N.J. governor just gets past GOP hopeful

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy narrowly won re-election Wednesday, eking out a victory that spared Democrats the loss of a second gubernatorial seat.

He is the state’s first Democratic governor to get a second straight term in 44 years, defeating Republican former Assembly member Jack Ciattarelli.

AP called the race Thursday evening when a new batch of votes from Republican leaning Monmouth County increased Murphy’s lead and closed the door to a Ciattarelli comeback.

Ballots remaining to be counted included a significant number of votes from predominantly Democratic Essex County, with mail-in votes spread across other counties. Murphy has won the mail-in vote by a wide margin even in Republican leaning counties such as Monmouth.

Ciattarelli spokesperson Stami Williams disputed the call because of the close margin, calling it “irresponsible.”

Ciattarelli waged a formidable campaign in the heavily Democratic New Jersey, his spending nearly equaling the governor’s and outpacing the GOP’S performance four years ago. But Murphy’s advantages, including 1 million more registered Democrats, proved too much for the Republican to overcome.

The closeness of the race has surprised experts, who watched public polls showing Murphy leading comfortably and looked to his party’s registration advantage.

“If you asked anybody several months ago within the state, I think anyone would have predicted a high double digit landslide for Murphy,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University.

Murphy’s win also ends the more than three-decade-old trend of the party opposite the president’s winning in New Jersey’s off-year governor’s race.

In other developments, Republican Edward Durr, a truck driver, is poised to topple the second-most powerful official in New Jersey government.

Durr on Wednesday held a roughly 2,000-vote advantage over Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney, an officer in the Ironworkers union who has led the upper house for 12 years, Nj.com reported.

Sweeney, the longest-tenured state Senate president in New Jersey history, having held the post since 2010, was expected to serve a seventh term before launching a possible bid for governor in 2025, the news outlet reported.