Now on to 2021.
Gov. Phil Murphy, every state legislative seat and countless mayors and council people will be on the ballot this year. Here are some elections to watch:
NJ governor
The marquee race will be at the top of the ticket, with Gov. Phil Murphy seeking a second term against a GOP challenger, likely former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli.
Murphy s poll numbers were middling in 2019, but they soared when the coronavirus pandemic led to daily television appearances for the Democratic governor.
Still, history is not on Murphy’s side. A Democratic governor hasn’t won reelection in New Jersey since Brendan Byrne in 1977. And Republican Tom Kean’s 1985 landslide was the last time the party that won the White House also won the following year’s gubernatorial race.
Jack Ciattarelli is now the clear frontrunner for the GOP nomination after Doug Steinhardt’s surprise Monday night exit from the gubernatorial primary. There are some other folks in the race or considering getting in but, unless they can raise some serious cash and quickly, Jack is likely to run away with this thing, Save Jerseyans.
The Somerset businessman and ex-Assemblyman will face some staggering hurdles assuming he’s the GOP’s choice for November. No other statewide Republican candidate has faced a 1+ million voter registration deficit. Phil Murphy is accepting public funding, but dark money groups will pour cash into the Garden State to make sure the Republican nominee is outspent by a few or several times over. What’s more (in case you haven’t noticed) the Republican Party is emerging as fractured and divided as ever coming out of the Trump years.
With a mostly united party and a major partisan edge in voter registration, Gov. Phil Murphy looks to be the first Democrat to win a second term in 44 years.
The political landscape in this New Year will depend on how swiftly and successfully New Jersey and the nation emerges from the nightmare that was 2020.
Hovering over the New Jersey governor’s race and contests for all 120 seats in the Legislature in 2021 is the expectation that the distribution of a vaccine will finally bring the deadly coronavirus to heel. And with that, the hope that a weary and heartbroken public can reclaim some semblance of normalcy.
Also fueling a modicum of optimism is the coming installation of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who have promised a more focused, science-based pivot from the dismissive, disordered Trump administration’s management of the pandemic.
Thursday, December 31, 2020 by Matthew Peddie (WMFE)
Play Audio
NASA astronauts Robert Behnken, left, and Douglas Hurley are seen inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX GO Navigator recovery ship shortly after having landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2020. The Demo-2 test flight for NASA s Commercial Crew Program was the first to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station and return them safely to Earth onboard a commercially built and operated spacecraft. Behnken and Hurley returned after spending 64 days in space. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Stay tuned in to our local news coverage: Listen to 90.7 WMFE on your FM or HD radio, the WMFE mobile app or your smart speaker say “Alexa, play NPR” and you’ll be connected.