(upbeat music) - New Jersey has a new governor-elect, Democrat Mikie Sherrill, who won the election handily.

But wasn't this race supposed to be a nail-biter?

We'll talk about that in just a moment.

Hi everyone, I'm Joanna Gagis, and this is Reporters Roundtable.

Let's meet our panel of journalists.

First up, we have Colleen O'Day, senior writer and projects editor at NJ Spotlight News.

We have Charlie Stile, political columnist for the Record and USA Today Network, and Brent Johnson, politics reporter for NJ Advanced Media.

So, in the end, Governor-elect Sherril won the day with about 56% of the vote, about 12% more than her challenger, Republican Jack Ciattarelli.

Colleen, let's start with you.

Can you just break down some of the major voting block results?

We talked a lot about the Black and Latino vote, the Orthodox Jewish vote.

How did it all go in the end?

She won them all.

Well, I don't know about the Orthodox Jewish vote, but in terms of the Black vote, the Latino vote, the youth vote, she won.

She just, she won them all.

The only votes it looks like that Ciattarelli won were the white vote, the male, white, in fact, it's, if you break it down, it's white men of middle age.

That's pretty much the, and those with a high school diploma only, no college.

Those are pretty much the constituencies that he won.

So, you know, everything that we had heard in advance and that, you know, we were wary of because of the inroads that Donald Trump made last year in the state, none of that came to pass.

It looked like all of those groups swung back toward Democrats.

Colleen, one of the things I was watching early on, I should say right before the election, were some of those polls that were coming out.

And this one from Atlas Intel had the black vote going to Ciattarelli, 60% over Sherril's 40%.

That seemed alarming to me even when that result came out.

But even the Latino vote that I know Ciattarelli was fighting for so hard, especially in Passaic County, significantly went to Sherril.

What do you make of that?

I mean, I think we're going to have some lots more conversations about those.

I did talk to Dan Cassino of FDU.

He does the FDU poll and they turned out being one of the closer polls.

They had her at seven.

She won by it's 13 plus at this point.

And what he was saying is that the polls, including an Atlas poll, the Emerson College poll had kind of tweaked because what we had seen over time was that polls tended to not pick up support for Trump.

So they had kind of tweaked their methodologies to kind of pick up, perhaps in this case, too many Republican votes.

Certainly 60% of the black vote going to Ciattarelli was a warning sign that that was probably not going to be the most accurate poll and wow it sure wasn't.

So I mean Dan seems to think that it was you know it's this kind of magic potion that the pollsters use to try to make sure that they're capturing the entire electorate that just didn't gel properly.

Yeah and probably being overly cautious after what we saw in the 2021 election where it just did not reflect how close it was.

Charlie, the upset that Democrats were feeling at the end of the election last year has pretty much all but been erased in New Jersey.

Talk about the counties that have turned back blue now with Sherril's win.

Oh sure, I mean the biggest one of course is Passaic.

That was a big surprise to the Democratic Party not only in New Jersey but nationally and it was suddenly the sleepy county was now a bellwether for of concern for the Democratic Party nationally because of the heavy concentration of Latino vote.

So I had the list here.

I can't remember them.

I think Brent will help me on that.

I can help you out there too.

Atlantic was one of them right?

Atlantic Cumberland.

Sure was.

I believe.

We've got Gloucester, Cumberland, Atlantic, Morris.

That was the one in Golden Alpha.

Glouster was a big county and it's one that Sherril mentioned took, went out of her way a couple times in her day after press conference to mention the turnout in Gloucester because that was essential and that was a critical state for Trump captured it last time but it was also key in Steve Sweeney's loss in 2021.

So and it was I think a lot of people consigned that county as forever Republican so that to see that come back was a big surprise.

Morris too.

Excuse me, Morris was the other one because Morris, that was another one that the Ciattarelli campaign had really strategically hoped would benefit by his choice of Jim Gannon as the lieutenant governor and that's always been a traditional homeland for Republicans but maybe second or third behind Ocean County but it just it's really ever since the emergence of Sherril actually in 2018 it's really become a purple county but that was a big blow as well though because I thought they there there was a lot of hope that they would bring that back to the Republican fold.

