we are also standing by for votes in big city mayoral races across the country. polling places are about to close in the contests in atlanta and boston. right now, let s go to mj lee. she is in new jersey. governor phil murphy s election headquarters in the famous asbury park. mj, how are they feeling in governor murphy s campaign headquarters tonight? reporter: well, jake, essentially what phil murphy is doing as he tries to get re-elected for another term, they are making the bet that the people in new jersey are going to grade him based on how things look in new jersey as opposed to focusing on the events that are happening in washington. this sort of underscores the political reality right now as you know very well that the governor of new jersey is more popular right now in his state than the leader of the democratic party, president biden. he enjoys support from the majority of voters in new jersey, whereas president biden he has seen his popularity slip into negative
there is all this talk about the pulitzer prize winning novel beloved by tony morrison being taught in school. so and the democrats i talked to have said they feel like, so far, democrats don t really have a good answer to critical-race theory and the criticism coming from republicans. that it s just rampant in schools all over the country. so, that s going to be something i think you are going to see a lot of democrats do focus groups on how do you actually answer that? terry mcauliffe called it a racist dog whistle, full stop. we should also note during the debate, terry mcauliffe and it was about whether or not parents should have a right to the subject to take books off the shelves in schools and he said that parents shouldn t. but the way he said it made it sound like he was saying parents should have no involvement in schools education. a huge gaffe by him that glenn youngkin used over and over and over. that s even why the question split among voters who think parents sh
that early voting from pam brown. this is what makes virginia different. in the governor race, this is new. shy of 200,000 early votes and we know more than 1.1 million votes. so to keep it in mind of what normally happens in virginia n is the 2021, and fill it in soon, and going back to look at the presidential election, and starting here, and early on in tonight of virginia, like in virginia, the person who jumped out to early lead, and donald trump jumped out to big early lead in virginia and this is traditional, and this is the last governor race, and this is trump country or republican country reports first, and that could be different because of to early voting. so democrats believe they did well in the early voting and not 80/20 likeout side of philadelphia or atlanta in the presidential race, but the democrats believe they did well in the early voting, so if it comes up early, then it is conceivable that the democrat comes out early.
unclear, how much that s going to win because he has to overcome the reality that democrats have a much bigger and much more real structural advantage. and then, there was this fear of critical-race theory. and you hear republicans all across the country explain what that is because a lot of people don t know. well, it s this legal theory developed that essentially says institutions in this country were informed by racism, right? it isn t about your kid going to school if it s a white kid, feeling guilty about for slavery. but it is certainly become a boogieman for republicans and this idea that folks are being taught in elementary school about white people being racist. so, that has become a real talking point among conservatives. it s not part of virginia curriculum. it s not part of virginia curriculum it s not really part of any curriculum in, like, k through 12. but it has worked to scare a lot of white parents. you know?
we saw a majority of virginians some 53% of the electorate believe that. that s how they re splitting. youngkin gets 76% of them. mcauliffe, 24%. this is the report card on that gaffe that mcauliffe made at that debate at the end of september. youngkin s winning three-quarters of the voters who say parents should have a say in what is going on in their kids schools. glenn youngkin, dana and nia malika, glenn youngkin has been seizing on the education issue which is a very significant issue. one of the things that s been going on in virginia in the last year and a half, as has been going on across the country and around the world is that in-person education school stopped. and then, there was a lot of frustration among a lot of parents not just conservative parents independent parents, liberal parents about schools being reluctant to re-open about teachers wanting to get first in line for vaccines.