said during New Jersey\u2019s 1947 Constitutional Convention<\/a>, when the change was made. \u201cThe problems confronting the State are frequently distinct from those confronting the nation.\u201d<\/p>\nThat guardrail, never foolproof, was smashed during Trump\u2019s time in office. It doesn\u2019t appear to have recovered much in the post-Trump era, and it doesn\u2019t look like Murphy wants it to.<\/p>\n
Murphy, an unabashed progressive who\u2019s seeking to turn out New Jersey\u2019s heavily Black and Hispanic urban vote while at the same time keep voters in the recently-converted wealthy and mostly-white suburbs in his corner, has focused heavily on Ciattarelli\u2019s attendance at a November \u201cStop the Steal\u201d rally in Bedminster, home of a Trump National Golf Club that\u2019s served as the former president\u2019s summer residence.<\/p>\n
Ciattarelli has said he did not know it was a rally promoting the false conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies that the 2020 election was rigged, but a television ad for Murphy shows Ciattarelli speaking directly in front of a sign that reads \u201cStop the Steal.\u201d The commercial also prominently features an attendee who flew a large Confederate flag while also dressed in the flag\u2019s regalia.<\/p>\n
Ciattarelli, a former three-term member of the state General Assembly, has sought to focus more on New Jersey issues, some of which are intertwined with national debates, like vaccine and mask mandates and school curricula on sex education and teaching tolerance and diversity.<\/p>\n
When questioned about Trump, Ciattarelli campaign staffers have repeatedly offered reporters exasperated replies asking when they will ask about New Jersey\u2019s high property taxes \u2014 consistently the highest in the nation.<\/p>\n
Ciattarelli recently dismissed Trump-promoted election conspiracy theories, at least when it came to New Jersey, urging his supporters not to stay home on Election Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not rigged here in New Jersey. We can win this race,\u201d Ciattarelli, who trails Murphy by double-digits in some polls, told a crowd during a recent campaign stop.<\/p>\n
Ciattarelli\u2019s journey to the GOP nomination featured some genuflecting to the MAGA crowd. Aside from attending the \u201cStop the Steal rally,\u201c Ciattarelli\u2019s campaign was silent when asked by reporters if he believed Biden won the 2020 election well after it was clear he had.<\/p>\n
Ciattarelli moved closer to the center when his chief rival, Trump loyalist and former state GOP Chair Doug Steinhardt, dropped out of the race shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But during the primary, Ciattarelli continued to emphasize his support for the former president \u2014 whom he had labeled a \u201ccharlatan\u201d ahead of Trump\u2019s first term \u2014 against two rivals who were running to the far right, insisting he had voted for Trump in 2020.<\/p>\n
State issues are often intertwined with national issues. New Jersey\u2019s response to the pandemic and the controversy over mask mandates, for instance, are part of a larger national response. As a coastal state, New Jersey is particularly affected by national climate change policy. Even tax policies \u2014 such as whether New Jerseyans will be able to fully deduct their property tax payments from federal taxes \u2014 are dependent upon federal law.<\/p>\n
State-focused issues that affect the lives of millions of New Jersey residents every day have been second-tier issues on the campaign trail this year. For example, long waits to get unemployment checks during the pandemic and long lines at backlogged Motor Vehicle Commission offices haven\u2019t generated much discussion.<\/p>\n
Though those issues did come up during the state\u2019s two gubernatorial debates, more time and energy were expended on national issues, such as abortion. With Roe v. Wade in danger of being defanged or overturned by a conservative Supreme Court, Murphy has promoted a bill in the state Legislature that would write abortion rights into state law and made expanding access to abortions a key campaign issue. Ciattarelli has said he\u2019s pro-choice but has called for banning abortions after 20 weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the first debate, we barely heard about [the Motor Vehicle Commission]. We heard about the ruling in Texas in the Supreme Court, abortion, climate change, the pandemic \u2014\u00a0things that are not uniquely New Jersey,\u201d Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, said in an interview. \u201cThey may indirectly touch New Jersey, but are not bread-and-butter issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gubernatorial race may increasingly hinge not only on national issues, but on voters who are more focused on them. Under new laws signed by Murphy, all voters who requested mail-in ballots for the 2016, 2017 and 2018 elections will automatically receive them going forward for all general elections unless they opt out.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou now have this pool of voters who had become very regular vote-by-mail voters in the federal election but who now have a ballot sitting on their kitchen table in a year like this,\u201d said Michael Muller, a strategist who runs New Jersey\u2019s Democratic state legislative campaigns. \u201cYou have a polarized election in which who\u2019s wearing a blue or red Jersey has become clear, and some of that messaging is going to be very compelling to these voters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey said national Democrats were largely disengaged during his first race in 1997 when he challenged Republican Christie Whitman \u2014 except for then-President Bill Clinton. Much of the race, he said, was focused on state-specific issues, such as education, property taxes and high car insurance premiums.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1997, President Clinton came into New Jersey to campaign and the Democratic National Committee basically were largely disinterested,\u201d McGreevey, who narrowly lost that race but went on to win the governorship in 2001, said in an interview. \u201cClinton well understood what [the New Jersey election] portended \u2026 I think that now, New Jersey and Virginia are both viewed as a prequel to the national discourse of the congressional elections \u2014\u00a0and all those gubernatorial elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2009, national politics were emerging more and more in New Jersey\u2019 race for governor. Republican candidate Chris Christie\u2019s first TV ad that year featured New Jerseyans saying they had voted for then-President Barack Obama in 2008 but were going to vote for Christie for governor, said Mike DuHaime, Christie\u2019s chief strategist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe national mood has in recent memory been a factor, but it seems more dominant this year,\u201d DuHaime said. \u201cIf you go all the way back to the \u201880s or \u201890s, we tend to go opposite the president\u2019s party. So there\u2019s something to that pattern. But it seems more pronounced this year, both in New Jersey and Virginia, than in 2013 or 2009.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: Politics NEWARK, N.J. \u2014\u00a0Ahead of a September gubernatorial debate between New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Republican challenger Gov. Jack Ciattarelli, Democrats plastered the lamp posts along one… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":25582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25581"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}