NJ-GOV 2021 megathread

[kwabbit]

I've been compiling town-by-town results in a Google Sheet. So far 13 counties have certified out of 21.

Trenton only had 9,000 votes? Wow. Hamilton is roughly the same population and had 3x that amount. I guess Trenton's Hispanic population is significantly non-citizen or too young, but that is a very stark difference.

[lfromnj]

So Ciattarelli obviously won the white vote statewide. Is it also safe to assume that he won it in every county aside from Hudson, Essex, Mercer, Union and Camden?

Murphy probably won Middlesex's white vote as well....

What? Absolutely not. I'm even doubtful he won it in Union and Camden (though he still probably did, narrowly). I'll grant he won Mercer whites but only because that's the one county in that with a proportionally large population of white liberals.

New census numbers are going to show that most of these counties are now close to majority-minority. Middlesex almost definitely is. There's zero chance that Murphy won the white vote given the relatively tight margin. The majority white precincts (almost exclusively in Monroe and Old Bridge) all went for Ciattarelli with the exception of the retirement homes in Monroe (which are almost exclusively Jewish Brooklyn emigrants).

Middlesex Precinct Results: https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Middlesex/110780/web.278093/#/summary

Racial Breakdown: https://statisticalatlas.com/county/New-Jersey/Middlesex-County/Race-and-Ethnicity

Do you have 2017?

[Senator Incitatus]

I've been compiling town-by-town results in a Google Sheet. So far 13 counties have certified out of 21.

Trenton only had 9,000 votes? Wow. Hamilton is roughly the same population and had 3x that amount. I guess Trenton's Hispanic population is significantly non-citizen or too young, but that is a very stark difference.

Yes; Trenton has always had extremely low turnout in all precincts. Turnout is pretty much always less than half of Hamilton's.

Controlling for immigration status and race, it's still a place with a lot of transient people. Real unemployment is about 50% and I'd guess a fifth of the population are "just passing through." Among the small population that's likely to vote, a handful are also state house employees who are likely to remain registered in their home district and vote there.

Do you have 2017?

https://mcgisweb.co.middlesex.nj.us/elections/historic/

[Suburbia]

So Ciattarelli obviously won the white vote statewide. Is it also safe to assume that he won it in every county aside from Hudson, Essex, Mercer, Union and Camden?

Murphy probably won Middlesex's white vote as well....

What? Absolutely not. I'm even doubtful he won it in Union and Camden (though he still probably did, narrowly). I'll grant he won Mercer whites but only because that's the one county in that with a proportionally large population of white liberals.

New census numbers are going to show that most of these counties are now close to majority-minority. Middlesex almost definitely is. There's zero chance that Murphy won the white vote given the relatively tight margin. The majority white precincts (almost exclusively in Monroe and Old Bridge) all went for Ciattarelli with the exception of the retirement homes in Monroe (which are almost exclusively Jewish Brooklyn emigrants).

Middlesex Precinct Results: https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Middlesex/110780/web.278093/#/summary

Racial Breakdown: https://statisticalatlas.com/county/New-Jersey/Middlesex-County/Race-and-Ethnicity

He had to win Middlesex's white vote to win countywide.....did he win South Amboy?

[Suburbia]

Ciattarelli won Sayreville, South Amboy and held Woodbridge to 5%.....Democrats need to work harder here....

That area was once McGreevey-Corzine country....what happened?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo4_yxZMc_6gxHWseCO6QPARhj7O35FnXdPU8OfbQfQ/edit#gid=759796571

[kwabbit]

Ciattarelli won Sayreville, South Amboy and held Woodbridge to 5%.....Democrats need to work harder here....

That area was once McGreevey-Corzine country....what happened?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo4_yxZMc_6gxHWseCO6QPARhj7O35FnXdPU8OfbQfQ/edit#gid=759796571

Those areas are WWC. As machine politics have declined and trends have progressed in the last 20 years, there’s not much to compel these voters to vote D. Middlesex County is decent ground for Republicans going forward. It’s educated and diverse, but that’s the composite of a lot of very educated Indian areas not particularly heavy in educated Whites and working class White areas like Sayreville and Hispanic cities like NB and Perth Amboy. Overall there’s just not a lot of places that can be expected to trend leftward.

