In N.J. governor’s race, Murphy gets a big edge just by being governor. Here’s why. – NJ.com

Gov. Phil Murphy spent much of Friday crisscrossing Essex County with one of the nation’s most famous officials.

Vice President Kamala Harris trekked to New Jersey to discuss child care and COVID-19 vaccinations, with Murphy at her side. And at the trip’s end, they even stopped at a Newark cupcake shop together.

It wasn’t technically a campaign event for Murphy, a Democrat who’s up for re-election next month. But it might as well have been.

And it was sandwiched between two other visits from heavy hitters in the Democratic Party: former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, who attended at a gun-control rally with Murphy on Thursday, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who’s scheduled to appear alongside him Sunday.

The high-profile appearances are on top of a gubernatorial schedule often peppered with events in which Murphy signs feel-good bills into law.

And then there are Murphy’s regular briefings on the coronavirus pandemic, which began as must-watch events as the state dealt with one of the worst outbreaks in the country.

All of this highlights something Murphy’s Republican challenger, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, is forced to compete with as the Nov. 2 election approaches: the power of incumbency.

It’s nothing new. Murphy didn’t invent it. But he’s clearly not wasting opportunities to use the visibility and other benefits that come with occupying the governor’s office — especially in the Garden State.

“No other state imbues its chief executive with as much power as we do in New Jersey,” said Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship. “Being an incumbent here matters, even more than other places. It would be silly for an incumbent not to take advantage.”

And not only are incumbents usually favored to win elections, the fact New Jersey is still dealing with the pandemic gives Murphy an added dose of attention, political experts say.

Many were glued to the TVs at the start of the crisis last year to get updates from their governors. It helped propel former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to national fame before his resignation over sexual assault allegations. It also made Murphy a known quantity to New Jerseyans.

While governors from Pennsylvania and Connecticut have mostly dropped regular updates, Murphy is still at it twice a week. (New York Gov. Kathy Hochul continues to hold one weekly.)

Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, likened it to how the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy raised then-Gov. Chris Christie’s profile — and popularity — heading into re-election.

“He has a very prominent platform, not only statewide but nationwide,” Koning said of Murphy.

Added Dworkin: “We care about what the governor is doing right now because it affects so many people, very directly.”

Murphy’s job approval rating got an immediate boost from it, rising to 77% in a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll from June 2020, which topped Christie’s post-Sandy numbers just before his landslide re-election.

Murphy’s numbers have since dipped, but they’re still better than a similar poll from 2019, which found nearly 1 in 5 New Jerseyans had no opinion of him and only 43% had a favorable view.

And while Ciattarelli and other Republicans have strongly criticized Murphy for the way he has handled the pandemic, polls have shown a majority of voters in blue-leaning New Jersey give him positive marks in that area.

Murphy also attracts media attention on days he signs popular legislation. He has spent the past few months holding events to sign bills that, for example, allocated federal pandemic aid, aim to fight opioid addiction, and spurred solar energy. Just a few days ago, he signed a law to protect workers age 70 and older from being forced out of a job because of their age.

And of course, there are those visits from big-name Democrats, which Dworkin said are “critical.” Registered Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans by more than one million, “but it disappears if Democrats don’t show up” at the polls, the Rowan professor said.

“You have to motivate them,” Dworkin said.

Ciattarelli holds a different set of cards.

Of course, in the last 30 years, both Christie and another former Republican governor, Christie Whitman, defeated Democratic incumbents. But Christie was a high-profile federal prosecutor and Whitman had just lost a close U.S. Senate race, Dworkin said.

Ciattarelli was a member of the state Assembly for six years and ran for governor before, finishing second in the 2017 GOP primary. But the Somerset County Republican currently has no government platform to introduce legislation or convene a hearing in the Statehouse on Murphy’s pandemic response — something he has called for.

A June poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University found 70% of registered voters in the state said they don’t know enough about Ciattarelli to form an opinion.

Murphy has so far led Ciattarelli in all public-opinion polls, though his lead has narrowed of late. The most recent poll, from Stockton University, found the governor up by 9 percentage points.

Ciattarelli has waged his uphill battle by holding town halls, appearing at countless local events, and flooding your TVs and radios with campaign ads attacking Murphy.

As for high-profile endorsements? Experts say those are tricky for Ciattarelli, too. The biggest name to lend support so far was former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Then there’s former President Donald Trump. Though the ex-Atlantic City casino mogul remains popular in the GOP, he’s extremely unpopular among suburban voters Ciattarelli needs to attract to run numbers up against Murphy. Linking Ciattarelli to Trump has been at the center of Murphy’s campaign.

Christie, the last Republican to win two statewide races in New Jersey, would also be an issue because he left office as one of the state‘s least popular governors.

“Maybe they’re not toxic among the party base,” Koning said of Trump and Christie. “But they’re certainly toxic with the other voters. This is a numbers game. Ciattarelli absolutely has to pull disenchanted Democrats or independents. He’s not going to pull them by bringing in Trump or Christie.”

The power of incumbency — and the free media coverage that comes with it — could also help explain why there’s a spending imbalance in the race.

Without a bully pulpit and needing to introduce himself to voters, Ciattarelli has spent $8.9 million on the general election so far, mostly on broadcast commercials.

Murphy, by contrast, has spent $5.6 million. That has left CiattareIli with only $1.1 million remaining in his coffers, compared to the $7.3 million Murphy still has in the bank, for the campaign’s home stretch.

Media ads in this region are expensive. Dworkin notes that 75% of the population in New Jersey watches New York television, while 25% watches Philadelphia. Both are among the priciest media markets in the country.

“It’s upwards of $1 million a week to really penetrate the market from Mahwah to Cape May,” the Rowan professor said. “You have to be out there continually pushing your message.”

“It’s very difficult to become known as a statewide politician in New Jersey because it’s so expensive to be on media across the state,” Dworkin added.

But if you’re already governor …

“That’s why the election has been pretty much his to lose,” Koning said of Murphy. “Because he does have this extensive platform.”

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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @johnsb01.