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The New Jersey gubernatorial election was too close to call by the end of Election Day, with Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli in a virtual tie with incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy.
As of 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, with 80 percent of the vote counted, Ciattarelli held 1,082,101 votes to Murphy’s 1,062,790, according to the New York Times. Several counties across New Jersey were still in the process of reporting vote totals.
“Although it wasn’t my intention we have sent a message to the entire country,” Ciattarelli told a party of supporters late Tuesday night. “So listen, sometime real soon, we’re going to do this again…and we will declare a victory. Guys, hang in with me, thank you all so very, very much.”
The close race came after polls showed Murphy with double-digit leads in the final weeks of the election. There are over one million more registered Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey, and a Monmouth University poll released last week found that 50 percent of registered voters backed Murphy as opposed to 39 percent for Ciattarelli.
Murphy’s approval rating remained positive with 52 percent of respondents to the Monmouth poll approving of the governor’s job performance, as opposed to 39 percent who disapproved. The approval rating remained high despite Ciattarelli’s attacks on Murphy’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, during which New Jersey has recorded 315 deaths per 100,000 residents from COVID-19, one of the highest rates in the U.S.
No Democratic incumbent governor has won reelection to a second consecutive term in New Jersey in 40 years. Regardless of whether Murphy wins at the final tally, the close results could spell trouble for Democrats going into the 2022 midterms.
Murphy is a former Goldman Sachs executive who was appointed ambassador to Germany by former President Obama, and won his first election in 2017 to become governor of New Jersey. Ciatarelli, who is a trained certified public accountant, started a medical…
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Source : yahoo
