Dem
47
GOP
53
Voters in New Jersey headed to the polls yesterday (and to their mailboxes in the days before that), and did exactly what everyone expected them to do, choosing Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli to face off in November's gubernatorial election.
Of the two primary contests, Sherrill's was much closer. She took 34% of the votes, as compared to 20.4% for second-place finisher Ras Baraka and 15.9% for third-place finisher Steve Fulop. It would seem that New Jersey Democrats like representatives better than they like mayors. Ciattarelli, by contrast, leveled the competition, with his 67.8% of the vote far outpacing second-place finisher Bill Spadea, who took 21.9%, and third-place finisher Jon Bramnick, who took just 6.2%.
One might be tempted to look at Ciattarelli's much more lopsided victory and conclude that enthusiasm for him is much greater than for Sherrill. That could be true; it's hard to say. However, there were a total of just under 800,000 votes cast for Democrats yesterday, and just over 450,000 cast for Republicans. The Democratic side of the contest was more competitive, which is part of the explanation, but New Jersey is also a blue state, which is almost certainly the bigger part of the explanation. And as a fairly boring moderate, Sherrill is not likely to turn off too many Democrats. She might not excite them, but an unenthusiastic vote counts the same as an enthusiastic one. Anyhow, for these reasons, we presume Sherrill's the favorite, even though there hasn't been any general election polling yet.
We should probably also note that this is Ciattarelli's second bite at the apple, as he was the Republican nominee for governor the last time around, losing to Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) by 3 points, 51%-48%. One could argue that with greater name recognition, more experience, and facing a non-incumbent opponent, Ciattarelli might just overcome that gap and take home the prize. However, Murphy was fairly unpopular, and yet bucked the tide in holding on while a Democrat was in the White House (the last time a Democratic governor of New Jersey was reelected with a Democrat in the White House, Lyndon B. Johnson was president). Plus, the Trumpy Ciattarelli didn't have to own any unpopular things being done by the Trump administration, because Trump was not in office 4 years ago. Now he is.
After we ran our preview of the New Jersey primaries, we got a couple of interesting reports from New Jersey voters. We thought we'd share them now, as opposed to waiting for the mailbag this weekend. So:
S.G. in Newark, NJ: Despite the presence of 11 candidates across the two major parties, this has seemed like a stealth election. I would expect extraordinarily low turnout. I've seen a few yard signs (some, as always, posted not in yards but on public property along roads). YouTube has treated me to a few Mikie Sherrill ads in the last couple of weeks. I generally stay away from airwaves (dating myself, but you know what I mean) and social media, so it's possible there's been activity there that I've missed. Exactly one canvasser has come to my door, an earnest young woman working for Mikie Sherrill who detected my reluctance to engage with her but managed to race through the required pitch: "Can we count on you to support Mikie Sherrill for governor in the primary election on June 10th?" and cheerfully accepted my statement that the voters in my household had not yet decided whom to support. (That part's true—for the first time in a long time, we are going to be among the large pool of late-breaking voters).
What we have seen lots of is mailed flyers. Lots and lots and lots of mailed flyers. Sean Spiller flooded us first, probably because he is not currently an elected office holder and is much less well-known than most of the other candidates. In the last couple of weeks, it's been mostly Sherrill and Steve Fulop, with some continued Spiller mail and a scant few flyers supporting Ras Baraka and Josh Gottheimer. We've received nothing supporting Steve Sweeney, who is presumably focusing on his South Jersey base and hope the other five candidates split the vote in the northern and central parts of the state.
Perhaps it is a telling fact about the current state of our democracy that even though we've received dozens and dozens of mail pieces, not a single one has been paid for by a candidate's official campaign. Every single one has been sent by an "independent" political action committee. Some of these are recognizable—the League of Conservation Voters, for example—but most have inscrutable names like "New Jersey Citizens for Wonderfulness" (I made that up, but you get the idea).
One other note. You mentioned in your preview that Sean Spiller and Steve Sweeney would split the union vote, because Spiller is head of the NJEA (the state teachers' union on which Chris Christie declared war) and Sweeney is VP of the iron workers' union. Maybe. There are about as many public school teachers in the Garden State (reportedly almost 120,000) as there are iron workers in the whole country (the national membership of the iron workers' union is about 120,000). Sure, there are other unions that might be supporting Sweeney, but in general I think he is much better known as a politician than as a union guy.
Not that Spiller, as a teacher, has a lock on the votes of other unionized workers, most of whom wear blue collars. Nor, for that matter, on all the teachers. I am a proud, card-carrying member of two unions—the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, which have functionally merged (at least, here in New Jersey). My local has endorsed Ras Baraka, whom you accurately described as "the leftiest and most strident" of the Democratic hopefuls. Perhaps this tells us something about American labor unions. Perhaps it tells us something about American university professors. Or perhaps it tells us something about American university professors who become union leaders.
A.L. in Highland Park, NJ: It's primary eve and I already know the guy I voted for, Ras Baraka, is not going to win. The winner will likely be Mikie Sherrill. And she is... fine. She, like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris before her, is a nice lady, a striver, someone who succeeded in a system stacked against her. But because of that, she (like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris before her) is a work-within-the margins, change this program by 5%, adjust this other thing by a smidge kind of person.
The zeitgeist is looking for a wholesale change kind of person: Bernie Sanders fits the bill. I guess Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the schizophrenic schismatic version you get when the same sentiment is applied to the party of William F. Buckley and the Chicago School of Economics. Mikie Sherrill smiling in her flight jacket with a diverse bunch of girls ain't it. Ras Baraka may not be it either, but at least there is a hint of anger there. One hope for Democrats in the Garden State is that likely Republican winner Jack Ciattarelli is just as much of a mismatch for the times. Another is the hope that, by the time November rolls around, this burn-it-all-down sentiment will have itself burnt out, and a straighten-up-and-fly-right governor will be just the ticket.
Thanks to both of you!
Next week, it's Virginia. And the week after that, New York City. (Z)