An Eye on the New Jersey gubernatorial Race
Diving into who the candidates are, and what they stand for
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As the New Jersey Gubernatorial election nears, should incumbent Phil Murphy (Democrat) fear opponent Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli?
Although polls strongly point towards Murphy’s victory, former state Assemblyman Ciattarelli has been gaining traction. The two major-party candidates met on Tuesday, September 28th, for their first debate. Emulating the nature of Trump and Biden’s infamous first debate last September, Murphy and Ciatterelli each worked hard to push the other down before lifting himself up.
Expectedly, Murphy nailed Ciattarelli’s opposition towards certain Covid-19 regulations, including mask mandates. On several occasions, Murphy tried painting Ciatterelli’s candidacy as similar to that of Donald Trump’s: ready to move the state backward.
On the matter of taxes, Ciattarelli claimed that Murphy has “raised every tax we had”, while Murphy countered that he had lowered middle-class taxes, along with the cost of health insurance, child care, and community college. Murphy also rejected the claim that he had raised NJ Transit fares. The two challengers settled on a pledge to not raise any taxes, should they be elected.
Whether it was reproductive rights, police reform, or gun control, the candidates stayed within their party lines, without much effort to compromise certain values. New Jersey holds a Democratic triplex: a Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. While it would seem as though Murphy should have nothing to worry about, he is trying to become the first Democratic governor in over forty years to be re-elected to a second term. If that’s not enough pressure on him-- he’s attempting to do so in 2021, a time in which the political climate is still cooling from last year’s unprecedented havoc.
On September 22nd, Monmouth University released a poll1 showing Murphy’s lead over Ciattarelli of 51% to 38% amongst registered voters. For Murphy, this is slightly down from the month before, where he had an indicated 52% against Cittarelli’s 36%. On another interesting (yet unrelated) note, of 804 voters, 40% trusted Murphy to ensure that women be treated with respect, while only 17% sided with Cittarelli.
Now that voters have seen the two candidates together, Cittarelli moves further away from one of his largest obstacles-- that the audience certainly knows their incumbent more than they do him.
The three other candidates -Madelyn R. Hoffman (Green), Joanne Kuniansky (Socialist Workers), and Gregg Mele (Libertarian)- will not gain enough votes to win, but could certainly distract enough votes to interfere with the main party candidates.
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