Yeah Brent you know in the end both candidates really tried to make this a referendum on their party leadership Ciattarelli with with trying to make this a referendum on Governor Phil Murphy, Sherril obviously taking aim at President Trump.

In the end when you look back was this really a referendum on Trump?

Did New Jersey voters come out as a rebuke to the president?

I mean that seems to be I mean there's no exact way to find it out but exit polling from numerous outlets showed that Trump was very unpopular with the electorate and that might have driven their vote.

That's what a lot of political pundits and experts and insiders say, that you have to take it that way.

We're a year into the second Trump presidency and that party and he won last year largely on concern over the economy and immigration and that now it's a year later and people might not be still happy about their pocketbooks.

And Sherril, when she went after Trump, Sherril's argument was not just is Trump a danger to democracy, but that he's a danger to your wallet and that his policies are going to hurt you and I'm going to be the one that freezes energy rates and lowers your costs.

And should have really made the same argument saying we've had eight years of democratic control in Trenton.

You know, why not try something new?

It's time for a change.

But, you know, as with everything, anything these days, Trump dominates the conversation and you have to think he played at least a sizable role in this.

To that point, you know, a lot of folks will say, well, what did the Ciattarelli camp do wrong?

And looking back, it looks like they hit a lot of the numbers, if not all of the numbers they were hoping to hit.

Colleen, just tell us in terms of the who turned out, this really was an attempt for both candidates to turn out their base.

Who turned out for Ciattarelli?

Did he do as well as he possibly could have in New Jersey?

I mean, I think you would have to say yes.

And it was just kind of this steamroll of Democrats that have spoiled it for him.

So Ciattarelli right now has almost 1.4 million votes.

That is the second most number of votes that a gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey has received in history.

It is more than Governor Phil Murphy got four years ago.

So had he should have really gotten that many votes in 2021, he would have been the governor today.

But the problem was, of course, that Mikie Sherrill got 1.8 million plus votes.

I mean, we're talking about levels for a gubernatorial election that we just have not seen in more than a decade, maybe a couple decades.

They're still counting votes.

So, you know, these things are still going to, we're still going to get the numbers going higher.

We could potentially wind up with half of the voters having voted.

And we could even wind up with a larger number, because it's very close right now, not percentage, but number of voters than the 2018 midterms when we saw the blue wave in New Jersey that swept out most of the Republican House members.

Listen, I'm not, math is not the strong suit for me, but when I crunched those numbers that you just gave us, Colleen, it looks like about the difference of registered Democrats that we have in the state versus Republicans.

Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, it's some, in some, at some point it's just math, right?

We've got 850,000 more Democrats than Republicans.

Now, had Ciattarelli made a better pitch?

Well, I won't say that, because maybe because his pitch was his pitch.

But had he been able to attract more independent voters, you know, that could have helped him if he would have swayed more of those.

But those independent voters we see also went for Sherril.

And I think, you know, to Brent's point and looking at election results elsewhere in the nation, it's really hard not to say that Trump was probably the biggest factor in this election.

Yeah.

So to that point, Charlie, he received a lot of criticism, should have really got a lot of criticism in 2021 for not fully embracing Trump.

Some said that's the reason why he lost and he only had three percentage points to make up to overtake Phil Murphy.

He did fully embrace Trump.

And now folks are saying that was the key to his demise.

Was it?

Trump, absolutely.

And it's a different Trump from four years ago.

This is a Trump that terminated the tunnel.

This is a Trump that has unnerved the nation with its ice raids and bigotry.

This is a Trump.

You go down the line, here's a Trump that is a frozen government and taking food off the plates of the most vulnerable.

And I think this all accumulated into this chaotic ball of static that just overshadowed everything in this race.

And there was no way for Jack Ciattarelli to escape it.