I think Pallone’s district in its current form would be very close in 2022. The more familiar that I become with the area through redistributing, the more I realize a Republican district could be created through Southeast Middlesex and North Monmouth.

[Suburbia]

Ciattarelli won Sayreville, South Amboy and held Woodbridge to 5%.....Democrats need to work harder here....

That area was once McGreevey-Corzine country....what happened?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo4_yxZMc_6gxHWseCO6QPARhj7O35FnXdPU8OfbQfQ/edit#gid=759796571

Those areas are WWC. As machine politics have declined and trends have progressed in the last 20 years, there’s not much to compel these voters to vote D. Middlesex County is decent ground for Republicans going forward. It’s educated and diverse, but that’s the composite of a lot of very educated Indian areas not particularly heavy in educated Whites and working class White areas like Sayreville and Hispanic cities like NB and Perth Amboy. Overall there’s just not a lot of places that can be expected to trend leftward.

I think Pallone’s district in its current form would be very close in 2022. The more familiar that I become with the area through redistributing, the more I realize a Republican district could be created through Southeast Middlesex and North Monmouth.

Health care? Jobs? Middlesex Democrats may oust Kevin McCabe, how could he let this be? This would have never happened under former Middlesex Democratic boss John A. Lynch Jr.--and his dad, John Sr.

[kwabbit]

Ciattarelli won Sayreville, South Amboy and held Woodbridge to 5%.....Democrats need to work harder here....

That area was once McGreevey-Corzine country....what happened?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo4_yxZMc_6gxHWseCO6QPARhj7O35FnXdPU8OfbQfQ/edit#gid=759796571

Those areas are WWC. As machine politics have declined and trends have progressed in the last 20 years, there’s not much to compel these voters to vote D. Middlesex County is decent ground for Republicans going forward. It’s educated and diverse, but that’s the composite of a lot of very educated Indian areas not particularly heavy in educated Whites and working class White areas like Sayreville and Hispanic cities like NB and Perth Amboy. Overall there’s just not a lot of places that can be expected to trend leftward.

I think Pallone’s district in its current form would be very close in 2022. The more familiar that I become with the area through redistributing, the more I realize a Republican district could be created through Southeast Middlesex and North Monmouth.

Health care? Jobs? Middlesex Democrats may oust Kevin McCabe, how could he let this be? This would have never happened under former Middlesex Democratic boss John A. Lynch Jr.--and his dad, John Sr.

American politics has shifted from a class based axis to a cultural based axis in that time. These areas aren’t that poor, but they are quite old-school/hard-knock whatever you want to call it. Not particularly welcoming to ‘wokism’.

I wouldn’t call them pro-police like Staten Island or Long Island definitely is, using an issue you like to discuss, but the streets aren’t lined with BLM signs in East Brunswick the way they are in Princeton. These areas aren’t right wing or conservative or full of poor resentful Whites, they just aren’t the type of places that are repulsed by Trumps demeanor or attracted to liberal professionalism.

[jamestroll]

this should teach dems:


NO

MORE

LOCKDOWNS!!

[Duke of York]

I've been compiling town-by-town results in a Google Sheet. So far 13 counties have certified out of 21.

Trenton only had 9,000 votes? Wow. Hamilton is roughly the same population and had 3x that amount. I guess Trenton's Hispanic population is significantly non-citizen or too young, but that is a very stark difference.

That is pathetic. This a problem Democrats need to fix. Connecticut Dems learned it long ago and are able to get high urban turnout almost every year.

[Dead Parrot]

I've been compiling town-by-town results in a Google Sheet. So far 13 counties have certified out of 21.

All 21 counties have been added.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I've been compiling town-by-town results in a Google Sheet. So far 13 counties have certified out of 21.

All 21 counties have been added.

Thank you for your hard work.

[Roll Roons]

I've been compiling town-by-town results in a Google Sheet. So far 13 counties have certified out of 21.

All 21 counties have been added.

