Election Day Results
With almost all the results now counted from Tuesday's election, its clear that Democrats had a good night--and much better than they expected. After a very strong showing two years ago, when Gov. Murphy was almost defeated for reelection and Republicans gained several legislative seats, both Republican and Democratic leadership teams believed that Republicans were on track for gains in the Legislature, perhaps even getting close to a majority. Instead, Democrats held all their seats and flipped 5 seats in the Assembly and 1 seat in the state Senate. In January, Democrats will have a 25-15 majority in the Senate and a 51-29 majority in the Assembly.
Republican Senator "Ed the Trucker" Durr, who defeated the prior Senate President Steve Sweeney in one of the biggest upsets in NJ history, lost his reelection bid to former Asm. John Burzichelli, who also pulled his two Assembly running mates over the finish line. Monmouth Democratic Sen. Vin Gopal, who had been the number one target for Republicans, won in a massive landslide while also carrying his running mates to victory over Republican Assemblywomen Marilyn Piperno and Kim Eulner. In maybe the strangest race of the cycle, one of the most Republican districts in the state elected a Democrat to the Assembly. About half the district is Lakewood, with a huge Orthodox Jewish community, and they decided to endorse a local Rabbi, Avi Schnall, to run as a conservative Democrat. With a huge turnout in Lakewood he was able to defeat Republican Ned Thomson.
Democrats had a few advantages going in to the election. They were mostly running incumbents who had spent years building up their reputations and raising money, while most Republican candidates were newcomers to politics and largely anonymous. Democratic outside groups also had much more money than Republicans, so Democrats in the big five competitive races outspent their opponents anywhere between 3:1 to 5:1. Their biggest advantage though may have been their embrace of mail-in voting (they did write the law creating it after all). The average turnout across the state was about 24%, but in the most heavily targeted districts turnout was as high as 34%. Those extra voters seem to disproportionately have been Democrats who were targeted by the Democratic campaigns for the nearly two months before Election "Day", which clearly is no longer just one day of voting anymore.
One thing worth noting is that virtually every one of the successful Democratic candidates--Burzichelli, Moriarty, Gopal, and Lagana--all publicly came out in opposition of the Governor's plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in a few years, and no doubt part of the reason for their success is that they publicly distanced themselves from the controversial energy policies of the Governor.
You can look up the results in your district if you'd like by clicking HERE.
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