Too Close to Call; Ciattarelli and Murphy Deadlocked Late into Election Night
This is not the election result in New Jersey that many expected.
After weeks of polls that showed incumbent Democrat Governor Phil Murphy holding leads of either nine or more points, Murphy finds himself deadlocked with Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli. See Election map!
As of 2:30 a.m. Ciattarelli holds a slim lead, with 88 percent of the vote tallied. According to politico, Ciattarelli has 1,173,558 votes to Murphy’s 1,172,365 votes, or a slim 49.7 percent for Ciattarelli to 49.6 percent for Murphy.
Ciattarelli spoke confidently to supporters in Bridgewater “I wanted to come out here tonight and tell you that we won, I’m here to tell you that’s we’re winning,”
As for Murphy, he told supporters in Asbury Park to wait for every vote to be counted. “We’re going to wait for every vote to be counted and that’s how our democracy works. We’re all sorry that tonight could not yet be the celebration we wanted it to be … When every vote is counted, and every vote will be counted, we hope to have a celebration.”
Even if Murphy should win, it was not what national Democrats were hoping for out of the two huge gubernatorial races in the country. In Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe for the governorship.