And he was really in a box also because he didn't want to alienate, or the perception was he didn't want to alienate Donald Trump in the final stretch.

And so he gave him an A grade in a debate, and that A grade hung around him like an albatross.

There was just no way for him to really escape.

And one thing I'll also say about the turnout this year, the Democrats came under a lot of criticism last year for not revving up the machine here in New Jersey, kind of taking it for granted, and deploying troops over to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to get the vote out there for exercise of futility.

And so this year with the governor's race, which is always seen as a higher stakes proposition, they came out and put their shoulder to the wheel.

Yeah, they sure did.

We saw that with Obama coming in in the final stretch.

Really I think one part of Sherril's attempt to turn out the black vote, which seemed to work for her and a lot of other national democrats.

But I think it's also the Bryanstacks in Union City, for example, that really just turned out the vote, turned the town upside down for votes for her.

That kind of activity we didn't see with such vigor last year.

Yeah, that's a great point.

Brent, could any... Go ahead, Colleen, you have something to add?

No, I was just going to say, and you know, we had people from out of state trying to get us to come out to vote.

You know, we actually got a postcard from someone in Kansas City saying, "Please remember to vote on Election Day."

And we thought, well, we're going to vote.

But the idea that other states were trying to help New Jersey was just kind of mind boggling after as Charlie said, New Jerseyans last year thought that they could be helping in Pennsylvania, which did prove to be futile.

Yeah.

Brent, I'm curious, you know, all the Monday morning quarterbacks right now are wondering could any other candidate have done better than Ciattarelli?

You know, it's easy now to say he's a three-time loser.

They should have seen this coming.

He was a two-time loser and they still put him forward as the party favorite.

Could anyone like John Bramnick or like Bill Spadia have taken this further than Ciattarelli did?

Well, those are the two most obvious examples because they ran in the primary against him.

So let's take them one by one.

Spadia was maybe even more of a Trump supporter, more MAGA.

So you had to question would he have even faced more backlash.

But then there's also the question would he maybe have drawn out more Trump supporters who might not vote in an election where Trump isn't on the ballot.

That was one of the calculating points for the Cettarelli campaign was we have to make sure we don't lose the Republican base and that we have to motivate them because they may not come out and vote when Trump's not there because Trump's kind of a unicorn.

And then Bramnick goes the other way.

He's more willing to criticize Trump.

And what I've heard today, I spoke to some Republicans who said that I asked was it a mistake for Chiarelli to tie himself to Trump more clearly this time.

And they said he was going to be tied to him either way.

This is going to be, this was an anti-Trump and thus anti-Republican vote.

So but I mean, you know, there's a lot of these questions hanging around.

And then, but the key question, maybe unless what Steve Bannon says, and they're going to find a way to maneuver Donald Trump to be president again in 2028, the next governor's race will not have Trump involved.

So maybe we'll get clarity on that to see what happens in a post-Trump world in New York.

Woo thinking about another election still in the same way it feels a little daunting.

We haven't even recovered from this one.

Charlie, you and I were both in the war room, the headquarters of the Ciattarelli campaign.

I didn't see too many heavy hitters coming out from the Republican Party in support of Ciattarelli.

>> Did they stay away because they saw the writing early on in the night?

What was going on there?

>> That's hard to say.

First of all, I didn't take an inventory.

I was too busy filing and trying to turn the Fox News television behind me down.

It was very distracting.

So, no, I don't know.

I didn't really -- I don't really know how to gauge that.

I think a lot of -- there were a lot of assembly races, for example.

I think some of the senators and legislators were pinned down in their communities.

In fact, but you did not see the Tom Cain's, for example.

- I think Tom Cain Jr.

dipped into the room.

Sorry to interrupt you.

He made a five minute appearance and he was out.

But I didn't see Van Drew.

I didn't see representative Chris Smith.

I didn't see any GOP leadership from the state.

- You see Chris Smith in New Jersey.

If you see Chris Smith, that would be breaking news.

