NJ-GOV 2021 megathread

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In the Atlas tradition, I'll add my own anecdotal turnout report and jump to hyperbolic conclusions. In the lobby of my apartment building in Jersey City is a voting location. While I went in and out of the building just now, I saw a total of one person voting and no line whatsoever. Clearly Murphy is doomed and the Great Red Wave is upon us.

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Ignoring that though, the red mirage should vanish just by the 70K D eday votes that should be net by Essex.

If all early and mail votes in Essex County have already been counted, and there are just 70K election day votes there to be counted, then Dems have some severe turnout issues in NJ which have opened the door for Ciattarelli to win. That would mean that there are 110K total votes in Essex and there are at least 200K total votes in Ocean, while they had about the same number of total votes in 2020.

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I'm very confused, is Murphy likely going to win or will he probably lose?

I think he's probably still favored, as he has large caches of votes in urban areas outstanding particularly in Essex County/Newark, but there is definitely a reasonable chance he loses.

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I'm very confused, is Murphy likely going to win or will he probably lose?

I wouldn't say probably yet, but Murphy is a slight underdog based on my spreadsheet estimates. If I was going to bet real money, I would put mine on Ciatarelli.

PredictIt has it at 70-30 Murphy, FWIW.

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Said cache in Essex just dropped, closing the gap to 18K.

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Said cache in Essex just dropped, closing the gap to 18K.

Most of the vote out according to DDHQ will be from Biden counties, and most will be mail/early - excluding Salem of course. We know where this is going, it'll just take time and be much closer than expected.

Yeah, then it looks like Murphy is still on track to win. PredictIt has moved towards him, 90-10 now.

Still, he's not going to win by much, and that disappoints me since I thought he was doing a good job. Either there was a lot of hidden anger toward his COVID policies or the issue of taxes really resonated. Honestly I can't tell about the taxes since NY taxes are even higher and I pay those since I work in NYC. Perhaps it was a protest vote in general.

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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.

There have been no restrictions in NJ since May. No, the pandemic is not over but that's not Murphy's fault. If people are upset that they see hand sanitizer around and people wearing masks, then that's their own problem and the culture of this country needs a serious change.

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Does anyone know if the WaPo's numbers on percentage reported are accurate? If so it looks like Murphy lost Bergen County.

No because Bergen County hasn't counted any absentee ballots yet (per Wasserman and Cohn).

Edit: Cohn just backtracked and said he's not sure because there is conflicting information.

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Im telling yall the main ad Jack had was just how Murphy gaffed " If you don't like high taxes, we probably aren't your state"

I think I must have heard this ad at least 10 times on 98.7 ESPN radio while driving. In an off-year election when Democrats control the government, I agree it's going to be an effective ad. Such arguments didn't do work nearly as well in 2020 when Trump still dominated everything.