Gov. Phil Murphy wins re-election in New Jersey, according to CNN projection

(CNN) – New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy became the first Democrat to win the state’s re-election in more than four decades, according to Wednesday’s CNN projection, after narrowly surviving a tighter race than previously known. he had anticipated that it would last well past Election Day.

Murphy’s victory over Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, albeit narrowly, challenged the state’s tendency to vote for the party that is not in the White House in odd-numbered gubernatorial elections. Virginia – the only other state with odd-numbered gubernatorial elections – maintained that historic pattern Tuesday by electing Republican Glenn Youngkin, a serious blow to Democrats who had had recent victories in the state. But, as with Virginia, the results in New Jersey – another state that President Joe Biden won by a double-digit margin in 2020 – sound the alarm bells of Democrats who will fight to keep the suburbs in next year’s midterm elections. .

Biden defeated Donald Trump by about 16 points in New Jersey. Polls during the campaign suggested the results could be fairer, but as Tuesday night progressed it became clear that Murphy had underperformed the president, despite having higher approval ratings than Biden. in the state.

Murphy’s strategy and the Democrats in New Jersey

Just as the Virginia Democrats did, his New Jersey peers and the Murphy campaign constantly searched for the Republican nominee to be linked to Trump, who remains highly unpopular in the state.

But some Democrats feared those sentiments could be undermined by falling approval ratings for Biden across the state. (It was 6 points behind in a Monmouth University poll before the election.)

Republicans in New Jersey also followed a game manual similar to that in Virginia. Ciattarelli, a businessman and former state legislator, kept Trump at arm’s length and hammered Murphy over taxes and what he argued were the dire business effects of the Democrats’ response to the pandemic.