LIVE NJ Election 2021 Updates: Phil Murphy wins reelection for governor in NJ over Jack Ciattarelli – WABC-TV
At the time of the call, Murphy had 1,215,346 votes to Ciattarelli’s 1,192,854, with 87% of the expected vote reporting.
Murphy would become the state’s first Democratic governor to get a second straight term in 44 years, defeating the Republican former assembly member.
Ballots remaining to be counted included a significant number of votes from predominantly Democratic Essex County, along with mail-in votes spread across other counties. Murphy has won the mail-in vote by a wide margin even in Republican leaning counties like Monmouth.
Ciattarelli spokesperson Stami Williams disputed the call because of the close margin, calling it “irresponsible.”
“With the candidates separated by a fraction of a percent out of 2.4 million ballots cast, it’s irresponsible of the media to make this call when the New Jersey Secretary of State doesn’t even know how many ballots are left to be counted,” Williams said.
Meanwhile, Murphy pushed forward, delivering a victory speech in Asbury Park.
“Tonight, I renew my promise to you — whether you voted for me or not — to work every single day of the next four years to keep moving us forward,” he said.
Ciattarelli waged a formidable campaign in the heavily Democratic New Jersey, his spending nearly equaling the governor’s and outpacing the GOP’s performance four years ago. But Murphy’s advantages, including 1 million more registered Democrats, proved too much for the Republican to overcome.
The victory gives Democrats a silver lining after GOP businessman Glenn Youngkin defeated Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial race – exacerbating worries that President Joe Biden’s sagging approval ratings are hurting the party. This year’s elections were the first major tests of voter sentiment since Biden took office and pointed to a potentially painful year ahead for Democrats as they try to maintain thin majorities in Congress.
Former Republican Governor of New Jersey Tom Kean says the race was trending in Ciattarelli’s direction.
“If the election were held a week ago or two weeks ago, Ciattarelli would have lost by a good margin,” he said. “If it was held next week, I think he would have won. So the trend line was moving very much in his direction. It’s a great year for the Republicans in New Jersey, led by Ciattarelli, who deserves a lot of credit for the kind of campaign he ran.”
The closeness of the race has surprised experts, who watched public polls showing Murphy leading comfortably and looked to his party’s registration advantage of more than a million voters.
Instead, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Republican Jack Ciattarelli remained virtually deadlocked through Wednesday evening, after a campaign centered on the incumbent’s progressive policies and handling of the pandemic.
On Wednesday morning, both contenders called for all the votes to be counted, and neither conceded while urging supporters to be ready for a longer wait than expected.
“While we’re going to have to wait a little while longer than we had hoped, we’re going to wait for every vote to be counted,” Murphy said. “That’s how our democracy works.”
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Both candidates spoke to supporters after midnight.
“I wanted to come out here tonight and tell you that we won, but I’m here to tell you that we’re winning,” Ciattarelli said. “We want every legal vote counted, and you all know the way the VBMs (vote by mail) work and the provisionals work. We’ve got to have time to make sure that every legal vote is counted.”
The Ciattarelli campaign released a statement later Wednesday, saying, “Let’s count the votes.”
“Last night was a historic one for New Jersey Republicans, who picked up at least a half dozen Assembly seats, several Senate seats, along with county and local seats up and down the state,” Ciattarelli campaign spokeswoman Stami Williams said. “Jack is proud to lead our ticket and our party’s resurgence. Right now, our team is focused on making sure all the legal votes are counted and our citizens can have confidence in the system.”
Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey Sheila Oliver also addressed supporters late on Tuesday night at the campaign headquarters in Asbury Park.
“First of all, I want to thank you for hanging in here, it’s been a very long night. And we know that you are still here, strongly, because you believe in our cause and in the future of our beloved state of New Jersey,” Oliver said. “Now, our adversaries may be jumping up and down with glee. But let me tell you something: I know Essex, my home county. I know how we roll. And we know that the votes in that Democratic stronghold have yet to be counted in total. Bergen County, the home of our beloved Senator Loretta Weinberg-Bergen is still counting. Union, still counting. Middlesex, still counting.”
Murphy had been leading in the polls, has a 1 million-voter registration advantage, and had more cash in his campaign coffers than Ciattarelli in the final days of the race. But Ciattarelli has far surpassed the Republican nominee from four years ago in fundraising and saw the gap in public polls move in his favor – if only by a few points.
At Murphy’s election night party in Asbury Park’s convention hall, the crowd went from cheering early results reported on TV to milling around the cavernous venue and checking their phones. At Ciattarelli’s camp in Bridgewater, the crowd was breaking out into periodic cheers.
While a Ciattarelli win would send a jolt through state and national politics, a win by Murphy would also break some historical trends.
New Jersey does not have an automatic recount law, but the candidates are permitted to request one. The party that wants a recount has to file a suit in State Superior Court in the counties where they want to contest tallies. That has to be done within 17 days of Election Day.
Murphy has campaigned as a solid progressive, with a record to show for it. He signed bills into law that expanded voting access, provided for taxpayer-funded pre-K and community college, hiked the minimum wage to $15 an hour over time along with opening up the state to renewable energy like wind power.
Ciattarelli’s campaign seized on comments Murphy made that New Jersey probably isn’t for voters whose top issue is taxes, casting the governor as out of touch with a concern many prioritize.
He also sought support from those who disagreed with Murphy’s handling of COVID-19. At a recent campaign rally in Hazlet when someone in the audience asked about mandates, Ciattarelli said there’d be none under his administration – an allusion to mask and vaccination mandates.
He also implicitly criticized critical race theory in schools, saying that “we are not going to teach our children to feel guilty.” Critical race theory is a method of thinking of America’s history through the lens of racism that has become a political lightning rod of the Republican Party.
Polls showed Murphy got solid support for his handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, which hit New Jersey hard in early 2020 and resulted in the deaths of more than 25,000 people. About a third of those deaths occurred in nursing and veterans homes. But the state also excelled at getting people vaccinated and was quick to become one of the states with the highest percentages of eligible people to be fully vaccinated.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday evening by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, based on social media posts and local news reports, alleged that dozens of voters were turned away from polls. In some places, that was because electronic tablets used to check in voters struggled to connect to the internet.
The suit, which had sought to extend voting until 9:30 p.m., was denied by the court, the civil rights organization said. A message seeking comment was left with the secretary of state’s office, which oversees elections in the state.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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