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New Jerseyans aren’t always civil, but it’s still possible for a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican to have a rational and pleasant conversation about politics in the state. Dan Bryan is a former senior advisor to Gov. Phil Murphy and is now the owner of his own public affairs firm, and Alex Wilkes is an attorney and former executive director of America Rising PAC who advises Republican candidates in New Jersey and across the nation, including the New Jersey GOP. Dan and Alex are both experienced strategists who are currently in the room where high-level decisions are made. They get together weekly with New Jersey Globe editor David Wildstein to discuss politics and issues.

We’re now in Week 11 of the New Jersey Governor’s race.  Who won last week?

Alex Wilkes: You only have to go to your mailbox and open your electric bill to conclude that Jack won the week. 

People are furious – and they should be. Governor Murphy’s ridiculous Energy Master Plan killed our in-state energy in favor of unproven green technologies, so this is a simple issue of supply and demand: Murphy reduced the supply, so the demand has created this cash crunch. It is laughable for my friends on the left to be declaring this an emergency when we knew this would happen all along. 

And Mikie supported that plan! Maybe one of the 250 staffers they’re flying in from all over the country to help clean up her gaffe-prone campaign forgot to tell her.

So now they pivot to her “plan” to freeze rates and demand transparency from the service providers. She probably doesn’t have the legal authority to do that (so maybe she can borrow some of Jim Tedesco’s “moral authority”), and the service providers aren’t the problem. Even if the “freeze” plan made for a 2-day news cycle, how exactly does that sound to someone whose bill has doubled or even tripled? She’s going to freeze it at the amount they already can’t afford? They may have programmed the Mikie-bot with new language, but it’s the same old failed policy.

Dan Bryan: Congresswoman Sherrill has recently put out policy positions on affordability and the economy, the two issues that will dominate the general election. The policies she announced are smart and achievable – if enacted, they’ll make New Jersey more business friendly, increase our energy generation, and help New Jerseyans through the affordability crisis.

Now, do policy papers win elections? It’s pretty clear by now that, in and of themselves, they do not. But these policy rollouts have allowed Congresswoman Sherrill and her campaign to talk to voters about issues they care about in a way that goes beyond feeling their pain. 

On the flip side, Jack Ciattarelli continues his desperate search for a narrative that works for him and his campaign. “Mikie Made Millions” is gone – the Sherrill team effectively nuked that narrative, the core of the argument the Ciattarelli campaign laid out on primary night. 

So now they’ve pivoted – and pivoted, and pivoted… She’s Mamdani! She’s Murphy! She’s incompetent! She’s a criminal mastermind! Every time we turn around, they’re trying out a new line of attack, desperate to get something to stick. What a far cry from the message discipline we saw from the Ciattarelli campaign in 2021.

This is a different cycle, and unfortunately for New Jersey Republicans, this is a different Ciattarelli campaign.

Mikie Sherrill seems to have debunked the attack that she’s personally profited by her stock trades as a congresswoman by releasing a financial disclosure that gives exact values of each of her assets.  Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, isn’t this a better mousetrap for transparency? 

Dan: I give her a ton of credit – it’s extraordinarily uncomfortable to be as open and transparent about your personal finances as she and her husband have been. Arguably, she’s now been as transparent as anyone who has ever run for Governor in this state. Compare that with her opponent, who still won’t even release his tax returns.

But unfortunately, it was a necessary step to take to put to bed the incorrect and bad faith attacks coming from the right, attacks that never had any basis in reality or fact, but nonetheless were parroted by Jack Ciattarelli and his right-wing enablers. If I had been spending the last few months spreading that baseless lie (which, to be clear, is objectively what it was), I’d be apologizing today.

Alex: The issue here is easy for the public to understand: Members of Congress have access to information that public does not and people know that they are gaming the system (paging Nancy Pelosi). Sherrill’s record isn’t exactly clean on this issue. She’s paid fines for improper disclosure in the past, and I think people won’t remember a complicated financial review (due respect to the Globe for their reporting) that – to my knowledge – still does not include individual trades; they’ll remember her stammering to explain these accounts on “The Breakfast Club.” Not fair? Remember when a similar review of Mitt Romney’s finances still resulted in Democrats painting him as Mr. Potter of Bedford Falls? As a congresswoman, she owns all of the baggage that comes from her hometown. I don’t make the rules.

NJ PBS announced layoffs last week after budget cuts. Federal cuts came from a Republican-controlled Congress, but in New Jersey, a 75% cut in state funding came in a budget supported by every Democrat in Trenton. How do Democrats blame Washington for cutting public television when they did it in New Jersey?

Alex: Public television will never leave the Democratic Party, so it’s no wonder that the Democrats in the legislature felt free to divert their funds for the Party’s own graft. Democrats could put them in a shack outside of the Gateway, and most of those guys would still be shilling for the left. This is Dan’s family feud, so I’ll toss it to him. 

Dan: It’s certainly a fair question. But there have always been areas the federal government needs to fund, where state governments cannot, and should not, fill the gap. Public broadcasting and radio is one of those areas.

NJ PBS (as a reminder, I’m a supporter!) can build a path toward a sustainable future by being relevant, timely, and by finding a real audience among the 9+ million New Jerseyans who live in their state. That should be their focus, rather than asking the state for a line item in the budget.

A court-ordered do-over of a February fire commissioner election in Toms River will be rerun in September, but the seat has been vacant for seven months.  Is it acceptable for democracy to face such delays, or do judges need to work faster?

Dan: Obviously the courts need to move more quickly on vacant seats, no matter if the vacancy is in Congress or a fire commission. Voters, and candidates, deserve representation and timely answers.

Alex: I wholeheartedly agree with Dan. We pay the highest taxes in the country, and there is no excuse – whether it’s the administration of elections or delays at Motor Vehicles – for any kind of inconvenience to the taxpayers.

A new  Rutgers-Eagleton poll has Mikie Sherrill with a nine-point lead over Jack Ciattarelli.  Last month, Eagleton had Sherrill up by 20, so Ciattarelli picked up 11 points in a month — not easy to do in the summer, without spending practically anything, right?

Alex: Public polling in this state has long lost the confidence of Republicans – and many other voters. Having seen private polling, I can say safely that is a much closer race than these polls would suggest. National Democrats and the Sherrill camp know that, too. Democrats never want for money in this state, but it’s not like Mikie has Corzine or Murphy bucks. If she is truly this paragon of excellence, why would national Democrats commit to blowing millions of dollars that they really don’t have? Even still, you’re going to see this race tighten up even in the public polling because the more people learn about the positions of Mikie Sherrill the less they like her.

Dan: I don’t know of anyone who ever thought this was a 20-point race. Mikie leading by mid-to-high single digits seems right, and it’s where most other polls have been. I won’t speak to the first poll, but I think this one is far more reflective of where the race has always been. And I certainly don’t think it’s moved 11 points in a month.

But let’s note this – every poll that has been released in the past year and a half, primary and general, has had one thing in common: Mikie Sherrill has led *every single* one of them. She is a tremendous candidate, with an extraordinary team, running a strong race talking about the issues people care about. And on top of that, she’ll have the resources she needs (and then some) to communicate her message to voters. She’s going to be a very, very difficult candidate to beat in November.

Mikie Sherrill started this race as the favorite, and she remains the favorite. That doesn’t mean the race is over – but it does mean that Jack Ciattarelli needs to point to something other than vibes if he wants to convince anyone that he’s on track to win.

The post Stomping Grounds: Governor’s race, Sherrill transparency, PBS, sluggish judges, and polls appeared first on New Jersey Globe.