Nice work! So it appears that by percentage, East Orange was the most Democratic town in the state and Deal was the most Republican. In terms of raw votes, it looks like Murphy netted the most from Jersey City and Jack netted the most from Toms River.

[wbrocks67]

this should teach dems:


NO

MORE

LOCKDOWNS!!

"lockdowns" did not exist in New Jersey, nor anywhere in the country, in 2020

[Suburbia]

Ciattarelli won Sayreville, South Amboy and held Woodbridge to 5%.....Democrats need to work harder here....

That area was once McGreevey-Corzine country....what happened?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo4_yxZMc_6gxHWseCO6QPARhj7O35FnXdPU8OfbQfQ/edit#gid=759796571

Those areas are WWC. As machine politics have declined and trends have progressed in the last 20 years, there’s not much to compel these voters to vote D. Middlesex County is decent ground for Republicans going forward. It’s educated and diverse, but that’s the composite of a lot of very educated Indian areas not particularly heavy in educated Whites and working class White areas like Sayreville and Hispanic cities like NB and Perth Amboy. Overall there’s just not a lot of places that can be expected to trend leftward.

I think Pallone’s district in its current form would be very close in 2022. The more familiar that I become with the area through redistributing, the more I realize a Republican district could be created through Southeast Middlesex and North Monmouth.

Health care? Jobs? Middlesex Democrats may oust Kevin McCabe, how could he let this be? This would have never happened under former Middlesex Democratic boss John A. Lynch Jr.--and his dad, John Sr.

American politics has shifted from a class based axis to a cultural based axis in that time. These areas aren’t that poor, but they are quite old-school/hard-knock whatever you want to call it. Not particularly welcoming to ‘wokism’.

I wouldn’t call them pro-police like Staten Island or Long Island definitely is, using an issue you like to discuss, but the streets aren’t lined with BLM signs in East Brunswick the way they are in Princeton. These areas aren’t right wing or conservative or full of poor resentful Whites, they just aren’t the type of places that are repulsed by Trumps demeanor or attracted to liberal professionalism.

Young people in those areas are woke, but their grandparents who vote aren't. South Amboy's mayor is a Democrat, SA is ancestrally Democratic, the city council Democrat, the police force conservadems, I wonder if the NJGOP will invest there...2022, the mayor is up for reelection for a fourth term.....

[Roll Roons]

Results by congressional district: https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/ciattarelli-won-all-five-of-new-jerseys-competitive-congressional-districts/

Ciattarelli won NJ-02, NJ-03, NJ-04, NJ-05, NJ-07 and NJ-11 and only lost NJ-06 by 4 points. The Hudson County-based 8th was the only district where Murphy did better than Biden.

[Calthrina950]

Results by congressional district: https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/ciattarelli-won-all-five-of-new-jerseys-competitive-congressional-districts/

Ciattarelli won NJ-02, NJ-03, NJ-04, NJ-05, NJ-07 and NJ-11 and only lost NJ-06 by 4 points. The Hudson County-based 8th was the only district where Murphy did better than Biden.

So Ciattarelli and Murphy tied in terms of congressional districts? And Ciattarelli won one more county (11) then Murphy did (10). Kim, Gottheimer, Malinowski, and Sherill all sit in districts won by Ciattarelli.

[Mr.Phips]

Results by congressional district: https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/ciattarelli-won-all-five-of-new-jerseys-competitive-congressional-districts/

Ciattarelli won NJ-02, NJ-03, NJ-04, NJ-05, NJ-07 and NJ-11 and only lost NJ-06 by 4 points. The Hudson County-based 8th was the only district where Murphy did better than Biden.

So Ciattarelli and Murphy tied in terms of congressional districts? And Ciattarelli won one more county (11) then Murphy did (10). Kim, Gottheimer, Malinowski, and Sherill all sit in districts won by Ciattarelli.

Dems better get ready to throw Malinowski under the bus and concede NJ-02 to Van Drew in order to protect NJ-03, NJ-05, and NJ-11.  Anyone who thinks Dems can get a 10-2 delegation in 2022 is dreaming.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

It's pretty remarkable how Somerset still managed to swing D from 2017 despite what happened statewide.

Those suburban trends are sticking.

