Trump Wins; Improves his share of NJ’s vote Donald Trump has become the first person since Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive terms as President of the United States. Though votes are still being tabulated across the nation it is apparent that President Trump is on the way to a stunning return to the Oval Office in what could end up as a landslide Electoral College and clear popular vote win. It is also significant that despite New Jersey’s reputation as being solidly “blue”, Trump did extremely well in the State losing by only 5% while winning 12 of the State’s 21 counties. The single digit loss for Trump is the best showing for a Republican Presidential candidate in the State since 2004 when George W. Bush lost New Jersey by 6%. Put into recent historical context, Trump’s margin of loss is a result New Jersey Democrats should ignore at their peril. Trump lost New Jersey in 2020 by 16% and by 14% in 2016. Romney lost the State by 18% in 2012 while McCain lost it by 16% in 2008. The results likely will tell two stories: one that is generic to most national races and one that is Trump related. First, voters in New Jersey and around the nation have been impacted by higher inflation, wages not keeping up with costs and skyrocketing living expenses during the Biden Administration. As Bill Clinton said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Concerns about affordability is often a bad sign for a party trying to hold the White House in any election and Trump had the ability to compare those dismal economic numbers of the last four years to his first term. Second, Donald Trump has connected with segments of the voting population that Democrats can’t afford to lose – high school educated white males, black and Latino voters and young people. Exit polling around the country showed Donald Trump overperforming in those demographics while Vice President Harris could not match the numbers President Biden scored with those groups in New Jersey and the battleground States. And while Trump had no Congressional coattails in the State, his increase in his share of the vote total did make for some closer than expected elections in Democratic districts and counties. But more importantly for New Jersey Democrats this is the second single digit Statewide win for them in a row. It begs the questions of whether a candidate other than President Trump could have won New Jersey in this economic environment and whether this says anything about voters going into the 2025 Gubernatorial election. The dust still needs to settle and it’s true that no two elections are exactly alike but there were some major cracks in the Democratic wall for the second statewide election in a row. For example, county and local GOP candidates won or came close in races from Bergen to Cumberland County. Whether that is economy related or is part of the Trump effect is yet to be analyzed it can be certain both parties will be looking for clues as to what appealed to voters in 2024 looking ahead to 2025. Andy Kim Elected U.S. Senator In the State’s other Statewide race, three term Congressman Andy Kim has bested Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw to become New Jersey’s next U.S. Senator. Kim’s path to the Senate was unusual from the start in a State that does not replace its Senators often. Soon after the indictment of Senator Bob Menendez, Congressman Kim took the bold move to demand his resignation from the Senate while declaring his candidacy for the seat. In doing so he set off a chain reaction of events that led to his election as New Jersey’s next U.S. Senator while fundamentally changing the way primary elections are conducted in New Jersey along the way. The story of Kim’s ascension to the Senate will forever be defined for his challenge of New Jersey’s longstanding “party line” ballot process whereby Democratic and GOP candidates received favorable and exclusive ballot positions determined by county political party leadership. When the party establishments began to rally around First Lady Tammy Murphy in the leadup to the primary election Kim challenged the process in Federal Court as unconstitutional. The challenge not only succeeded in pushing Murphy out of the race but it led to a judge siding with Kim and forcing the State to abandon the party driven process in favor of a yet to be determined “block voting” choice. Interim U.S. Senator George Helmy, who was chosen by Governor Murphy to fill the vacancy caused by the Menendez resignation, is expected to step down after the vote is certified to allow Kim to enter the Senate before this term is over. Kean holds on in District 7 Congressional races in New Jersey are, by design of gerrymandering, predictable affairs as the seats are drawn to favor one party over another. The 7th Congressional District stands as the one place in the State that defies that easy predictability. Since his election in 2022 GOP Congressman Tom Kean, Jr. has had a target on his back by national Democrats who desperately need the suburban NY area District to regain their control of the House. Kean, a policy and constituent focused legislator, however was able to beat back a challenge from Democrat Sue Altman to secure his reelection. Democrats hoped an anti-Trump vote could carry Altman to victory. But Kean is a well know commodity in his District after years as a State Senator and as son of the still popular former New Jersey Governor. Unlike Members of Congress who seek attention or social media clicks, Kean was able to personalize his reelection on more local, impactful issues like crime and affordability as Democrats fought hard to tie him to Trump, national GOP politics and hot button issues. Kean’s reelection is a major win for the State and national GOP. Congressional Delegation cruises and welcomes new Members The remainder of the House races concluded as expected. Congressmen Norcross, Van Drew, Smith, Pallone, Menendez and Gottheimer and Congresswomen Watson Coleman, Sherrill and McIver were all easily reelected. New Jersey voters will be sending 2 new Members to Congress next term however. Democratic Assemblyman Herb Conaway was elected in the Third District to replace Andy Kim. Democratic Senator Nellie Pou was chosen to replace the late Congressman Bill Pascrell in the 9th District. The election of Conaway and Pou necessitates their replacement in the Assembly and Senate respectively. It will also lead to a shuffle to replace them as Chair of two important legislative Committees – Conaway’s Assembly Health Committee and Pou’s Senate Commerce Committee. The partisan split in the Congressional Delegation will remain 9-3 in favor of the Democrats when the new Congress is sworn in in January. The 2025 Election starts today! New Jersey voters won’t have a chance to catch their breaths very long once the dust settles on the 2024 election. New Jersey is