After fortifying himself in a battlegroud district with ads featuring his candidacy alone, Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-21) this week appeared in an ad with his running mate, Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz (R-21).

“Nancy and I will continue to be the common sense legislators,” Bramnick wrote on his Facebook page. “We respect the taxpayer and will never be extremists who want to create bigger and more expensive government. New Jersey must stay competitive.”

The incumbent Republicans are being challenged by Democrats Lisa Mandelblatt and Stacey Gunderman.

Appearing lone in his TV ads, Bramnick sparked consderable speculation in the closing weeks of August and through Septmber that the GOP was in jeopardy.

Now, side by side with Bramnick, the minority leader appears to be far enough ahead in his own polling that he can take his running mate into the endzone with him.

Still, there is still a race here, most likely between Mandelblatt and Munoz, as Republicans insist they will continue to work hard in a district where President Donald J. Trump continues to be very unpopular. An independent conservative ticket composed of Martin Marks and Harris Pappas is also running in this district.

Westfield Mayor Shelley Brindle, who backs the Mandelblatt-Gunderman ticket, last month told InsiderNJ that Trump has mangled the GOP brand in LD21, where she herself dethroned an incumbent Republican Mayor in 2017.

“It’s not nor enough to talk about civility,” the mayor said, in a dig at Bramnick, whose new ad with Munoz doesn’t mention party affiliation.

A week after she expressed her disappointment over state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean’s (R-21) decision to run for Congress with Trump at the top of the ticket, Union County Republican Committee Chairman Glenn Mortimer defended Kean, and made his case for GOP incumbents in this battleground 21st District.

“The Democratic Party at the national level seems to have gone very far to the left,” Mortimer told InsiderNJ downtown at the Westfield Fall Festival.