[Suburbia]

It's pretty remarkable how Somerset still managed to swing D from 2017 despite what happened statewide.

Why has Somerset been so Democratic for an affluent white county.......compared to Morris?

[kwabbit]

It's pretty remarkable how Somerset still managed to swing D from 2017 despite what happened statewide.

Why has Somerset been so Democratic for an affluent white county.......compared to Morris?

Somerset’s a lot less White. Places like Franklin Park which is 20% of Somerset are very diverse.

[cg41386]

It's pretty remarkable how Somerset still managed to swing D from 2017 despite what happened statewide.

Why has Somerset been so Democratic for an affluent white county.......compared to Morris?

Somerset’s a lot less White. Places like Franklin Park which is 20% of Somerset are very diverse.

Also Montgomery Township, which borders Princeton.

[kwabbit]

It's pretty remarkable how Somerset still managed to swing D from 2017 despite what happened statewide.

Why has Somerset been so Democratic for an affluent white county.......compared to Morris?

Somerset’s a lot less White. Places like Franklin Park which is 20% of Somerset are very diverse.

Also Montgomery Township, which borders Princeton.

Montgomery is Morris like demographics. Asian and White, not many Black or Hispanic voters. Like a Princeton-lite.

[Dead Parrot]

Okay, now that two months have passed and final results have been posted, it might be time to explore this near upset in more depth (link to the town results spreadsheet):

Back in 2017, Phil Murphy won NJ-GOV against Kim Guadagno by 14 percentage points, an almost-identical margin of victory to that of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in New Jersey in 2016. Murphy underperformed Clinton in the wealthy suburbs of NJ, as many expected, but was able to slightly exceed her overall performance by garnering unusually high support among minority and white working-class voters, particularly in South Jersey. (Looking back, it really is remarkable how much 2017 NJ-GOV was the one major statewide election in the country over the last five years that was completely immune to TRENDZ. I remember looking at the results that night and thinking that maybe the Trump-induced changes in our national political landscape were a one-off fluke, which, lol.) Needless to say, Murphy’s performance in 2021 was…less good. His WWC strength completely collapsed, as shown by the terrible Dem performance in South Jersey this time around, while his standing with nonwhites seems to have regressed to a little less than that of Joe Biden in 2020, an already weak benchmark given the President’s well-documented struggles with minority voters. Murphy was able to make small gains with wealthy suburbanites (although how much of that is simply due to trends extending into downballot races is an open question), but he still fell well short of Biden’s 2020 levels of support among them. Add in the big turnout disparity between blue and red parts of the state (in an election where statewide turnout was just over 40%, Essex and Hudson were at 30% turnout while Monmouth and Ocean posted close to 50% turnout), and you have the perfect recipe for Republican overperformance.

Of course, it would have been foolish to expect that Murphy could match Biden’s historically good margins for a Democrat in wealthy, well-educated suburbia. For one thing, Trump was likely uniquely toxic among those voters and any Republican without his baggage would have been able to recapture a good amount of support that he had lost, especially with an off-year electorate. Also, as this thread has already noted, Jack Ciattarelli and the rest of the NJ GOP focused their campaign primarily on taxes, an especially salient issue in suburban New Jersey, and steered well clear of the socially conservative stances that have made national Republicans unpalatable in the state. The governor’s problem was with everyone else. Only being able to match, if not falling a bit short of, Biden’s margins among urban voters is certainly a disappointment. The president’s 2020 performance was already considered underwhelming for a Democrat, and the fact that it has been repeated in a low-turnout off-year race seems to be further evidence that Republican gains with minorities in the Trump-era are beginning to stick. (It should also be noted that urban areas were the only places in NJ where fewer people voted compared to the 2017 election, further evidence that base turnout was depressed.) And of course, that WWC swing. Good lord. While nobody should have expected that Murphy’s inflated margins from 2017 would be repeated now that a Democrat is in the White House, I don’t think anyone saw a collapse of that magnitude coming. As others have noted, it certainly doesn’t bode well for Dems in this year’s midterms, who can ill-afford to suffer further losses among such voters, particularly in the Midwest.

