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ABERDEEN -- Shortly before 9:40 p.m., Republican Kim Guadagno appeared on stage to concede the New Jersey governor's race to Democrat Phil Murphy, saying she made "the best possible case" to voters in her efforts to succeed Gov. Chris Christie. "We left no stone unturned," Guadagno, Christie's lieutenant governor, said, quickly arresting the lusty boos that sprang up at the mention of Murphy's name.

The beauty of Election Day is that no one has any idea what’s happening, Sure, people are voting, but for whom? As much as political pros analyze the electorate, they are basically clueless until voting stops at 8 p.m. So, small signs are important, or at least they seem to be. One such sign is turnout. And as voting began in Morris County this morning, turnout was surprisingly strong. “It almost seems like a presidential election,” is how one worker described the scene at a polling place in the Roxbury Township Library. Across town, a poll worker said the morning...

Average has Murphy up 14.4% We are screwed.

TRENTON -- On the eve of the election that will determine who will replace him, Republican Gov. Chris Christie wasn't lobbing any political bombs at the Democratic candidate. Instead, he took aim at his own mentor. Christie accused former Gov. Tom Kean of revisionist history when talking about his own state budget while defending Republican candidate for governor Kim Guadagno at a campaign event on Saturday. He suggested that Kean's state budgets weren't as frugal as the former governor let on.

Two major gubernatorial elections are on the Election 2017 campaign horizon. I wrote about the Virginia race one week ago. Ed Gillespie is now winning by focusing on Virginians’ day-to-day needs. More importantly, he is also doubling-down on his opposition to illegal immigration, and its deleterious consequences like the rising crime, gang activity, bad traffic, and diminishing quality of life.Across the Chesapeake, another governor’s race is raging. New Jersey, a colonial outpost for Quakers before the American Revolution, has turned into another California-style outpost of the urban-suburban divide, where compacted cities have been out-voting the more conservative rural and suburban...

WAYNE -- The race to replace Chris Christie as New Jersey's governor isn't sleepy any more. That much was clear Wednesday night as Democratic nominee Phil Murphy and Republican nominee Kim Guadagno spent much of their second and final televised debate shooting verbal arrows at each other. The event was held at William Paterson University in Wayne just 20 days before a Nov. 7 election that has often inspired little more than apathy among the state's voters. But if the rivals' first debate was contentious, this one was downright nasty.

NEWARK — The Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor opened his post-Labor Day blitz accusing his Republican opponent of abdicating her moral leadership. The Republican challenger retorted with accusations of race baiting. They were the type of hyperbolic accusations often thrown around in a nail-biting, nasty political campaign with such vitriolic attacks feeding a frenetic news cycle hungry for daily conflict and a riled electorate packing town hall meetings and rallies. This is not that kind of race. Despite an election that will mark the end of the tumultuous tenure of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, and the fact that...

RUTHERFORD – The gubernatorial campaigns had their own challenges at the annual Street Fair here, unofficially the bellwether kickoff of the New Jersey general election season. Democrat Phil Murphy had to present just enough organic-looking authenticity to avoid projecting the clanking, bug-squashing arrogance of a passionless imperial army; while Republican Kim Guadagno needed to play up underdog passion without too nobly resembling the Spartan Army of Leonidas that got crushed by Xerxes. InsiderNJ tried to ply the “it’s over” narrative among Democrats, and they didn’t – for the most part – take the bait. “I think it’s fair to say...

The majority of New Jerseyans consider the state to be “off on the wrong track,” but also have no opinion or don’t know either of the governor candidates, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released on Thursday. Across many topics, New Jerseyans are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. Gov. Chris Christie’s job approval rating sits at 16 percent, the lowest in recent history, with 79 percent disapproving of his job so far.

TRENTON -- Already trailing badly in the polls, Republican New Jersey governor candidate Kim Guadagno has been hit with another devastating 1-2 punch: She's lost the confidence of a pair of deep-pocketed GOP groups that spend big on governor's races, NJ Advance Media has learned. The Republican National Committee, which is controlled by President Donald Trump, views the lieutenant governor as someone who hasn't been loyal to the president and officials there see her race as a losing cause, according to two sources familiar with the RNC's plans. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly....

