♪ ♪ >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Briana Vannozzi.

>> Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Monday.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

Tonight a few stories we'll get into later in the broadcast.

It's the week before election day.

We're breaking down the latest numbers in the closely watched governor's race and new polling that shows gender views are shaping voter choices.

Then we'll take you to one college where students are proving civic engagement is more than a classroom lesson, working to make sure their peers head to the polls.

And later, as the government shutdown drags on with no resolution in sight, we'll look at the impact on federal workers and food aid.

But first, a few of today's top headlines.

The polls are open for the third day of early voting across New Jersey, and already more than 600,000 voters have cast their ballot, either early in person or by mail.

According to state election numbers, about 163,000 opted to vote early at the polls, which began over the weekend, with Democrats and Republicans turning out in nearly equal numbers.

But by mail, Democrats hold a clear edge, sending in roughly three times as many ballots as Republicans out of 470,000 total mail-in ballots so far.

Meanwhile, most voters are saying no to raising or expanding the state's sale tax.

According to a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll, which found 76 percent of likely voters strongly oppose taxing more items like clothing or groceries, and a majority reject bumping the rate back up to 7%.

When it comes to education policies, voters are split nearly half back school vouchers 49%.

Opinions on district consolidation are also divided.

On the gubernatorial campaign trail, Democrat Mikey Sherrill spent the weekend rallying with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, making stops at a senior center and an AME church.

Republican Jack Ciattarelli was boosted by President Trump during a tele-rally where he called Sherrill fake and corrupt.

Also tonight, the state is pushing back on the U.S.

Department of Justice announcement that they'll send federal election monitors to polling sites in Passaic County on Election Day.

Attorney General Matt Plotkin in a statement called the move "highly inappropriate" and said the DOJ hasn't identified a legitimate basis for its actions.

Plotkin's office also sent a letter to county boards of elections, according to NJ Globe, reminding them they're not obligated to give the Justice Department access to polling sites.

The decision by the federal government comes after Republicans from Passaic County requested monitors for mail-in voting operations there, citing a history of ballot fraud cases in Patterson.

Passaic County has also become a battleground after Republicans made gains there in 2024, though the DOJ didn't provide a reason for their decision.

Senator Andy Kim is calling the move an attempt to quote intimidate voters and cast doubt on our legitimate and secure democratic process.

Leaders in Passaic County say they're aware of the plans and will cooperate and also noted they're cooperating with a separate request from the DOJ to observe the transfer of vote by mail ballots from a secure storage area along with counting of the ballots, setting up more tension between the state and federal government over election security.

Authorities now say hazing was involved in the incident that left a Rutgers University student critically injured earlier this month at an off-campus fraternity house.

The National Chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi says its internal investigation found underground and unreported new members were taking part in the hazing, which included a water ritual in the basement of the Kolejev House on October 15.

That's when a 19-year-old student from Mattawan was electrically shocked.

The National Group has permanently closed the Rutgers chapter and says anyone involved will be expelled from the fraternity in the hopes Rutgers will do the same.

The house was previously cited for serious electrical and safety violations and has since been declared unsafe.

Now according to authorities, the student who was initially in critical condition is now recovering and so far The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office says the investigation does remain active.

At least one anti-hazing advocate, Jim Piazza, whose son's death inspired New Jersey's tougher hazing laws, says those responsible should face felony charges.

Governor Murphy's office is urging full cooperation with investigators.

And coming up, how gender politics is influencing who New Jerseyans are voting for in the upcoming gubernatorial race.

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- New polling on the race for governor finds that beliefs about traditional gender roles are significantly shaping who likely voters support.

The survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University revealed that voters who embrace masculinity norms overwhelmingly back Republican Jack Ciattarelli, 88 to 11%, while people with less traditional views favor Democrat Mikey Sherrill by wide margins.

The findings suggest that even today, female candidates still walk a tightrope in proving they belong in executive leadership roles.

Joining us to go through the data and what it means for this election is FDU poll director and professor Dan Casino.

Dan, always great to talk to you.

So let me just start with what led your team to focus on gender role attitudes within this gubernatorial election specifically.

Well we have seen that there is this long term bias against female candidates running for executive office.

And a lot of what we've heard this year from Democrats especially has been a fear that women just are not electable, especially after what happened last year in New Jersey with Donald Trump getting very close to taking the electoral votes from here in New Jersey.

And so we want to dig into exactly why that might be.

Why is it that even in 2025 people would say that women aren't electable?

And especially given the experience of the United States in not electing women, what is it exactly that's driving it?

Because we don't think it's the same sort of gutter old-fashioned sexism we used to see, where voters say that they just wouldn't vote for a woman.

