New Jersey Governor Goes National in Money Hunt for Trump Takedown

(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is betting his fundraising prowess will propel a national Democratic rebuke to President Donald Trump in 2020.

Murphy will become chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in January, when his party is counting on superstar fundraisers to boot Trump, wrest U.S. Senate control from the Republicans, make gains in the House of Representatives and retain or flip 11 state-level chief executive offices up for election.

Democratic governors haven’t dominated nationally since 2010. The Republican advantage, though, is narrowing: The party has just a four-seat majority; after the 2016 election, it held more than double the Democrats’ 16 seats.

A supporter of New Jersey’s U.S. Senator Cory Booker for the Democratic presidential nomination, Murphy said he’d back any party mates over the tempestuous Trump.

“What we need is adult leadership,” he said in an Oct. 9 interview on Bloomberg Television. “We’ve got a volatile CEO in our country, in Washington, and it’s hurting us not just in New Jersey or America, but around the globe.”

Day Job

As Murphy takes the chairmanship -- a role that for some has led to federal office -- his day-job performance may determine his effectiveness on the national stage.

His predecessor, Chris Christie, used his record-setting Republican Governors Association fundraising to presage his 2016 presidential run. But Garden State voters accused Christie of abandoning them, and he finished his second term as the least popular governor in at least two decades. His campaign flopped.

Murphy, a retired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. senior director and former Democratic National Committee finance chairman, will tempt a similar fate as he takes charge of raising cash for governor races across America.

“It’s certainly a risk,” said Matt Hale, a Seton Hall University political science professor. “When Christie was head of the RGA, there were a lot of people who were wondering, ‘Where did he go?’”

Murphy says he won’t make the same mistake.

“I’ve read the lessons -- good, bad and otherwise -- of other folks who tried to do other things other than focus on New Jersey,” he said at an Oct. 3 news conference. “It’s of no interest to me. I have no appetite for it.”

The governor is a darling of influential public-worker unions, plus Trump foes who back Murphy’s progressive policies on gun control, LGBT and women’s issues, higher minimum wage and college-tuition assistance.

Still, Murphy has 41% approval, according to a Monmouth University poll in September. Christie, at a comparable point in his first term, had 48% approval.

During his TV appearance on Bloomberg and in a subsequent interview, Murphy talked about his record, taxes, the Gateway tunnel, New Jersey Transit and Trump’s SALT law. Here’s what he had to say:

Record

Murphy says he’s building on New Jersey’s reputation as “a good-value-for-the-money state,” where high living costs are balanced by proximity to New York and Philadelphia, a diverse population and the nation’s best public schools, according to Education Week magazine. Unemployment is at a record low, 3.2%.

Murphy has made record-high back-to-back pension payments and saved $800 million on public-worker health care. Still, he said, he isn’t “spiking any footballs” after 20 months tackling what he called an inherited fiscal mess.

“We’re digging out of decades -- in particular the last decade -- of structural imbalances, pension, health care, property taxes.,” he said. “We still need some tax equity and fairness and more reliable income streams in the state.”

Taxes

New Jersey has the nation’s highest property taxes, averaging $8,767 in 2018. That year, Murphy said, New Jersey had the lowest average bill increase in state history, at 0.8%.

“That’s not success,” he said. “That’s bending the curve but it’s still an increase.” The key to affordability, he said, is to draw high-paying growth industries.

“Growing the economy and giving people more security through not just any job, but the right jobs -- with good pay and benefits -- that puts a lot more latitude, a lot more degrees of freedom in the system,” he said.

Gateway

Trump has resisted calls from New York and New Jersey elected officials for federal money for Gateway, a rail-improvement proposal that includes constructing an $11.3 billion Hudson River train tunnel, gutting the crumbling existing link, and building a $1.6 billion replacement of the Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River.

“The Trump administration and the president himself, I think, has had sticker shock with the totality of the amount of money,” Murphy said.

But in recent months, the governor said, his administration has had “constructive meetings” about the bridge with the U.S. Transportation Department. He could see Portal Bridge funding coming first, he said, and “it would contribute a certain amount of momentum” for more Gateway money.

NJ Transit

Murphy has hired new leadership, boosted engineer crews and increased the state subsidy for NJ Transit, the commuter bus and rail system that’s suffered from years of budget cuts. Though the agency froze fares for two years, Murphy isn’t ruling out an increase next year. Senate President Steve Sweeney, a fellow Democrat who says that improvements are happening too slowly, will lead hearings into the agency’s ongoing problems.

“They’re going to help us read into the history of what was going on in those years that it was falling apart,” Murphy said of the lawmakers’ review. “If we learn that history, hopefully there’s some lessons for us today.”

SALT

Murphy said he will continue to back a legal challenge to Trump’s $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions after a federal court setback.

On Bloomberg TV, Murphy said the Trump administration “weaponized” the tax law against high-cost states like New Jersey, and reiterated his commitment to fighting the deduction cap. His state joined New York, Connecticut and Maryland to challenge the law that limited SALT write-offs. A federal judge tossed out that suit on Sept. 30, saying the federal government has the “exhaustive” power over U.S. taxes.

Murphy said the cap is “bad public policy and is frankly unconstitutional in our judgment.”

Hale, the Seton Hall professor, said that no matter the governor’s challenges in New Jersey, the national role could serve as a job audition.

“If a Democrat wins the White House, having been chair of the DGA could very well position Governor Murphy for a spot” in the Cabinet, Hale said.

--With assistance from David Westin and Danielle Moran.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elise Young in Trenton at eyoung30@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net, Stacie Sherman, Stephen Merelman

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