NJ-GOV 2021 megathread

[Ferguson97]

Pretty much zero chance a Republican is gonna win a statewide race in New Jersey again, unless something dramatic happens.

As for the primary, all of the Democrats I know love Murphy and hate Sweeney so there's zero shot he gets primaried.

I think especially after Murphy's leadership during the covid crisis, he wins easily.

[Ferguson97]

Murphy wins easily.

[Ferguson97]

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.

This is painfully inaccurate

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/ccadelago/status/1447957174324445190

Incredible ad lmao

[Ferguson97]

Lmao was this debate audience hand-picked by the Cittarelli campaign?

[Ferguson97]

Murphy will win by 10 points.

[Ferguson97]

Voted for Murphy on Saturday. Can't wait for his second term.

[Ferguson97]

I’m a poll worker today, turnout seems pretty normal so far in my tiny town.

[Ferguson97]

You know who should really be sweating tonight? Gretchen Whitmer.

There is no other explanation for the closeness of these results besides Murphy's strict Covid policies. He was a generic D Democrat and most of his policies didn't get people too angry, and Ciatarelli ran a competent but uninspired campaign.

It's almost like vaccinated people aren't particularly happy about having restrictions forced on them when they did the right thing months ago.

The worst of this was before the vaccines rolled out - keeping indoor dining shut indefinitely long after the crisis abated, for instance - but yeah, people are done with the fact that there doesn't seem to be an offramp here.

The crazy part is that a lot of Dems seem to WANT the pandemic to last forever. Getting vaccinated 10 times, triple masking, massively overestimating the risk of hospitalization/death, some even still refusing to go out and eat indoors or anything. It all looks hypochondriac and frankly insane to a lot of people. This thing isn't the Black Death. It sucks, but it mostly kills very old and very fat people, to be brutally honest. I get it's frustrating that a lot of loons still won't get vaxxed which would help speed up the process but smugly mocking them probably isn't helping. It just is nuts that this has become such a politicized, polarized culture war issue akin to abortion or something on both sides with no end in sight. America has gone off the deep end.

I agree with most of this, but what’s wrong with booster shots? People get flu shots every year, what’s the difference?

[Ferguson97]

Murphy survives by a hair

Do you think that Phil Murphy is going to reimplement a statewide lockdown if he is re-elected? That idea seems to be in play a bit now.

No it doesn’t. Why would he do that lol

[Ferguson97]

At the very least some polls showed Youngkin ahead… absolutely no NJ polls showed a race this close. How did they drop the ball so badly with polling this race?

[Ferguson97]

Dave has seen enough

https://twitter.com/redistrict/status/1455903514748760075?s=21

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1455905952234983426?s=20

Sweeney sucks so I’m fine with this as long as we keep our majority

[Ferguson97]

The way elections are conducted in america is an embarrassment, and it 100% is due to our infrastructure not being able to handle early mail voting in a timely fashion.

No other country of similar wealth has issues like this

One particular party is to blame, a party that abuses a system that was NEVER meant for anyone but the sick, the elderly, the disabled, and other exceptions

21 year old college students in great physical shape that can spend hours making tik tok videos can find the time to get to a poll station on Election Day

How is letting people vote in a more convenient way "abusing the system"

Like, there is no rational objection here.

It doesn't matter if someone is able-bodied, unemployed, and lives across the street from their voting precinct - they should be allowed to vote by mail if they want. That's their prerogative.

[Ferguson97]

I'm glad Murphy won but this should never have been this close.

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/ActualAlexZ/status/1456281069670514696

Wow....

[Ferguson97]

Lol no