We don't see that anymore.

So any sexism, anything that's stopping women from winning in these roles for executive offices has to be something a little more subtle.

And we have to dig into really just gender rather than just looking at sexism.

So then explain how you did the experiment.

You played messages from Mikey Sherrill that emphasized her role as what as as a mom as a former Navy pilot.

How did it work.

So what we did for each candidate what we did is we actually exposed response the poll to three different statements and randomly selected from a total of five statements or traits about that candidate so for Jack Ciattarelli it was things like he's a lifetime New Jersey resident or he is against offshore wind construction and for Mikey Sherrill it was a combination of policy views as well as one trait that was considered to be anti-traditional femininity that she was a Navy helicopter pilot and one that was in line with traditional notions of what women are supposed to do, that she's a mother of four.

And so we wanted to see how a gender typical and a gender atypical message would wind up impacting how people felt about Sherrill.

And what we found was that when you give people the gender typical message that she's a mother of four, it increases her favorability by about half a point on a ten point scale.

When you give the gender atypical message, it has much more mixed results.

It actually makes her more popular among people who are less gender conforming themselves, who don't value gender conformity, but makes her less popular, especially among older women who have more traditional gender identity views.

Okay.

And then were those voter attitudes concentrated in specific demographics, age, gender, the like?

Yeah.

So one of the other things we did on this poll that we do on most of our surveys is we actually ask people to describe their own masculinity and femininity.

Normally polls just break people down by men versus women and we find that that doesn't really get at the real differences that are arising in electoral politics today.

We have to look at how traditional people consider themselves to be before we can understand exactly how they are evaluating the candidates.

So we find that people who have more traditional gender identities themselves, who say that they're completely masculine or completely feminine if they're women, they are actually much less likely to support Democratic candidates, especially if those Democratic candidates are women.

And that holds up even when we're looking within parties.

So it's certainly the case, for instance, that Republicans have much more traditional views about gender and hold more traditional gender identities themselves.

But even among Republicans, even among Democrats, the more traditional you are, the more likely you are to reject a female candidate for high office.

And so then what does that say, Dan, just about the complexity of these reactions?

I mean, it's just it's not exactly black and white.

It certainly isn't.

And because there are people who like it when candidates reject traditional gender roles, there is a market for that.

But what we're really seeing in this race, as in basically every race where women are running for executive office, is that women have a much higher bar to clear than men do.

Women candidates, female candidates, really have to show that they are feminine, that they are feminine enough to be likable, because when someone's more feminine, she is considered more likable, but also masculine enough in order to be taken seriously as a leader.

And men are assumed to be masculine, and they don't have to demonstrate that they're feminine at all.

So female candidates have this much higher bar.

It's like Ginger Rogers.

They wind up having to do everything backwards and in high heels.

What she did well.

How does the gender divides then compare to what we've seen in past election cycles here in New Jersey.

But also I'm thinking nationally.

And you alluded to that at the top of the conversation.

And I'm thinking as far back as not just 2024 the presidential matchup but even 2016.

I even go back to 2008 looking at this in our polling.

And what we've seen is that there's actually been movement between parties.

That is when we started doing this sort of research around 2008 when Hillary Clinton was first running for president the Democratic primary.

We found that there was a lot of them.

There were a lot of Democrats who had very traditional views about gender and a lot of Republicans who had less traditional views.

And we've seen over the almost 20 years since Hillary Clinton first ran for president in 2008, was that those views have really polarized.

The Republican Party has become much, much more traditional when it comes to ideas about gender.

And the Democratic Party has become much less traditional.

And that sort of polarization means that you do wind up with a real disadvantage for women running for office of the Democratic Party because it's so much harder for them to attract votes from the Republican Party from Republicans.

Very quickly are there any challenges or opportunities here then for the candidates given this data set?

Well given this data this we are seeing that being non-traditional some of female candidate like Sherrill claiming masculinity by talking about her military background doesn't necessarily help her but only among certain demographics and it does mean that these candidates have to be very careful to tailor their appeals to exactly who they're trying to reach.

Fairleigh Dickinson University's Dan Cassino.

Good to talk to you as always.

Fascinating poll.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

Thanks for having me.

And with Election Day fast approaching some college students in Hoboken are showing their classmates the importance of civic engagement.

At Stevens Institute of Technology student leaders are working to turn new voter registrations into actual votes and using everything from dorm outreach and social media to free coffee near the polls.

As Raven Santana reports though they're also connecting classmates directly with local candidates to make sure they understand the issues shaping their city.

"We could get more informed student voters about local candidates that are running."

