NJ-GOV 2021 megathread

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Extremely safe D so long as Trump is President; Likely D if he loses.

Murphy could get a primary challenge, but it won't mean anything. He has the support of the North Jersey bosses locked up.

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I wonder how Hirsh Singh would do. A big problem for the NJGOP in places like Somerset is the growing South Asian population and outreach is necessary. Their problems won't end with Trump.

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I wonder how Hirsh Singh would do. A big problem for the NJGOP in places like Somerset is the growing South Asian population and outreach is necessary. Their problems won't end with Trump.

Since I posted this I learned that Hirsh Singh is an insane monomaniac and a terrible candidate.

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Likely D. Republicans are unlucky in that both 2021 states are hard D. Probably won't tell us anything about 2022.

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Where is Ciatarelli? He's been MIA for months now

The Allen pick is getting some traction but I’ve literally heard from her more times than from him, and it’s been two days.

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Monmouth Poll coming out this morning; Ciattarelli (and down-ballot Republicans) probably wants a sub-15 margin to even be able to fundraise going forward.

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re: Ciattarelli winning Somerset

New Jersey politics is intensely local. Gubernatorial candidates who came up through a local political machine (i.e. not Corzine, Murphy, or really Forrester) typically outperform the baseline in their home towns and counties by a few points, for organizational and ID reasons. In landslide losses, they tend to outperform the baseline by huge margins. It's not PA (where counties are listed on the ballot and there are multiple urban cores, so you get things like Specter-Flaherty '80) but it's a significant effect.

Year	Candidate	Home County	PVI∆
1973	Sandman	Cape May	+55.4
1977	Bateman	Somerset	+25.1
1981	Florio	Camden	+3.1
1989	Florio	Camden	+2.7
1989	Courter	Warren	+28.6
1993	Whitman	Somerset	-1.1
1997	McGreevey	Middlesex	+12.4
2001	Schundler	Hudson	+2.1
2005	Forrester*	Mercer	+5.2
2009	Christie	Morris	+0.2
2013	Buono	Middlesex	+2.8
2017	Guadagno	Monmouth	+5.2

For who knows what reason, this trend is reversed in Essex County.

Year	Candidate	Home County	PVI∆
1973	Byrne	Essex	-10.2
1981	Kean	Essex	-12.8
1985	Shapiro	Essex	-12.4

You can see it's flattened out in recent years, but I still think it's a very real phenomenon. (Christie was a somewhat unique case in that he'd gone "statewide" nearly a decade prior and had a lot of enemies in his own party in Morris.) Ironically, Somerset is the only county outside Essex that's bucked the trend, but in large part because Courter's House district covered most of Somerset, giving him a bit of a foothold and negating most gains Whitman could make there.

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Bad poll for Republicans. The campaign is probably over on Labor Day, and only then because I don't believe in calling races earlier.

If Republicans want a shred of hope from this poll, it's:
(a) Ciattarelli favorables are not underwater
(b) 32% say taxes are their primary issue

Conclusion is that their base will probably turn out and mitigate losses down-ballot.

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RGA ad attacking Murphy for going to Italy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4SAhvx3o80

Murphy's vacation is an incredibly stupid decision that he will almost definitely survive.

At this point in 2017, the polls showed Murphy leading against Guadagno by 25-30 and he won by 14. It could close up slightly, though I certainly don't expect Murphy to lose.

Often the case in a standard, boring New Jersey race. Polls show a steady Democratic majority from the beginning and the Republican gobbles up the undecideds before falling short. All of Booker's three races have started and ended with him polling at a majority and finishing about the same, while his opponent gained significantly. Whitman '90 is also a famous example of this.

My wager is that it's because losing campaigns often can't afford to advertise in NJ, so undecideds looking for an excuse to vote against the better-known D walk into the booth and blindly vote R. We'll see if it holds.

And this:

I think it was a matter of turnout more than anything, especially with how obvious Murphy's win appeared to be. And that may be the great equalizer for Ciatarelli this year too. I've long maintained that about New jersey elections. Our off-year turnout is usually abysmal and benefits Republicans. I just think even that happening can't overcome Murphy's relative popularity, cash advantage, and machine advantage. At worst Murphy probably wins by 12, and by 15 or so at best.

