November Surprise

The gubernatorial race in Virginia is so close, although Democrat Ralph Northam seems to have the edge, that no one can call it and Republican Ed Gillespie can still pull victory from the jaws of defeat.  In the New Jersey gubernatorial election,  Phil Murphy appears to be on course to win but Kim Guadagno is still pegging away and could gain enough last-minute momentum to pull an upset.  You scoff at that suggestion? Well, you remember what they said about the ant who tried to fell a rubber tree.     

Up to now, I've been worried about a surprise development that could cost Murphy the election.  At the height of hurricane season, I feared that a storm would strike New Jersey and Governor Chris Christie would put Guadagno in charge of emergency operations and allow her to prove herself as a leader . . . and overtake Murphy in the polls.  No.  Then I feared that Murphy's lieutenant-gubernatorial running mate Sheila Oliver's vote in the state Assembly against a bill meant to deny state contracts to companies that boycott Israel would cost him the extremely important Jewish vote.  Not quite.  Then came his promise to make New Jersey a sanctuary state for undocumented immigrants, which could cost New Jersey in federal aid (you mean we actually get some??)   It's driven up anti-Murphy enthusiasm among Republican voters but not so much for pro-Murphy voters in the immigrant-heavy Democratic base in the state . . . but no, Murphy's poll numbers are still holding.  But anything could happen, given all of the garbage that Guadagno has dumped on him.  I've even been wondering if the October 31 terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan, given the fact that an Uzbek national living in New Jersey (albeit on a legal visa) perpetrated it, would play into Guadagno's naked immigrant-bashing as well as the line that Democrats are soft on terrorism.  

The most gratifying sight of Murphy advocating sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, apart from the fact that it's the right thing to do, is that Murphy could have talked his way out of his hardline stand with the mealy-mouthed language commonly associated with wimpy Democrats and backpedaled on it to avoid offending centrist independents, but instead he doubled down and stood on his principles.  If he wins, his courageous stand for immigrants will hopefully embolden Democrats in other states as the 2018 midterm elections approach.        

I'm still nervous, if only because the last Republican woman to face a Democrat in a New Jersey governor's election, Christine Todd Whitman, upset the conventional wisdom by winning, something Whitman herself has recently made a point of in advocating for Guadagno.  (Except that Whitman was seven points behind Democrat Jim Florio going into the 1993 election, not fourteen points behind like Guadagno is behind Murphy, and Florio was an unpopular incumbent governor - much like Guadagno's boss, Chris Christie.)  But Murphy, who says he has our backs, has Democrats who have his back.  Including this one.

Yes, that's Martin O'Malley, former governor of Maryland and 2016 presidential candidate, stumping for Phil Murphy on October 29 in Paterson, near where I live.  (I didn't learn about it until after the fact, of course.)  It was one of four stops O'Malley made in New Jersey on that rainy day.  He didn't attract the number of people that Hillary Clinton might (okay, would), but with each person he meets and interacts with while campaigning for Democratic candidates nationwide, he makes a presidential run in 2020 more doable . . . one voter at a time.

I recall that ant and the rubber tree again . .  .    

Murphy's Law of Polls

Democratic New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy is leading by eighteen points over his Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno, in a recently released poll, and he's benefiting from Guadagno's association with lame-duck incumbent Governor Chris Christie.  So it looks like the Democrats are going to score their first major electoral victory in the age of Trump, right?

Not so fast.  

At the first debate between the two candidates, Murphy may have had his own "basket of deplorables" moment when he said he would declare New Jersey a "sanctuary state" for undocumented immigrants, shielding them from federal authorities.  Guadagno immediately responded by suggesting that Murphy would give sanctuary to undocumented immigrants like a Peruvian national who murdered children in a Newark schoolyard in 2014.  Murphy has come back hard and strong on that charge, saying that no state or city offering sanctuary for undocumented immigrants extends its protections to criminal suspects.  But since Guadagno is a Republican, that hardly matters.  She's been hammering the issue home, misleading potential voters with a deceitful misrepresentation of the truth - that is, a lie - and appealing to same bigoted set of voters Trump won in 2016.

To respond to the inevitable point that Donald Trump lost New Jersey to Hillary Clinton by nine points, it's worth noting that voters in New Jersey have acted differently in the past when choosing a governor.  New Jersey Democrats have lost four out of the last seven gubernatorial elections since the state last went Republican in a presidential election, and no Democrat has served two full terms since Brendan Byrne from 1974 to 1982.  New Jerseyans have been partial to Republicans when it comes to running the state, trying to keep taxes under control, and helping suburban areas (mostly white) over the cities (mainly non-white).  Guadagno's latest trick - in place of her attempt to capitalize on New Jersey's astronomically high property taxes, which hasn't helped - may bring out enough Republican voters in the exurban and rural areas to counter Democratic strength in urban areas and in older, more established suburbs that are in greater proximity to the cities.

In other words, Guadagno could find a way to pull an upset.  If that sounds unthinkable, look at the 1993 gubernatorial election and consider that Christine Todd Whitman was expected to lose to incumbent governor Jim Florio despite his unpopularity over increasing taxes in a recession.  She won by one percentage point.  How far back do you want to go?  Brendan Byrne was just as unpopular in 1977 as Florio was in 1993 over taxes - it was Byrne who imposed New Jersey's income tax, leading Republicans to label him "One-Term Byrne."  His Republican opponent in the 1977 election, Ray Bateman, cam up with a plan to replace the state income tax but, when asked how it would work, Bateman gave an answer that revealed the plan to be more of a fantasy than a workable solution.  He ended up losing what was the one of the least loseable elections for a challenger against an incumbent in New Jersey history.

Oh yeah, Phil Murphy is pushing a very progressive - and very expensive agenda, but he hasn't come up with an explanation of how he's going to pay for it.  Sound familiar?  

Actually, the only reason it does sound familiar is because Guadagno can't explain how she's going to pay for property tax relief.  But Murphy is still leaving himself open to an upset if he doesn't respond more forcefully to his opponent's more aggressive attacks on him.  

I hope Murphy - whom I support and whose agenda I support - comes back harder still.  Maybe he will at tonight's second gubernatorial debate.  Because if he somehow manages to lose, that will effectively put an end to the Democratic Party.  Not just the party in New Jersey - the national party.  Because if the Democratic Party can't even win the governorship of an increasingly Democratic state like New Jersey in the age of Trump, it might as well go full Whig.             

The 2017 New Jersey Gubernatorial Nominees

It's official: Democrat Phil Murphy,a former ambassador to Germany, and Republican Kim Guadagno, the current lieutenant governor of New Jersey, will face each other in the New Jersey general gubernatorial election November 2017.  Yeah, big surprise.

Murphy is selling a set of progressive policy proposals as a change from lame-duck Governor Chris Christie's right-wing policies, while Guadagno is banking on her more moderate Republicanism as a prescription for change in Trenton.  Murphy was a decent if unspectacular ambassador to Berlin, but that's not what distinguishes him; he's a former Goldman Sachs executive at a time when having worked for the Wall Street firm is politically toxic.  To be fair, Murphy quit Goldman Sachs long before the 2008 financial crisis, and the policies he espouses would likely make his old Wall Street buddies cringe.  But not as much as Kim Guadagno might make New Jersey voters cringe for being Christie's right-hand woman.  Bottom line: It's Murphy's race to lose.

Okay, Phil: You have five months to prove that not all ex-Goldman Sachs executives are total creeps!