well with all but one assembly race decided the primary election is now almost fully in the rear view and there are a few big threads to follow and key takeaways most notably the power of the party machine and whether the hold they have on New Jersey politics may be loosening i spoke with senior writer Colleen OD about just that earlier for her take colleen thanks for coming in good to talk to you always um all right depending on who you ask the party machine either held up or it weakened what was it it kind of did both okay but it I mean it did hold up but it definitely weakened because we had five candidates that were endorsed by the county party in various places who lost and that's highly unusual um since 2011 only one candidate who had the party line in an assembly race had lost so we had five losses this year it's it's really huge now there are a lot more candidates on the ballot there were 29 races that were contested but given our our really party controlled system any losses is a big deal but I wonder does this mark a real turning point does this indicate that there's a shift in weakening the party machine or is this a one-off were folks looking for alternative candidates to begin with you know so I think that this could be a shift we're going to have to see what happens in two years so this year we had the governor at the top of the ballot so we had a different electorate than we would have in two years from now when the assembly um and senate will be on the top of the ballot and and a lot fewer voters come out i mean fewer people come out for the governor's race than for a presidential race um you did have a whole slate of people who were running with Steve Fulip the Jersey City mayor Democrat who did not win a couple of his folks did wind up winning mostly in um red districts in districts where they're not expected to win in November um so we'll have to see what happens in two more years on the other hand you could make the argument that this has started to snowball rolling and it could get bigger and bigger you certainly can't argue right that there was a really robust field of candidates viable candidates um and a lot of challengers that we just quite frankly don't see a lot of incumbents don't get primar um that's considered a big deal um and I wonder how that'll translate now moving forward i know Julia Sass Rubin who's done a lot of research on the the ballot system and the county line has said it's going to take a few cycles before we see that is is that what you're anticipating too yes absolutely so I think that the um it's mostly progressives I think that are kind of pushing this change and they're um optimistic about even races where they didn't win in a Middle Sex County district a woman uh Loretta Rivers came quite close i mean I think it was within a couple hundred votes of unseeding Joe Danielson who was an assembly incumbent middle Sex County has got a big uh Democratic party control so that would have been huge down in South Jersey Lou Greenwald who was the Assembly Majority League leader the number two in the Assembly won by about 3,000 he he came in second his next challenger came in about third but still that's considered a fairly close race when you again are then talking about the Camden County Democratic machine cherry Hill for example the Democratic slate there i mean we're not going to get into that we don't have time but um check it out because that's that's a great example um okay let me just ask you quickly um other takeaways i think turnout there's been a lot to be made about um how many folks came out for a primary which is still a very low number certainly not a a banner day for Democracy but a higher turnout than we've seen in years absolutely so we're at 1.27 million right at the moment that is far and above any other uh primary turnout that was not a presidential year so that is a big deal um uh was about 31% of Democrats and Republicans combined a little bit higher on the Democratic side uh there were a lot of good candidates six you know really viable guminatorial candidates who people had to choose from um so I think that that's good for democracy whether it's a banner day or not you know the idea that we've increased turnout any increase is a good increase very quickly what are you looking to now heading into November um there were really only theoretically a few districts that we would consider swing districts the 11th in Mammoth County the fourth down in South Jersey um you know the second always in Atlantic County it used to be a swing district um so I think the question is going to be what happens you know when four years ago when Phil Murphy was on the ballot was when Republicans flipped a whole bunch of districts what will happen this year will the the Democrat win and bring and keep those districts solid and maybe flip a second district or will the Republicans who are supporting Trump come out in droves and flip districts back we really don't know very possible all right you can find Colleen's reporting on this and all of her NJ Decides 2025 reporting on our website njspotlightenews.org colleen thanks for coming in thanks very much Bri [Music]