Jersey’s Anti-Trump Vote

It’s an open question whether Donald Trump provokes a more intense reaction among his followers or from those who oppose him. The results of the New Jersey gubernatorial race, which turned out to be less competitive for Republican Jack Ciattarelli than preelection polls indicated, suggest that Trump is doing a better job right now motivating the opposition.

Democrat Mikie Sherrill powered to a relatively easy victory against Ciattarelli in New Jersey on Tuesday because Democrats and left-leaning independents came out in full force in the Garden State to vote against the president, overwhelming the turnout from hopeful Republican voters. Four years ago, by contrast, with Trump out of office and the Republican national brand supposedly tarnished, Ciattarelli came closer to turning Jersey red, thanks in part to an unenthusiastic Democratic turnout. The narrow loss spurred hope that Ciattarelli could succeed this time. Instead, Jersey turned out to be less competitive with Trump back in the White House.

By all rights, Sherrill’s camp shouldn’t have been optimistic. The state’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, is deeply unpopular, registering approval ratings as low as 35 percent as recently as September. The state has been battered by rising electric prices, attributed substantially to the same aggressive transformation to unreliable renewable energy sources that has sent prices soaring in states like California and New York. Facing the economic squalls of Covid shutdowns, Murphy imposed a series of big tax hikes on an already-uncompetitive economy. One result: massive net outmigration, surpassed only by three Democratic states—California, New York, and Illinois. In a recent survey, 85 percent of New Jersey’s business executives said that the state ranks worse than others at controlling taxes and fees, while 70 percent said Trenton was worse at restraining the growth of government spending.

Even with these winds at their backs, Republicans can only win in New Jersey with help from Democratic or independent voters. Democrats here outnumber Republicans by some 860,000 registered voters—a substantial advantage, though it’s down from 2021, when the Democratic edge was 1.1 million. Democrats barely eked out a victory against Ciattarelli that year because voter turnout was light among the party faithful, likely because they believed Republicans didn’t stand much of a chance post-Trump. Democrats also misread just how unenthusiastic independents, who make up 37 percent of registered voters in Jersey, were about Murphy that year.

Something similar happened in last year’s presidential election. Though polls showed Trump trailing by double digits, turnout slumped in Jersey compared with four years earlier. Trump benefitted from a clear lack of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris and lost by a mere six points.

This year produced a very different electorate. Turnout was up by about 20 percent over Ciattarelli’s last run. One exit poll showed that Democrats voted in proportion to their advantage in registrations, making up 37 percent of the total turnout. Republican turnout exceeded, proportionately, the party’s share of registered voters, but that alone wasn’t enough.

The GOP depended on a strong independent vote. Several preelection surveys suggested that it was coming. Polls that showed the race narrowing gave Ciattarelli a double-digit lead among independents. But preelection polls don’t always do a good job of predicting who will show up to vote. Sherrill, the exit poll shows, narrowly won the independent vote, indicating that left-leaning independents were more likely to vote.

These independents may have turned out in greater numbers because Trump was a massive factor in this race. Some 40 percent of those who voted said they did so to oppose Trump. Only 13 percent said they voted to support him. Fewer than half of those who voted said that Trump wasn’t an issue; Ciattarelli won their vote handily.

The demographics of this election reflect how the parties have virtually shifted positions in recent years. Jersey was once the quintessentially Republican suburban state. The party’s strength lay in the outlying middle- and upper-middle-income enclaves of college-educated professionals, which the GOP governed, while the Democrats’ strength lay in the working class. In this election, by contrast, the demographic that most supported Ciattarelli was voters with a high school/vocational education or less. He won their support by at least 13 percentage points but lost nearly two-thirds of the vote of residents with postgraduate degrees. Voters in both demographics told pollsters that their chief worry was the economy and inflation, but high school educated voters were also far more concerned about crime and immigration, while the most educated voters were more likely to worry about “threats to democracy.”

Many political observers have written about how presidential campaigns have changed in recent years. Whereas once the parties spent the closing days of campaigns trying to reach out and convert swing voters, today they focus more on whipping up enthusiasm and turnout among their bases. That strategy can work nationally, but it fails in places where one party is the underdog in terms of registrations—like New Jersey.

Trump and the national Republicans might be inclined to write off New Jersey as a blue state of declining political and economic power. They should resist that temptation: next November, in the midterms, the Trump administration is looking at a series of local elections with national implications. Enough “purple” districts exist around the country to put control of Congress at stake. Democratic victories in those state races would make for a chaotic final two years of the Trump administration.

Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images