My guess right now would be something like 55–44.

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Murphy’s entire campaign is built around appealing to white liberals, which makes no sense. This may wind up being one of the worst incumbent campaigns in state history. Still think he wins but am now expecting single digits.

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Do you see Ciattarelli making inroads in Hudson County Urban hispanic areas. Trump made inroads there in 2020 and Christie did as well in 2013

Not really.

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I think Ciattarelli won the debate but his opioids tangle will kill him, especially now that Democrats are using it in attack ads. Likely/Safe D, current guess being something like 53–47.

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Murphy’s entire campaign is built around appealing to white liberals, which makes no sense. This may wind up being one of the worst incumbent campaigns in state history. Still think he wins but am now expecting single digits.

Isn't that the base of Murphy's appeal? White liberals in Red Bank/Middletown/Jersey City/Camden, etc.

Ciattarelli's appeal is to the typical suburban Republican base in Monmouth/Salem/Morris/Bergen, but a lot of them are Matthew Dowd-types turning blue because of Trumpism.

No, this is not how a New Jersey election works. The state is split between white suburban or rural Republicans and black urban Democrats with not many swing votes. This is especially true now that white Delaware Bay voters have swung hard to the Republicans.

Not sure where your list of towns is coming from. There are few liberals in Middletown (which Murphy lost despite, or possibly because of, his partial residency) and few whites period in Camden or Jersey City, though possibly growing in the latter (which has also become marginally more conservative). Red Bank is fairly white and voted for Murphy, but is also very small. Montclair is a better example, probably the archetype — but that's still just one mid-sized town. There are pockets of liberal whites, but they aren't a swing constituency.

A winning candidate in a competitive race needs to be going after Asian and Hispanic votes; that's how Christie won in 2009. Outside of those voters, the state is Mississippi. The tilt toward Democrats has been due to the growing Hispanic populations in the cities and Asian populations in the suburbs along with white flight to the South, especially Florida.

Going after white liberals by attacking Trump is possibly Murphy's attempt to position himself for 2024, but it doesn't do anything to help him in 2021 and risks allowing Ciattarelli to get embarrassingly close.

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I was raised in New Jersey and have consulted for successful campaigns in both parties there. The only thing mildly inaccurate about my post was the Mississippi comparison, since Mississippi has no white moderates, let alone liberals. But the point was still obviously correct — Phil Murphy is wasting time going after the sort of socially-liberal suburban whites who still obsess over Trump.

Nearly every major competitive campaign in the state today employs a strategy that takes most white and all black voters for granted and focuses on the middle (see 2009) — the only way things vary are in a non-competitive landslide like the anti-Trump, anti-Christie wave the state saw in 2017–18 (where a significant minority of conservative whites voted Democratic) or Christie's 2013 win (where he picked up a fair number of black voters).

Murphy's strategy is betting on a similar statewide environment, and it clearly isn't working. At this point in 2017, for comparison, Guadagno had basically stopped fundraising. Most people I've talked to say this is a worse incumbent campaign than Corzine's (who had the environment more strongly against him) and possibly the worst ever. (Keep in mind this is a low bar; incumbents have only been running since 1947 and only a few have lost.) That doesn't mean he'll lose, obviously. I think he'll survive pretty comfortably despite himself.

I also probably should have used "progressive"; forgot this site uses idiosyncratic (though more accurate, to its credit) ideological terms, but everyone in the real world still calls extreme Democrats liberals.

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If the race really is single-digits, and it seems to be, I'm interested in in the down-ballot races, particularly the 16th.

Have to think Democratic chances in the 2nd and 8th were riding on a Murphy landslide (considering they didn't even win them in his first win, an actual landslide). The 16th might still flip D due to trends, but then it's Ciattarelli's own district, so maybe he can hold them off for one more cycle. Looking past that, the 11th is the only other place I can see a seat flipping. The 14th and 38th both ran close to the state in 2017 and though the 14th may be trending slightly R, I don't see enough movement unless Ciattarelli is actually winning the state.

Plus ça change is always the name of the game in New Jersey. You can count the incumbents who have lost this millennia on your hands.

