Phil Murphy has become the first Democratic New Jersey governor to be re-elected in 44 years, according to multiple projections Wednesday night, narrowly winning a second term by surviving a scare from Republican Jack Ciattarelli in a bitter race that was too close to call for nearly 24 hours.
The Associated Press declared early Wednesday evening that Murphy has defeated Ciattarelli, a few hours after he took a razor-thin lead. Several other news outlets — including ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN — also called the race for Murphy later in the night.
Ciattarelli, a former member of the state Assembly, has not conceded. His campaign argued all votes have not been counted, and it’s possible the campaign could contest the results.
As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, Murphy’s margin over Ciattarelli was less than a percentage point — 50% to 49.2%. It’s a difference of 19,440 votes out of 2.4 million cast, which, if it holds up, would make it one of the tightest governor’s races in New Jersey history.
The contest is much closer than polls that predicted a high-single-digit victory for Murphy, a 64-year-old former Wall Street executive and American diplomat who has pushed New Jersey in a more progressive direction and overseen the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Murphy celebrated Wednesday at a late-night victory party in Asbury Park, where about 24 hours earlier he had told a dejected crowd “they’d have to wait a little longer” for “every vote to be counted.”
The Ciattarelli campaign criticized the AP for making the call.
“With the candidates separated by a fraction of a percent out of 2.4 million ballots cast, it’s irresponsible of the media to make this call when the New Jersey Secretary of State doesn’t even know how many ballots are left to be counted,” Ciattarelli spokeswoman Stami Williams said in a statement.
Thousands of ballots are still being counted, and Ciattarelli could petition the state courts for a recount in the end. New Jersey does not have automatic recounts.
Ciattarelli overcame relatively low name recognition and Democrats’ 2-to-1 voter-registration advantage in the state to make the race tighter than expected, bolstered by a surprise surge in Republican turnout. But while election results aren’t officially certified for weeks, media outlets typically call races after determining losing candidates have no clear path to victory.
The count will continue to change in the coming days because thousands of outstanding ballots — including mail-in and provisional — are still being tallied. But many of those ballots are either from Democratic-leaning areas or from mail-in voters, a system that favors Democrats. That means Murphy’s margin may increase.
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Murphy did not shy away from touting his progressive credentials in his victory speech Wednesday night. He also suggested he would listen to all residents, though he did not directly address the tightness of the race.
“If you want to know what the future looks like, come to New Jersey,” Murphy told a crowd of more than 200 supporters at the Grand Arcade in Asbury Park. “If you want to understand where America is heading, look to New Jersey. And, if you want to be governor for all of New Jersey, you must listen to all of New Jersey. And New Jersey, I hear you.”
“So tonight, I renew my promise to you — whether you voted for me or not — to work every single day of the next four years to keep moving us forward,” he added. “Forward with renewed optimism to ensure greater opportunities for all 9.3 million who call this great state home.”
The last Democratic governor to win re-election in New Jersey was Brendan Byrne, in 1977 — though voters chose Democratic gubernatorial candidates in consecutive elections in 2001 and 2005. Murphy also bucked New Jersey‘s 30-year history of electing the gubernatorial candidate from the opposite party that won the White House the year before.
New Jersey was one of only two states to hold a governor‘s race this year. The other was Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Murphy’s victory was one of the lone bright spots for Democrats both at home and nationally as a Republican undercurrent ran through this week’s races just one year after New Jersey turned out in droves to help send Democrat President Joe Biden to the White House.
Though Democrats are still expected to keep control of the New Jersey Legislature and many races remain too close to call, a number of Democratic lawmakers who were favored to win re-election were on the verge of being unseated.
The most stunning development: Longtime state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, appears en route to losing his seat.
State Senate Republicans released a joint statement Wednesday saying voters “sent a clear message that they are tired of having their concerns dismissed by Democrat leaders who think they know better.”
“It should be clear that whatever mandate Democrats thought they had to govern from the far left no longer exists,” they added.
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The election was also notable for the number of New Jersey residents who voted early and by mail, as well as the fact some areas dealt with voting machine issues as the state used electronic poll books instead of paper ones as part of a law Murphy signed earlier this year.
All of that caused counting delays in some parts of the state, leading results to be more of a slow drip than past years and adding confusion Tuesday night and early Wednesday as Ciattarelli seemed poised for a shocking victory. Unlike last year, election officials couldn’t begin counting mail-in ballots before Election Day.
It was the first time New Jersey woke up the day after Election Day not knowing who their next governor would be since 1981, when it took nearly a month to determine Republican Tom Kean had defeated Democrat Jim Florio by a mere 1,797 votes.
