Democrat Phil Murphy wins New Jersey governor’s race: projections
New York City, US, Nov 3 (EFE).- Democratic New Jersey governor Phil Murphy was re-elected to his post by a narrow margin Wednesday, US media projected, giving some relief to the party and the president following the defeat of their candidate in Virginia.
With 90 percent of the votes counted, Murphy obtained 50.03 percent compared to 49.22 percent for Republican Jack Ciattarelli, according to US media projections – a difference of less than 20,000 votes and despite the fact that the pre-election polls gave Murphy a large advantage of eight points.
However, Ciattarelli has not yet admitted defeat, and his communications director Stami Williams warned on Twitter that “it’s irresponsible of the media to make this call when the New Jersey Secretary of State doesn’t even know how many ballots are left to be counted.”
Ciattarelli on Tuesday night demanded that all valid votes be counted one by one.
The pre-election polls gave the outgoing governor a clear advantage, based mostly on the approval of his strict health policies to combat Covid-19, but in the end it seems that it has been his fiscal policy – Ciattarelli’s battlefield – that has taken away a lot of support.
The Democratic victory was taken for granted in New Jersey because in the last presidential elections Biden achieved 16 points more than Trump and because, across the state, registered Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans by more than a million.
This gives an idea of the erosion suffered by the Democrats, which the New York Times attributes to the fact that the Democrats have lost sight of one of the main issues of popular discontent: the high cost of living.
When referring to the Virginia results on Wednesday, Biden said “people are upset and uncertain about a lot of things, from Covid to schools to jobs (…) and the cost of a gallon of gasoline,” and promised that if he’s able to pass his economic plans, “you’re going to see a lot of those things ameliorated quickly and swiftly.”sif pmu EFE
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