GOP’s Ciattarelli Digs In Despite Murphy’s 65,000-Vote N.J. Lead

(Bloomberg) -- Three days after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy won re-election, Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli has yet to concede. The Associated Press called the tight race for the Democratic incumbent on Wednesday night. Murphy now leads by 65,242 votes. 

“No one should be declaring victory or conceding the election until every legal vote is counted,” Ciattarelli said in a video message posted on Twitter on Thursday. 

Here’s a look at where things stand:

Tight race:

• The margin is 2.6 percentage points -- 50.9% for Murphy and 48.3% for Ciattarelli, according to the AP.
• Murphy’s lead has continued to widen since AP declared him the winner.

Turnout:

• About 2.5 million votes are in AP’s tally. That’s about 38% of registered voters.
• There are some 820,000 additional registered voters in New Jersey since 2017, when Murphy was first elected.
• Some 450,000 additional Democrats and 265,000 Republicans have registered since 2017.
• Murphy has about 118,000 additional votes since 2017. Ciattarelli has some 335,000 more votes  than the Republican candidate, Kim Guadagno, got in 2017.

County breakdown:

• Murphy is leading in 10 of 21 counties, and Ciattarelli is leading in 11.
• Murphy leads in seven of New Jersey’s 10 most populous counties.
• The county giving the most votes so far to Murphy is Bergen, with 140,654.
• Ciattarelli has the most votes from Ocean County -- 143,148 -- garnering more support there that Guadagno did in 2017.
• Ciattarelli has more support in GOP-leaning Monmouth and Hunterdon counties.

Murphy Support Slips:

• Murphy won 13 counties in 2017. This year, he is winning in 10.
• Atlantic County flipped from Democratic to Republican. Murphy’s support there fell by more than 10 points. Cumberland and Gloucester counties also flipped to the GOP.
• Support in New Jersey’s largest county, Bergen, slid by 4.2 points. In the Democratic stronghold of Essex, support slipped by 5.9 points.

Early Voting and Mail-in Ballots:

• New Jersey for the first time allowed in-person early voting. A number of snafus led to additional provisional ballots at certain voting sites.
• New Jersey had more than 500,000 vote-by-mail ballots. Two-thirds of those ballots were from Democrats, according to analysis by the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.

What’s Next:

• Nov. 8: deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots.
• Nov. 19: deadline for recount applications.
• Nov. 20: deadline for county clerks to transmit official election results to state.
• Dec. 2: deadline for meeting of Board of State Canvassers to certify general election results.

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