Ciattarelli led Murphy in early returns deep into election night, rolling up big support in suburban and traditionally Republican parts of the state, while Murphy’s totals in urban areas were lower than expected.
Both campaigns left their election night parties without declaring victory or conceding defeat, as Ciattarelli led Murphy by about 1 percentage point overnight.
But Murphy — the state’s 56th governor — pulled ahead Wednesday as more votes were tabulated from Democratic-leaning areas.
In the end, Murphy cracked 1.2 million votes Wednesday evening, meaning he registered slightly more votes than he did in 2017, when he beat Republican Kim Guadagno, Chris Christie’s former lieutenant governor, by a margin of 56%-42%.
Ciattarelli’s 1.19 million votes are about 200,000 more than Guadagno’s final total. The challenger, whose sharp TV and radio advertisements painted Murphy as an out-of-touch, spend-happy outsider, rode strong performances in Republican strongholds such as Monmouth and Ocean counties, and clawed into the governor’s margins in suburban counties.
Ciattarelli flipped three South Jersey counties that voted for Murphy in 2017: Atlantic, Cumberland, and Gloucester. An analysis of preliminary vote totals shows the governor did worse in 11 of the state’s 21 counties than he did four years ago.
Despite Murphy’s win, the loss in Virginia and tense outcome in New Jersey could be seen as a warning for national Democrats heading into next year’s midterm elections, in which the party will aim to keep control of Congress two years into Biden’s first term.
This all comes four years after Murphy easily won a first term, by 14 percentage points, succeeding Christie, a term-limited Republican. Democrats have turned the state even bluer in recent years, thanks in part to suburban backlash against Christie and Republican former President Donald Trump.
Biden carried New Jersey by 16 points over Trump last year. And heading into Tuesday, there were more than 1 million more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state.
Murphy, a Middletown resident, installed more progressive policies in New Jersey, including signing laws raising the minimum wage, enacting equal pay and paid family leave, strengthening gun control, restoring funding for women’s health clinics, and increasing taxes on millionaires and corporations. He openly suggested he wanted to remold the state as the “California of the East Coast.”
The governor also saw his popularity soar in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged the state early. Murphy installed some of the most stringent lockdown, mask, and vaccine orders in the country to fight the crisis that has now killed more than 28,000 residents.
But Ciattarelli, also a former Somerset County freeholder and former owner of a medical publishing company, argued that Murphy had “broken” New Jersey with high taxes and a more liberal bent. Running for governor a second time after losing the Republican primary four years ago, Ciattarelli vowed to lower property taxes by revamping the state’s school funding formula and hammered Murphy for once saying that if taxes are your main issue, “we’re probably not your state.”
Ciattarelli also dismissed Murphy, a Massachusetts native who has lived in the Garden State for more than 20 years, as being “not New Jersey.”
Plus, Ciattarelli and other Republicans criticized Murphy’s coronavirus measures for being draconian and blamed him for the deaths of more than 8,000 people in the state’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
As a national debate raged over masks and vaccine mandates — especially in schools — Murphy lifted statewide face-covering rules in May but is still requiring New Jersey students to wear them in schools. So far, children under 12 have not been eligible for the vaccine. Murphy has also ordered state workers, teachers, health care employees, and more to get the COVID-19 vaccine or face regular testing.
Ciattarelli has opposed mask and vaccine mandates, saying it should be up to people — and parents — to choose how they protect themselves. He has, however, supported giving workers a testing option if they decline the vaccine.
Murphy, in turn, tried to link Ciattarelli to Trump, who remains popular with the Republican base but is widely unpopular in New Jersey. The governor warned the ex-lawmaker would bring the state “backwards.”
The race originally showed Murphy with a hefty double-digit lead over Ciattarelli. That lead shrunk to single digits in recent weeks, though Ciattarelli had never led in a single public-opinion poll.
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Still, political observers said Biden’s drop in approval ratings — a recent poll showed him underwater in New Jersey — and a rash of anger over taxes, coronavirus restrictions, and school issues apparently energized Republican voters and dampened Democratic enthusiasm.
A key question now is whether Murphy will continue to push a progressive agenda after his tight victory or whether the smaller Democratic majority in the Legislature will have an appetite for it. Murphy has not laid out detailed plans for a second term, though he has said one goal is to further tighten New Jersey’s already strict gun laws. He also has vowed not to raise taxes the next four years.
NJ Advance Media staff writers Susan K. Livio, Len Melisurgo, and Ted Sherman contributed to this report.
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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @johnsb01.
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.