Democrats said they took hard-learned lessons from 2021 into last night's election and that prevented a GOP win from materializing but there was also low turnout primarily the party faithful showing up at the polls so what really made the difference for those who cast a ballot joining me now are Monmouth University poll director Patrick Murray and Ashley coning director of the Eagleton Institute of politics Ashley Koning Patrick Murray thank you so much uh for coming back on the show after what I know was a very late night for everyone Pat let me start with you Democrats didn't just hold on to their majority they actually picked up seats last night how did this happen uh yeah it's kind of a surprise because the turnout was not much bigger overall Statewide than it had been four years ago in a very low turnout election of only 27% of registered voters uh but it was big in some key areas it was big in Mammoth County in the 11th District it was big in Gloucester County in particular where the third and the fourth district uh and resulted in a pickup and a hold on uh for the Democrats and so they turned out voters where they needed to turn them out as we know um you know Ashley's polling my polling showed that uh while economic issues are always the the fundamentals of the cake that is an election it's the icing on top that attracts voters and and this year the icing was about culture wars and Democrats were able to get out enough of their voters to make a big difference in those key races yeah let's talk about that poll Ashley um Eagleton dropped yesterday just in time for the election which um sort of turned on its head what a lot of analysts had been talking about leading up to the election that these culture War issues were going to play a big role in galvanizing the base what in fact uh did Galvanize voters well so voters ahead of the election said it was really the economy and taxes this has been on their the top of their minds perennially since you know in the 50 years we've been polling economy taxes property taxes especially cost of living and affordability those were their top answers and then when asked about how much it will factor into their vote 80% plus New Jersey registered voters mentioned that these will all play a major factor in comparison just over a majority said the same about abortion and said the same when it came to parental involvement in education one of the things I like to say about New Jersey is that motto shouldn't be liberty and prosperity it should be Live and Let Live we're a densely populated state very diverse we don't want you getting into our business and what happened was Republicans were successful when they kept that at Bay that that New Jersey Republicans were a different kind of Republican focused on core economic bread and butter issues that's not the case anymore and so if they're going to get back to winning anything in in the state it's got to be to kind of get rid of that kind kind of that populism trumpism culture wars issues that has been have been driving uh the Republican Party Nationwide and now here in New Jersey over the last three years Ashley I see you uh nodding your head I take it that you agree and also we talked a lot about whether or not uh the abortion issue in a state like New Jersey where it settled law would come to play here and I do wonder if that was one of the culture War uh topics that Drew some of the democratic base out yeah we certainly like Patrick said have seen a national of politics everywhere throughout the country and now it's pervading into New Jersey as well and we we've seen this really since 2021 but the reason why 20221 in the gubernatorial was so close was because Chelli pulled out those Common Sense issues at the very end in terms of abortion I think we're going to have to see how the numbers played out especially where we saw strong turnout did we see younger voters did we see women come out more to vote you know I think that's all going to be in the numbers later on as as they come out and and we get to dig into them more but certainly this has been a driving force in the 2022 midterms and even around the country last night just look at Ohio so certainly more impactful for the Democrats than the Republican culture Awards messaging yeah Nationwide it was a good night for Democrats all right Ashley Koning Patrick Murray thank you [Music] [Music]