At Stevens Institute of Technology civic engagement isn't just a class topic, it's a campus movement.

Two student leaders have registered hundreds of new voters this year and are now focused on getting them to cast their ballots on November 4th.

So we're residents of Hoboken, we're everybody else's neighbor, and we want to make sure a lot of those quality of life issues are addressed.

So everything from like e-bikes to public safety, that's the number one thing on students' minds.

And we actually got that data from students.

For those people who think like, "Oh, it's college, like I'm going to go back home in like four years, like why should I register to vote in my college town?"

So it's also showing them that look like this is your home for the next four years.

Like this is a place where you live, you're going to be spending most of your time here.

And so because of that, you really should register to vote here.

Junior Michael Michello and senior Sarah Pineres have spent the past year organizing everything from dorm storms and candidate forums to social media campaigns, even offering free Chick-fil-A to make voting a little more enticing.

Right now, we're trying to get ducks to the polls.

We've got a ton of events going on to get Stephen students to the polls.

Everything from ice cream events, bringing them with our Office of Student Life down to the polls to do early voting.

Then everything from our little Chick-fil-A to the polls event, which is now like coffee and donuts.

But making sure that Stephen students, they're going to the polls and that they're registered in Hoboken and they're having their voice heard.

Beyond registration drives, they're creating space for meaningful civic conversations inside the Student Government Association office.

They've hosted small roundtables and Q&A sessions with local candidates running for City Council and Mayor.

- My biggest thing is for people to know that the first step is just showing up, just like reaching out, even if it is like through social media, looking up those local politicians, even just calling them and being like, look, I'm a little bit confused on what you're running on.

Can you just like, tell me about these key point issues that I care about?

So oftentimes students come to college not really understanding what different levels of government do.

So they might not know the difference between a local city council or a state legislature or the federal legislature.

And part of the teaching and learning of interacting with 18 to 22 year olds on a college campus is telling them who's responsible for what.

So it's important to translate.

Here's the things that you control right now and that you can participate on right now.

Their efforts are paying off student voter participation at Stevens jumped from 51% in 2016 to 75% in 2020.

So at Stevens we have about half of our students who are eligible to register to vote are registered to vote in Stevens.

But when you look at the turnout in the last time we had a midterm election only about a quarter of our students turned out to vote in a midterm election.

So we always have a growth opportunity to have more people understand their role in and how they can be involed.

Her work is guided by Dr.

Lindsey Cormack, a political science professor who's made it her mission to close the civics education gap.

She's also the author of "How to Raise a Citizen and Why It's Up to You to Do It."

At Stevens we have a lot of things that are happening.

As our residents are in New Jersey, they have a governor's race.

But in specific for our city politics, we have a mayor's race and then we have a city council race with the ward that is in representation of Stephen.

It's open right now.

So it was important for me to have our students meet the people who want to seek that seat because this is who's going to represent them in the Hoboken City Council.

For Michello and Pineris, it's not just about election day.

It's about building a habit of civic participation that lasts a lifetime.

I'm Raven Santana for NJ Spotlight News.

Federal workers are hitting a breaking point, facing mounting stress and uncertainty among layoffs, reinstatements and the government shutdown, now in its 27th day with no sign of compromise in Washington.

Many including federal workers here in New Jersey say they're struggling to make ends meet with coping with emotional strain of working without pay or the prospect of facing yet another round of job cuts.

they say has been building for months.

Add to that, federal food assistance is expected to run dry as of November 1st, potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of residents here.

Our Washington, D.C.

correspondent Ben Hulak joins us now for more on the conversations he's having on the ground.

Ben, it's good to see you.

You spoke with several federal workers who were laid off, reinstated, now face losing their jobs again.

What stood out to you about the conversations you had?

Yeah I spoke with some federal workers.

I also read a lot of court transcripts submissions that people have made to an ongoing federal court case a big case out in California that has implications for federal workers across the country.

What stood out to me is that yes the shutdown is hitting them hard but they have been at breaking points under serious financial personal health stress all year.

In general federal workers they believe in the mission of their agencies on the whole and they pick jobs in the federal sector in the public sector largely because they believe in the mission and they take a pay cut to do that.

But there have been waves of these layoffs or desired layoffs from the Trump administration or buyouts really since the administration began.

If we think back it might feel like a long time for the public.

But if we think back to the early days of this administration with Elon Musk and his so-called DOGE committee this this quasi governmental body to make the government more efficient.

That was a big big thrust from Doge was to lay people off.

So this is not this has been a pattern.

This is not something that people are feeling just in the shutdown.

This has been wave upon wave of economic and financial stress for workers across the country.

