case.
But an unnamed “insider within the RNC’s top leadership” told NJ.com that Guadagno may be suffering financially due to her criticism of Trump following revelations that he had bragged during a 2005 taping of NBC’s “Access Hollywood” that he could kiss and grope women without their permission because he was famous.
“[The President] is unhappy with anyone who neglected him in his hour of need,” the unnamed source said, adding: “Christie was not as stalwart as some people in the party, but at least he didn’t go against him the way she did.”
After the “Access Hollywood” tapes were published, Guadagno wrote: “No apology can excuse away Mr. Trump’s reprehensible comments degrading women.”
And though plenty of Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), criticized Trump over the tapes, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman (R) seemed to agree with the unnamed RNC insider’s take.
“She went down there, and the [Republican National] Committee was reluctant to back the campaign in the way one would have expected. The implication was, ‘Well you were not a Trump supporter in the primary, and so don’t expect much money,'” Whitman told NJ.com.
Representatives for the Republican National Committee and the Republican Governors Association, which was also mentioned in the NJ.com story, did not immediately respond to TPM’s requests for comment.