one of the rare States in the nation that conducts its statewide election in “off years” separate from federal elections. As such, the State will be choosing a Governor and 80 members of the General Election next November. Governor Phil Murphy is term limited and the race to replace him is well underway. Democrats already in the race include former Senate President Steve Sweeney, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and NJEA President Sean Spiller. With the election over it is also expected that Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill and Congressman Josh Gottheimer will be entering the race to succeed Murphy as well. While a number of major Democratic State and county political party leaders have endorsed Sherrill at this stage it is way too early to say anyone is the favorite. Republicans are also getting a head start on 2025 with Jack Ciattarelli, who came within 3 points of winning the 2021 race, NJ 101.5 personality Bill Spadea and State Senator Jon Bramnick already campaigning for GOP support to become the nominee. It would be an oversimplification to compare New Jersey’s presidential voting habits with their Governor race picks. While New Jersey hasn’t supported a Republican for President since 1988 in that same time voters have elected and then reelected two Republican Governor’s. Democrats, despite nearly a million vote registration advantage and great party organization leadership simply can’t overlook history, Trump’s success with minorities and working class voters and the shocking closeness of the 2021 Governor’s race. And while elections are about issues and how people are feeling at a particular moment, they are also about individuals whose names are on the ballot. Therefore, both parties have a stressful few months of candidate selection ahead of them to ensure the party nominees match both the moment and the issues without assuming anything about past performance and New Jersey being a “blue” State. The undercard of the 2025 race will feature the 80-member General Assembly. And while legislative districts are designed to maintain the status quo, much like our Congressional Districts, a number of factors could impact the current Democrat Assembly majority. For example, more than one quarter of the Assembly were newly elected in 2023 and they are still building their name ID to voters. A number of these are in areas where President Trump and 2021 GOP Governor candidate Ciattarelli did surprisingly well such as Gloucester, Bergen and Passaic County. Candidate selection for the GOP will therefore become increasingly important as internal GOP fighting in District 4 and terrible candidate screening in District 36 cost Republicans time, money and the election in 2021 for example. The State Senate will not be on the ballot in 2025 and this could make Democrats work harder in places like District 11 in Monmouth County where Democrat Senator Vin Gopal, a one man vote machine, won’t be on the ballot to provide coattails to the two new Democratic Assemblywomen who were elected with him in 2023. While it would take a voter revolt of massive proportions to yield a GOP Assembly majority under the current legislative district map it is not out of the realm of possibility, considering the statewide results from 2021 and 2024, that Democrats will have to play defense all over the State. Ballot Reform will change the political landscape in 2025 Complicating the math for every candidate in both parties is the change to the way primary ballots will be structured in 2025. As mentioned above, Andy Kim’s successful challenge to the “party line” voting process necessitated a change to the way voters will be presented the GOP and Democratic candidates in primary elections. While Senator-elect Kim and progressive advocates are arguing that the ballots should simply throw all qualified candidates into an “office block” style and let voters pick from there, some legislative and party leaders feel it would be less chaotic to build a hybrid ballot that blends the old and new methods together. Specifically, “office block” voting means if there are 12 candidates running for 2 Assembly seats in the primary that all 12 names are placed into one “block” on the ballot with the names in randomly selected order. Before the Kim lawsuit changed the primary election process, New Jersey used a “party line” selection whereby county political parties placed their “favored” candidates in one line with any other candidate being placed on a separate line elsewhere in the ballot. So if a person was running for Governor but had a limited or no State, county or local candidates to bracket with that person could find themselves far away on the ballot from the party endorsed candidates. While not impossible, beating “the line” was a huge mountain for candidates to climb. To address the uncertainty caused by the court ruling on ballot design, Assembly Speaker Coughlin has created a bipartisan Assembly Committee to review and make recommendations for how to implement the court’s mandate. Co-Chaired by Republican Assemblyman Al Barlas and Democratic Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly, the Committee has already begun analysis and public hearings on what the office block primary ballot would look like. Several options are expected to be proposed from simply throwing all names into each office block to allowing candidates to bracket together within the block to let running mates for offices appear with each other. The implications of this are huge. First, if a half a dozen Democratic candidates for Governor all run their own slate of candidates for Assembly there could be 12 people in one block seeking 2 seats in each District. This could lead to chaos for incumbent candidates who, in many cases, are not household names. In any scenario, it could lead to candidates from two different slates being chosen by voters while the Governor’s candidate they ran with could fail themselves to be selected. This will not only change the face of the Legislature but it could lead to some level of personal discomfort between running mates if a race becomes nasty between primary election winners. Second, and on a related note, this could have massive fundraising implications for both parties as it will cost an untold amount of money to identify incumbents and party favored candidates within a block. Finally, the office block voting process could have the effect of strengthening county political parties fundraising and Get Out The Vote operations by focusing their efforts on candidate selection and identification. That all remains to be seen. But what we know in the aftermath of the 2024 Presidential election is that New Jersey political leaders can take nothing for granted as the environment is not as settled as either party expected it to be. | 
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