Vote for Phil Murphy

The people of New Jersey should make Phil Murphy the first Democratic governor to be reelected since Brendan Byrne in 1977. The Daily News happily endorses Murphy for another term to lead the Garden State. Coming in after the wreckage of Chris Christie, Murphy has taken steps to right the woefully underfunded state pension system. He raised the minimum wage. He got marijuana legalized for adults. Most important, he is leading Jersey successfully through the nightmare of COVID, where, like its New York neighbor, the plague landed first and hardest before we knew how to fight back.

Murphy is off base in calling his Republican rival, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, a Trumpist crazy. No, Ciattarelli won’t flood the state with guns or ban abortions or overthrow the constitutional order. But on the single biggest issue facing Jersey, the nation and the world, COVID, Ciattarelli is willfully and dangerously wrong.

Though vaccinated himself, Ciattarelli is opposed to any vaccine mandates. The same for mask requirements. Rather than have schools force mask-wearing, as they must, Ciattarelli would leave it to parents. This is enough to disqualify him from the governor’s office. We care a hell of a lot because Jersey ain’t Florida or Texas; if our neighbor right across the river gets sicker, New York gets sicker.

Murphy isn’t perfect. He needs to take a much harder look at the Gateway boondoggle and trim it down to size (he used to be a top Goldman Sachs dollars wizard). And he’ll need to break it to Jersey drivers that congestion pricing is coming to Manhattan and it won’t end the world. He can do that after his reelection.