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Following the Star-Ledger's back-handed barely-endorsement of Murphy, the largest newspaper in Hudson County (a sister publication to the Star-Ledger also owned by Advance Media) tells voters to abstain:

https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1451531777529552926

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If the race really is single-digits, and it seems to be, I'm interested in in the down-ballot races, particularly the 16th.

Have to think Democratic chances in the 2nd and 8th were riding on a Murphy landslide (considering they didn't even win them in his first win, an actual landslide). The 16th might still flip D due to trends, but then it's Ciattarelli's own district, so maybe he can hold them off for one more cycle. Looking past that, the 11th is the only other place I can see a seat flipping. The 14th and 38th both ran close to the state in 2017 and though the 14th may be trending slightly R, I don't see enough movement unless Ciattarelli is actually winning the state.

Plus ça change is always the name of the game in New Jersey. You can count the incumbents who have lost this millennia on your hands.

SD-11 actually had more Dem primary votes than Republican this year, which was not the case in SD-16.  I would bet that Republicans hold SD-16 before they win SD-11.

Yes, SD-16 is far more favorable to Republicans than SD-11. That's what I meant by "looking past" that tier of district. Sorry if this was unclear. It goes something like

2, 8
16
-
11
-
-
14, 38

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https://twitter.com/RebovichInst/status/1452316054588383234

Surprisingly a much lower two-party % than registration totals (59.7% versus 75.2%), esp. given I’d expect Rs to disfavor early voting and Murphy made a big deal out of voting early himself. Maybe the very widespread mail-in access accounts for this. Not really an earthquake in any case; these votes are an extremely small percentage of the final. Low turnout overall probably also helps Ciattarelli but still see this as too high a mountain for him to climb.

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https://twitter.com/RebovichInst/status/1452316054588383234

Surprisingly a much lower two-party % than registration totals (59.7% versus 75.2%), esp. given I’d expect Rs to disfavor early voting and Murphy made a big deal out of voting early himself. Maybe the very widespread mail-in access accounts for this. Not really an earthquake in any case; these votes are an extremely small percentage of the final. Low turnout overall probably also helps Ciattarelli but still see this as too high a mountain for him to climb.

Maybe in some states, but there has been a heavy push by Republicans to early vote in NJ.

Haven’t seen this but will take your word for it.

Another reason that early voting might skew more Republican than expected is that there appear to typically be one EV location per municipality (with a few exceptions). That would tend to diminish turnout in the smaller cities like Trenton, the Oranges, Plainfield which skew almost unanimously Democratic.

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Again surprised by just how Republican (relative to my expectations) this early vote is. It and VBM are also very white, which could be the explanatory variable.

https://newjerseyglobe.com/campaigns/more-than-80-of-early-n-j-voters-are-white/

81% of voters who have cast a ballot are white (6% are black, 4% Asian, 4% Hispanic)
79% are over the age of 50 (28% are 65–74, 25% are 75+)
56% are women

Feels a bit quirky but not sure how to read this. This vote is still <7% of the expected electorate.

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Final Monmouth poll coming tomorrow.

Their final poll from 2017 had Murphy +14, 53-39.

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_nj_110117/

We'll also get a less-reliable Rutgers-Eagleton poll on Friday. These should go a long way to clarifying whether or not Ciattarelli even has a shot.

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This thread is quiet compared to the virginia thread

The race itself is quiet. Ciattarelli shot himself in the foot a bit by not seizing on education like Youngkin did (he really boxed himself in by opening his argument on education with the word “sodomy,” even though it was accurate), the state is slightly more Democratic, and Murphy is an incumbent who has managed to be decently popular by the low, low standards of New Jersey.

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This thread is quiet compared to the virginia thread

The race itself is quiet. Ciattarelli shot himself in the foot a bit by not seizing on education like Youngkin did (he really boxed himself in by opening his argument on education with the word “sodomy,” even though it was accurate), the state is slightly more Democratic, and Murphy is an incumbent who has managed to be decently popular by the low, low standards of New Jersey.

Also the DC media/political class just doesn't care as much about this race because it's not in their backyard.

Yes, although the New York and Philadelphia media used to at least pretend to care.

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RIP Murphy campaign:[image]

LOL

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I think the race will be surprisingly close; Murphy +6-8.