New Jersey Republicans looked past Donald Trump Tuesday, nominating a challenger to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy who once called the former president a "charlatan" and later acknowledged Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Jack Ciattarelli, a three-term former member of the New Jersey General Assembly who was backed by the state's GOP establishment, defeated three other Republicans -- two of whom centered their campaigns around loyalty to the former president -- to win his party's gubernatorial nomination. The selection of Ciattarelli in heavily Democratic New Jersey bucks a national trend of Republicans supporting candidates linked to the former president.

In his victory speech, delivered shortly after 10 p.m., Ciattarelli didn't mention Trump -- instead name checking Abraham Lincoln. "The fact is, I'm an Abraham Lincoln Republican -- one who believes in tolerance, mutual respect and the power and beauty of diversity," he said.