So I, he's, no, and Van Drew is all the way, you know, he's down in South Jersey.

That's a hard read.

I don't know if I could read too much into that just yet.

- You don't make too much out of it.

Well, you were in the room also with Governor-elect Sherrill when she first addressed the press as Governor-elect.

You pressed her on what her actual priorities are going to be in her first 100 days, I think trying to get her on some specifics that maybe you were alluding she hasn't been too clear on.

We have a clip of her answer.

She came out swinging, I'd say, in response to your question.

Let's take a listen to what she had to say.

Expanding the first-time homebuyers credit so people can get their foot in the door, taking on landlords who are colluding to drive up rental prices, taking on PBMs, those are the middlemen in drug pricing, to drive down drug costs.

Addressing the fact that the state health benefits plan is in a death spiral, that's not only raising costs on medical care but also driving up property taxes.

Schools looking at how the bloated administration system in the schools which is driving up property taxes as well.

But we're still not getting the results in third grade reading that we want to see.

So addressing third grade reading phonics based education for our teachers, expanding that program high intensity tutoring because we still have learning loss problems.

These are all the things that we've worked with commutes on throughout the last year and what we're hearing from communities that they want to see front and center in the agenda.

Yeah, no, I don't.

First of all, I think she came too much swinging at me, but she did have some force behind.

I'll give you that.

I would just say that a lot of, and I don't wanna get into a semantic argument with the governor-elect about this, but a lot of those were broad themes she talked about and she touched as concerns.

She didn't make specific promises to the way she did, for example, on electricity.

The one issue she really committed herself to was freezing an executive order on electricity.

And after that, I don't know if she's committed herself to anything specific.

And none of those were specific.

- Yeah.

- I'm gonna get a phone call later on this, I'm sure, but that's okay.

- You will, you're making no friends with the new administration as of this moment.

She's going to have not just democratic control in both branches of the legislature, but she's gonna have more support than we've seen.

But this could potentially work against her.

Colleen, right now it looks like the assembly has the numbers to override a veto.

Is that correct?

Tell us what we're seeing in the assembly in terms of the blue wave that swept this election.

- Right, so we already had 52 Democrats in the assembly, which is 52 out of 80.

That's pretty big margin, very safe.

It's going up absolutely to 55 because three more wins are definite and it it certainly looks like the Democrats will get two more on top of that and get to 57.

There could be there are ballots outstanding but we know that that vote-by-mail ballots tend toward Democrats.

There could wind up being recounts so I mean those races might take some time to get actually called but you know what a veto proof majority as we call it is 54 votes.

She's a Democrat, they're Democrats, I don't think they're going to need a veto proof majority but but certainly it gives members the opportunity to be able to more members to be able to say maybe I don't want to vote on this.

I mean, you know, we do we do have well, well, first of all, the idea that we're winning us that the democrats are winning a seat in the 25th district in the assembly is just monumental.

That there has not been a Democrat representing Morris County in the assembly since Watergate, since after Watergate, when there was the huge, huge blue wave.

We'd all thought, I think that Atlanta County was kind of given up by the Democrats at this point.

And it looks like it's back to being a purple county with one of the votes, one of the seats there.

But I also wanted to point out that the Democrats might need some leeway because there are at least a couple of people coming in who have kind of vowed to be maybe disruptors Katie Brennan In Hudson County Kenyatta Stewart in Passaic County they kind of ran as saying, you know, I'm not gonna be your typical Democrat.

I'm not just gonna toe the line So it'll be interesting to see how they, yeah factor in.

>> I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to step on you we are definitely gonna have some time to look at that in our upcoming Reporters Roundtables episodes where we look at all that happened in the assembly races but thanks to our panel that's all that we've got for you this week on Reporters Roundtable you can follow me on Instagram at JoannaGagisNJ and go ahead and scan that qr code on your screen for more Roundtable for all the crew here at gateway center in downtown newark i'm Joanna Gagis thanks for being with us have a great weekend [Music]