TRENTON -- The latest poll in the race to succeed Chris Christie as New Jersey's governor shows Democratic nominee Phil Murphy with a commanding 27-point lead over Republican nominee Kim Guadagno -- though a majority of voters continue to say they don't know much about either candidate. The Monmouth University Poll, released Wednesday, found 53 percent of Garden State voters would choose Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, while 26 percent would pick Guadagno, the state's lieutenant governor.

HACKETTSTOWN, N.J. — The Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey sat on a plush beige couch in the Republican mayor’s condo, surrounded by Republican county officials and politicians, and offered up her plan to stem what is perhaps the state’s most daunting challenge — its deepening property tax crisis. She adopted it, she said, from an unexpected source. “This is a page out of the Democratic playbook, it really is,” Kim Guadagno, the lieutenant governor said, noting that the plan came from a proposal in deep-blue Illinois. With Republicans controlling the White House, both chambers of Congress and having...

NEWARK -- Phil Murphy, a former banking executive and U.S. ambassador to Germany who has poured millions from his own fortune into the race for New Jersey governor and vows to reinvigorate the state's economy, fought off five rivals Tuesday night to win the Democratic nomination in the battle to succeed Chris Christie. The Associated Press called the race for Murphy about an hour after the polls closed.

WEST LONG BRANCH -- Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who has spent the last eight years as Gov. Chris Christie's second-in-command and now vows to slash the state's notoriously high property taxes, defeated four opponents Tuesday to secure the Republican nomination to succeed Christie as New Jersey's governor. The Associated Press called it for Guadagno about an hour and 20 minutes after the polls closed. Now, Guadagno, a 58-year-old Monmouth Beach resident, will battle former U.S. ambassador to Germany Phil Murphy in the Nov. 7 general election. Murphy bested five rivals to emerge the winner of Tuesday's Democratic primary.

What happens if a state with a population roughly equal to that of Kentucky and Louisiana combined held a major election and no one noticed? That seems to be occurring in New Jersey, which is electing a new governor this year. It may be the Democrats’ biggest gubernatorial win in the state in over 40 years. A Democratic romp in a state Hillary Clinton won easily might not seem like a surprising result. But New Jersey usually features competitive governor’s races. Over the past 40 years, Democrats have won the governor’s mansion four times to Republicans’ six. New Jersey’s current...

TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie is term-limited from running again, so it's now time for New Jersey Republicans to pick a new standard bearer for their party. But even with this year's GOP primary just around the corner -- it's on Tuesday, June 6, to be exact -- most Garden State voters (57 percent) say they don't know enough about any of the candidates to have an opinion about them, according to the most recent Quinnipiac University poll.

TRENTON -- Former "Saturday Night Live" star Joe Piscopo will not run for governor of New Jersey, and will instead endorse the Republican front-runner, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. "We are going to support Kim," Piscopo told NJ Advance Media on Wednesday shortly before going on his morning radio show on 970-AM to make the announcement. Guadagno had made a pilgrimage to Piscopo's home on Saturday and asked for a sit-down, promising to address his concerns in her campaign if he would agree not to divide the party, Piscopo said.

TRENTON — Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno is breaking with Gov. Chris Christie and says she will not vote for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and hasn't decided if she'll vote for a third party candidate or forgo casting a vote for president and only vote in the down-ballot races. So, too, is the only declared 2017 GOP governor candidate, state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerset), who says he likely won't vote for president in November, and is calling on Trump to voluntarily step aside.

Hoboken Mayor: 'It's True' Christie Administration Withheld Sandy Funds By Leigh Ann Caldwell, Chris Frates and Cassie Spodak, CNN Zimmer tells CNN that Christie played politics with Sandy recovery funds Christie team denies funds were held hostage for backing of redevelopment project (CNN) -- In another controversy surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said Sunday that Christie directly ordered the withholding of Superstorm Sandy recovery funds unless she backed a redevelopment plan he favored. Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," Zimmer said she was told by a member of Christie's administration that Sandy relief funds...

Gov. Chris Christie today delivered a strong endorsement of Republican Steve Lonegan, a former rival, for the U.S. Senate special election in October. Despite the fiery attacks the two have traded over the years, Christie pledged to help Lonegan on the fundraising circuit, on the stump, and by deploying two of his top surrogates on the campaign trail: Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and interim U.S. Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa (R-N.J.), who is slated to endorse Lonegan on Wednesday. "We still have too many people across America who have too much government in too much of their lives," Christie told a jam-packed...