EXCLUSIVE – SADDLE BROOK, N.J. – GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy of Ohio was a long way from home on Wednesday night, as he briefly left his own race to help another Republican running for governor.

But Ramaswamy’s campaign trail stop in New Jersey’s competitive and combustible gubernatorial election, where he teamed up with GOP nominee Jack Ciattarelli at a packed diner full of supporters, could pay dividends next year in his own race back home.

New Jersey and Virginia are the only two states to hold gubernatorial showdowns in the year after a presidential election, and the contests traditionally grab outsized attention and are viewed as political barometers ahead of the following year’s midterm elections.

And this year, they’re being viewed to a large degree as ballot box referendums on President Donald Trump’s unprecedented second-term agenda.

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Pointing to New Jersey and Virginia, Ramaswamy said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital that GOP victories in both elections would “set the table for even bigger and more decisive victories, hopefully in places like Ohio next year.”

Ramaswamy arrived in New Jersey hours after the latest poll in the governor’s race indicated Ciattarelli narrowing the gap with Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic Party nominee in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

The MAGA world rock star’s stop in New Jersey could help Ciattarelli energize many in the party’s base – low propensity voters who often skip casting ballots in non-presidential election years.

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“If you want to bring down costs in this state, back Jack,” Ramaswamy told the boisterous crowd. “If you want to make New Jersey great again, back Jack. We are ready, Jack, for change. This state is hungry for it.”

And Ramaswamy, the multimillionaire biotech entrepreneur and conservative commentator who pushed an “America First 2.0” platform as he ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination before ending his bid and becoming one of Trump’s top supporters and surrogates, told Ciattarelli, “We’re going in Ohio next year, but you’ve got to pave the path this year. We’re counting on you.”

Ramaswamy, who’s been endorsed by Trump, is the only major Republican candidate right now in the 2026 race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Mike DeWine.

Former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, who spent two decades representing a large swath of northeastern Ohio, including Akron and Youngstown, is likely to launch a gubernatorial campaign in the coming days. Ryan, his party’s Senate nominee in Ohio’s 2022 election, would become the second major Democrat in the 2026 gubernatorial race, joining former state Health Director Amy Acton.

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“It doesn’t matter who we’re running against,” Ramaswamy said when asked what a Ryan candidacy would mean to him. “The beauty of our side of this election in Ohio is we’re more united than we’ve ever been as a Republican Party. I’m running unopposed in the Republican primary. But even more importantly, we have widespread labor support in Ohio. This is unprecedented.”

Ramaswamy, as he spoke at the Ciattarelli event in New Jersey, which included an overflow crowd of a couple of hundred people outside the diner, received encouragement to make another White House run down the road.

“I’m 100% focused on Ohio,” Ramaswamy told Fox News Digital. “You can’t make long-run plans. Life never goes according to your plan.”

But he added, “We’re gonna do our part in Ohio, and that’s my next step for how we save the country.”

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Ramaswamy’s stop in New Jersey, with less than three weeks until Election Day, came hours after multiple sources confirmed to Fox News that Trump will hold tele-rallies with Ciattarelli. 

In what’s expected to be a low-turnout election, Trump’s backing could prove crucial for Ciattarelli, who’s making his third run for governor after narrowly losing to Murphy four years ago.

“There’s obviously a whole lot of people across the state of New Jersey that are pleased with the job the president’s doing,” Ciattarelli said earlier Wednesday in an exclusive Fox News Digital interview.

Pointing to the president’s push to temporarily halt wind farms off the Jersey Shore, his vow to kill New York’s congestion pricing, tax cuts, deductions, and credits in the GOP’s massive domestic policy measure, and his efforts to secure the nation’s southern border, Ciattarelli said that people “are very pleased with the president, what he’s done for New Jersey.”

Trump endorsed Ciattarelli earlier this year in the GOP gubernatorial nomination race. And the president headlined a tele-rally for Ciattarelli ahead of the June primary.

While Trump isn’t on the ballot, he’s loomed large over the New Jersey gubernatorial election.

At last week’s second and final debate, Sherrill charged that her GOP rival had “shown zero signs of standing up to this president. In fact, the president himself called Jack 100% MAGA, and he’s shown every sign of being that.”

Asked whether he considered himself part of the MAGA movement, Ciattarelli said he was “part of a New Jersey movement.”

When asked to grade the president’s performance so far during his second term, Ciattarelli said, “I’d certainly give the president an A. I think he’s right about everything that he’s doing.”

“I think that tells us all we need to know about who Jack Ciattarelli’s supporting. I give him an F right now,” Sherrill responded, as she pointed to New Jersey’s high cost of living.

While Democrats have long dominated federal and state legislative elections in blue-leaning New Jersey, Republicans are very competitive in gubernatorial contests, winning five out of the past 10 elections.

And Trump made major gains in New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, losing the state by only six percentage points, a major improvement over his 16-point deficit four years earlier.

Ciattarelli said in a Fox News Digital interview last month that he was “really pleased that the White House has offered to help us in any way that we see fit,” and that he and his campaign were “in constant communication with the White House about different ways they can help.”

And while there’s no indication, as of now, that Trump will join Ciattarelli in person in New Jersey, campaign strategist Chris Russell told Fox News, “We’re appreciative of all the help we’ve received from the president and his team so far, and grateful for any support they provide down the stretch.”

But the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in a release after word of the Trump tele-rally was first reported by Axios, claimed that Ciattarelli was “desperate.”

“It’s clear that this election comes down to one major truth: Jack is 100% for Trump, while Mikie Sherrill is 100% for New Jersey,” DNC Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman said in a statement.