A few scattered observations:

•   It really seems like Murphy ended up getting bailed out by the leftward suburban trend. His losses were minimal (and big improvements from Jon Corzine’s 2009 margins against Chris Christie) in virtually all of NJ’s affluent, educated towns, as shown by Somerset and Hunterdon being the only counties that swung toward him from 2017. He even flipped some towns (Randolph, New Providence, Mountain Lakes) that had barely voted for Guadagno.

•   Right after the election, there were some rather premature takes about how the result was a referendum on Murphy's handling of school closures. While that may be true to some extent (for all pandemic restrictions, not exclusive to schools), extremely blue progressive suburbs like Montclair and SOMA did not see a notable drop in support for Murphy compared to elsewhere in the state.

•   Two of the biggest pro-Ciattarelli swings could be found in the towns of East Hanover in Morris County and Fairfield in Essex County, both of which are extremely red and among the municipalities with the highest rates of Italian ancestry in America. (Basically if the southern end of Staten Island ended up in Jersey somehow.) In both towns, Ciattarelli received more votes than the total number of votes that had been cast there for all candidates in 2017. Fairfield actually voted for Ciattarelli by a larger margin than for Christie in 2013. Similar GOP turnout surges were also seen in North Jersey conservative blue-collar strongholds like Clark and Wallington. Really shows how much Murphy’s WWC standing deteriorated.

•   Asian voters seem to have been a mixed bag for Murphy (although, luckily for him, there was nothing like the massive red shifts that were seen in the NYC mayoral race). The heavily South Asian suburbs of Central Jersey (Edison, South Brunswick, Piscataway, West Windsor, Plainsboro) all swung toward him, some by double digits. Further north, Fort Lee and Bergenfield, which have major communities of Koreans and Filipinos respectively, gave Murphy about the same percentage as Joe Biden. But notably, the majority-Korean Palisades Park gave Murphy only a 9-point win, a big decline compared to his 29-point win in 2017 and Biden’s 22-point win there in 2020.

•   Compared to WWC towns in North and Central Jersey, it's curious how blue-collar municipalities in Camden County like Bellmawr, Gloucester City, and Runnemede showed much smaller swings despite their demographics being even more hostile than the towns further north. Machine influence?

•   Conversely, minority-heavy cities and towns in South Jersey like Vineland, Atlantic City, and Pleasantville saw big % decreases in Murphy's vote compared to Biden's, unlike in places such as Newark, Paterson, Hackensack, and Trenton where he mostly broke even. I'm not really sure why this was, are those towns whiter than cities in North Jersey, have weaker party infrastructure, etc.? (Also, in AC and the rest of Atlantic County, was there backlash against Covid restrictions that affected tourism?) In addition, Ciattarelli managed to narrowly flip longtime Dem strongholds like Pemberton Township, Egg Harbor City, and Woodbine, likely because of a combination of the WWC swing and nonwhite voters staying home.

•   It's notable how the wealthy shore communities and poorer mainland towns in South Jersey diverged in this race. Ciattarelli tended to underperform Christie '09 in the former (although they mostly stayed very red) and match/surpass him in the latter. (Murphy did flip Cape May City and Harvey Cedars.) This likely has to do with trends among wealthier voters nationwide, as well as pandemic relocations.

•   There were two municipalities where Murphy massively overperformed Joe Biden, and in both cases unique local factors were at play. In Lakewood, Murphy secured some key endorsements from the ultra-Orthodox community and ended up only losing it by 23 points, compared to Biden’s massive 65-point loss. In Union City, Murphy benefitted from Mayor Brian Stack’s legendary GOTV operation, which swung the town from Biden+44 to Murphy+70. The governor received 77% of Biden’s raw vote total, an extremely impressive feat for the Stack machine in a year where base turnout in other NJ cities fell through the floor.

•   A final set of curious results: Monroe in Middlesex County and Manchester in Ocean County, both home to a number of retirement communities, both registered small pro-Murphy swings despite being surrounded by towns that swung hard to Ciattarelli. Maybe a pro-pandemic-restriction effect among elderly voters?

[Senator Incitatus]

Really excellent breakdown.