As votes were still being counted Wednesday afternoon in the New Jersey governor’s race, Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy has once again reestablished his lead over Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli.
The vote totals have seesawed throughout the day. Underdog Ciattarelli held a 1,200-vote lead over Phil Murphy with 98% of ballots counted early Wednesday morning. Murphy appeared to take the lead as the morning wore on, then surrendered it to his rival only to retake it once more just before 1 p.m.
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Murphy’s brief lead in mid-morning was the result of early votes being double-counted in Hudson County, per MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki. When the error was fixed, it brought Murphy’s total down by 10,732 votes while costing his challenger just 2,842. However, another batch of votes has given Murphy the biggest lead of the day, with 1,199,614 (49.94%) to Ciattarelli’s 1,184,723 (49.32%), a relatively comfortable 14,891-vote edge.
In any case, the close count means the race may be subject to a recount.
Republican political strategist and campaign veteran Mike DuHaime said he and most in the GOP were surprised at just how close the numbers are. He added there may still be some hope for Ciattarelli.
“The Murphy campaign expects to pull it out given where some outstanding ballots and [mail-in ballots] are,” he said in an email. “Jack’s campaign still think there’s a path.”
If the final margin is less than 15,000 votes, DuHaime said that “perhaps” there could be a recount.
Despite Murphy’s narrow lead, New Jersey’s last Republican governor has said the results represent a win for the GOP.
“Every pollster was wrong. This is likely to be a recount race, either way,” Chris Christie told Townhall’s Guy Benson. “There’s a very legitimate chance Jack [Ciattarelli] could win this.”
Murphy is seeking a second term as governor of the Garden State, running against former state legislator and businessman Ciattarelli.
Both campaigns felt optimistic as results flowed in overnight.
“We’re going to wait for every vote to be counted,” Murphy told supporters shortly after midnight.
Ciattarelli told supporters early Wednesday morning that he believes he will soon “unequivocally declare victory.”
Murphy held a massive polling lead early on, which slowly dwindled as the race drew to a close.
During the campaign, Murphy sought to draw comparisons between Ciattarelli and former President Donald Trump, quipping that his rival might be better suited as governor of a state such as Florida or Texas. Ciattarelli sought to highlight issues specific to New Jersey, drawing attention away from national politics. But many local issues, like mask mandates in schools, have national implications, leaving Ciattarelli with little wiggle room to make that case.
Murphy consistently polled ahead of Ciattarelli, but the Republican nominee narrowed the gap in the final weeks of the race: A Monmouth University poll released last week found Murphy leading Ciattarelli 51% to 40% among likely voters, showing that Ciattarelli made strides with voters since August, when the same poll found him trailing Murphy by 17 percentage points.
Murphy, who said he ran his campaign for governor “like I’m 10 points behind,” brought in some of the nation’s most prominent Democrats for support in the final weeks of the race, including President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, signaling the party saw the race as too close for comfort. Biden even traveled to New Jersey to campaign for Murphy as negotiations over his social spending package continued in Congress.
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Murphy ran as Biden’s popularity sunk even in reliably blue New Jersey: The president has a 43% approval rating in the same Monmouth poll, lower than his disapproval rating of 49%.
— Kate Scanlon contributed to this report