I should point out your point about food is really a critical one.

Snap benefits which formerly used to be called food stamps will start running out.

Depends on the state.

But they will basically run out in November and the administration has no obvious plan to fund that program.

I had funds that pays for food for tens of millions of Americans and they're going to be out of an option really quickly here.

Yeah I mean as you mentioned the government shutdown just compounds what has been an issue.

How widespread is this sense of burnout from what you could gather.

It's it's deep and broad.

And of course we don't really hear about it.

I spoke with one.

We don't hear about it publicly in many ways I should say.

I spoke with someone who used to work at the V.A.

and resigned in the fall and now works in a local union for V.A.

officials in New York and New Jersey.

And they put it to me essentially if you can't speak if you're inside the administration you'll be criticized you'll be silenced you'll be shuttled around to a job that you're not qualified for or don't want.

And so there are stories but they're private stories.

And a lot of what's happening here is is an overall sort of silencing of what's happening within the administration which is why some of the court transcripts I read just really stood out to me.

There was one story of a woman in Virginia who is blind and she works for a federal program that hires thousands of blind Americans through the Department of Education to work in vending machines and cafeterias and service essentially provide food services across the federal government.

And she is one of three people who administer this program.

She has been threatened with lay offs multiple times this year.

Her husband is also blind and she is local.

She has family members who are pretty ill.

She has to look out for.

So the job market for a blind woman in her in her middle age is not great to put it mildly.

That's one story of tens of thousands.

Yeah there are other accounts as you outlined of folks having anxiety attacks of needing to lean on their local food banks which we know are feeling the effects.

I want to ask you though about the federal court case challenging the administration's actions when it comes to these layoffs.

on that front.

And is there any indication that it could bring some relief in the near future for these workers.

There's a restraining order that's been put in place by a federal judge out in California.

And just to underscore again this is not just for workers in California.

This is nationwide.

But there could be a ruling this week or next.

And then of course the administration would likely appeal that ruling.

So we're not at a federal workers I should say are not out of the woods in any way in protecting their jobs.

And these RIFs as they're called these reductions in force on our RIF is the acronym.

They are a tool the administration has wielded to try to get Democrats to the bargaining table to reopen the government.

And then of course on the Hill you can maybe you can hear the echoes behind me.

This is an empty chamber on the House side here.

And it's sort of a ghostly feel up here.

But there is no end in sight from the shutdown.

And that again gets back to federal workers.

Yeah.

And it has been empty for the last three weeks that we've been talking Ben very quickly before we let you go.

What other services are starting to feel the effects of this shutdown.

We talked a little bit about snap.

But you know here in Jersey Newark Airport experienced hundreds of delays over the weekend due to air traffic control and staffing shortages.

TSA.

What type of ripple effects are we seeing.

I spoke to a federal worker who works for DHS Department of Homeland Security which includes TSA who wanted to be to remain anonymous for fear that they would be punished for speaking to the press.

And there their overlying message to me was this is a really stressful job to begin with.

This is security with massively high stakes.

Imagine doing this again and again and again every day with no end in sight and doing it without pay.

So that was that's the tenor inside a lot of agencies especially security agencies like those people who protect us when we fly.

It's.

There isn't a lot of positivity and it's really we're on track to be to hit the largest federal shutdown longest federal shutdown I should say in history.

That'll happen in about a week or so.

Similar parallels of course TSA workers were those in many ways who helped break that fever and bring back Congress to pass a funding bill to end that shutdown.

But something to keep our eyes on putting it all in perspective for us.

Ben Hulak in Thanks as always.

Of course.

Finally fans of the stone pony in Asbury Park got an unforgettable surprise this weekend.

Bruce Springsteen jumped on stage for an impromptu performance at Little Steven Stevie Van Sant's birthday benefit concert.

It comes as his biopic film Springsteen Deliver Me from Nowhere hit theaters this weekend.

The boss joined Van Sant and the Disciples of Soul for three songs, including his classic 10th Avenue Freeze Out.

The sold-out event, dubbed Little Steven's Birthday Party at the Pony, raised money for Teach Rock, which is Van Sant's program bringing music into the classroom.

All of it, though, is a full-circle moment for fans of the boss, who launched his career at the Stone Pony nearly 50 years ago, and whose surprise appearances at the venue have become a beloved tradition.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

But a reminder, you can download our podcast wherever you listen, and watch us anytime by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

Plus, you can always follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky to stay up to date on all the state's big headlines.

And with Election Day just around the corner, check out our voter guide to get up to speed on the candidates and races on the ballot this year.

Head to the NJ Decides 2025 tab on our homepage.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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