Is This New Jersey Gov. Candidate’s Ad ‘Trashy?’

If elected as New Jersey governor, will Democrat Phil Murphy “have the backs of deranged murderers?” That’s what his main opponent in November, Republican Kim Guadagno, is charging in a rhetoric-laden, mud-slinging campaign video that has some of the state’s Democrat leaders up in arms.

On Wednesday, a day after the first debate between the New Jersey governor candidates, Guadagno’s camp released a video titled “Phil Murphy's Sanctuary State Plan Is Too Dangerous For NJ.”

In the video, Guadagno’s campaign team claims that if elected, Murphy will “have the backs of deranged murderers like Jose Carranza,” an undocumented immigrant that was previously charged with raping a five-year-old before being convicted of shooting and killing three college students in Newark.

According to Guadagno, Carranza had a fake social security number and was in the country illegally from Peru at the time of the murders.

The video then references footage taken from a recent town hall at the Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics, when Murphy was asked about Carranza’s case and if police should notify immigration authorities about crimes such as rape and drunk driving that may involve undocumented immigrants.

“I’m not sure what the right point of notification is this is,” Murphy replied. “My bias is going to be having their back.”

The video also lambasts Murphy’s stated belief that New Jersey should function as a “sanctuary state” for undocumented immigrants.

“By making New Jersey a sanctuary state, Phil Murphy is saying he would rather protect dangerous criminals and murderers like Jose Carranza than stand up for the law abiding people of New Jersey," Guadagno wrote on her campaign website. "As a former prosecutor and sheriff, I can tell you that Phil Murphy is seriously misguided and would make New Jerseyans less safe as governor with policies like this.”

CURRIE: ‘IT’S A LOAD OF CRAP’

After the video’s release, Murphy called Guadagno's ad "vile and deceitful."

"Kim Guadagno needs to look in the mirror and ask herself why her campaign has lost any semblance of integrity," Murphy stated. "This ad, which represents politics at its worst, is vile and deceitful. She took an answer I gave about standing up for immigrant communities and knowingly distorted it."

Murphy continued:

"Kim Guadagno should be ashamed of herself for the way she's politicizing the deaths of three children and painting a community with the broad brush of a murderer, a tactic she must have gleaned from President Trump. To say the least, these are not New Jersey's values."

Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee John Currie supported Murphy, issuing a Wednesday evening statement that blasted Guadagno for her “blatantly misleading ad that peddles hatred and bigotry.”

“It's despicable,” Currie charged. “This latest ad is straight out of the playbook of Republican boogeyman Lee Atwater, and, pardon my language but, it’s a load of crap.”

Currie said that the video takes statements out of context and are little more than “gutter politics.”

“The only thing this ad shows is that Kim Guadagno is in lockstep with her party's failed and embarrassing leaders, Chris Christie and Donald Trump,” Currie said. “Ms. Guadagno’s ad just makes her look desperate and trashy.”

The “boogeyman” that Currie is referring to – the late Lee Atwater - served as the campaign manager for Republican nominee George H. W. Bush in 1988. That campaign famously used the case of convicted murderer Willie Horton to promote the idea that Bush’s Democrat competitor, Michael Dukakis, was soft on crime.

For his part, Murphy has previously taken the kid’s gloves off regarding Guadagno, releasing prior statements that blast the Republican for “slamming the door on common sense gun safety” and her abstention on a vote to ban fracking in the Delaware River Watershed.

“With this ad, Kim Guadagno has embraced Donald Trump’s politics of division," Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin said.

"Selectively editing someone’s comments to imply support for criminals is dishonest, undemocratic and unacceptable," Pintor Marin continued. "But this ad also preys upon racial division and anti-immigrant sentiment. It’s divisive and repulsive, and rips asunder still unhealed wounds in my district and city from this heinous crime. Consider that the families of these children will be seeing this ad. Where is Kim Guadagno’s compassion? Where is her empathy and sensitivity? It shockingly seems to be lacking."

Former Governor Richard Codey also offered a scathing opinion about the ad, calling it "fake and false."

"Deliberately using a gutter-tactic such as race-baiting like she has just authorized in her new advertisement demonstrates that she has no interest in being a governor for all our residents," Codey said. "Instead her plan is now clear - continue the Chris Christie playbook of governing through fear, distortions, bullying and lies."

LUPE, NJ Resistance, Make the Road, New Jersey Working Families, NAACP, BlueWaveNJ and others local civil rights groups plan to hold a demonstration in front of Guadagno's office on Friday, Oct. 13 at 10 a.m. outside the Monmouth Park Corporate Center at 185 Route 36 Building B West Long Branch.

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Photo: Kim for NJ, YouTube