Doug Steinhardt leaves no doubt: “I support President Trump. I always have.”

This was in the kickoff video for the 2021 gubernatorial campaign Steinhardt just launched.

Steinhardt is a loyal Republican. In fact, he’s more than that; he chairs the state Republican Committee.

At the same time, why can’t loyal Republicans realize and acknowledge the harm Trump has done to the Republican brand in New Jersey?

The data is clear.

Trump lost the state twice by wide margins and in the middle of his term – 2018 – Democrats “flipped” four congressional seats and held three of them this year. Jeff Van Drew, who won as a Dem, but later became a Republican was the exception. Also in 2018, Sen. Bob Menendez, just off a federal trial that ended in a hung jury, easily defeated Bob Hugin, his GOP opponent. Most voters preferred an ethically-challenged Menendez to a man who likely would have been a Trump supporter in the Senate. That should tell you something.

More recently, Trump’s juvenile rantings and unpersuasive legal challenges to an election he clearly lost are without precedent and as Chris Christie has observed, a “national embarrassment.”

I grasp the need for Republicans to appeal to “Trumpers,” which is why Steinhardt thought he had to express support for a president who’s leaving office next month kicking and screaming.

However, as someone who attended a number of Trump rallies both before – and after – the election, I can attest that as passionate as his supporters are, they are a minority of a minority. A wise candidate must get beyond people who live in an alternate reality and refuse to accept basic facts.

In the last two federal election cycles, I have heard more than one Morris County Republican privately acknowledge that campaigning as a Republican with Trump in the White House was no easy chore.

Morris is only one of 21 counties, but in the world of state Republican politics, it’s an important one. Republicans are at a steep registration disadvantage in New Jersey, but there are a lot of unaffiliated voters.

The rule of thumb has been that for a Republican to win statewide, he or she needs a big victory margin in the state’s few large and traditionally Republican counties. Morris is at the top of the list.

So, what happened on Nov. 3?

Joe Biden carried Morris County, the first Dem to do so since LBJ’s national landslide in 1964.

That’s what Donald Trump did for Republicans in New Jersey. He turned Morris blue.

I wrote a column a few days after the election saying Trump’s departure is great news for New Jersey Republicans, who no longer would have to defend or explain the president. I knew some in the party would not get it.

That’s clearly the case. And that’s bad news for Republicans going forward, but good news for Phil Murphy.

Steinhardt would have been better off saying something like this: “Donald Trump is no longer relevant. My focus is on Phil Murphy and one-party control of the state.”