With less than 24 hours until Election Day, many local races and federal races will be determined at the polls. Monmouth University Polling Institute Director Patrick Murray told NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams that some of the local races will be more interesting than the federal races.
“You know in New Jersey it’s a lot of status quo. In fact I think some of the local races are going to be more interesting than these federal races for Congress and Senate and there will be a lot more action,” said Murray.
Murray said that there will be a lot more impact in places such as Bergen and Burlington counties where there will be executive and freeholder races. He said that although there will be 12 congressional races and a Senate race, there will be no changes to who controls those seats. Despite three vacant congressional seats, none have remained competitive.
Murray said that it had seemed that the race in the Third Congressional District was going to be a closer race but that it hasn’t panned out that way. According to Murray, the big surprise in the congressional races has been the race in the Fifth District between Scott Garrett and Roy Cho.
In regards to incumbents having staying power and challengers having a harder time getting money, Murray said that it is more difficult for challengers this year, especially Democratic challengers.
“If you go outside of New Jersey, there’s an anti-incumbent sentiment,” Murray said. “We don’t see it here in New Jersey because of the way things are drawn but the reason why the Democrats are not spending money on challengers is because a lot of Democratic House members are threatened and they need to spend their money to protect the seats that they already hold. If you look at the Senate picture nationwide, you’ll see a lot of senators up for grabs — looks like more Democrats than Republicans — but that’s only because there are more Senate Democrat incumbents. If you look at the governors’ races, there are more Republican governors on the chopping block.”
Recently Gov. Chris Christie has been campaign for some Republican governors and Senate candidates across the country. Murray said that if there is a big win for those candidates that Christie had campaigned for, he expects the Christie campaign to go into full gear to get endorsements and make an early announcement of a possible presidential run.
He also said that Christie would have been a field clearer in the presidential race prior to the George Washington Bridge lane closures but that he is still considered a frontrunner.
There will be two ballot questions in New Jersey — one regarding bail reform and the other open spaces. Murray says that there has been a big drop in the number of votes on ballot questions, but he expects them to pass.
“What happens is that you see a big drop-off in the number of votes for ballot questions and so anybody who polls on ballot questions knows that when we poll on ballot questions we get people that say yes and no and don’t knows. The don’t knows simply don’t vote and so these two ballot questions will pass simply because nobody is paying attention to them so the people who do vote, vote yes on ballot questions,” said Murray.