Free Republic

A referendum on Tuesday’s ballot in New Jersey’s northernmost county asked whether voters wanted local officials to cooperate with federal immigration agents. It passed by a lopsided 2-to-1 margin. Nearly 200 miles away, along the state’s southern swath, a directive by the state attorney general that in part bars county sheriff officers from doing the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has led two counties to file federal lawsuits. A third county has threatened legal action. The state attorney general’s rule not only precipitated the lawsuits, but also became a key election issue, generating support for Republican candidates who...

A referendum on Tuesday’s ballot in New Jersey’s northernmost county asked whether voters wanted local officials to cooperate with federal immigration agents. It passed by a lopsided 2-to-1 margin. Nearly 200 miles away, along the state’s southern swath, a directive by the state attorney general that in part bars county sheriff officers from doing the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has led two counties to file federal lawsuits. A third county has threatened legal action. The state attorney general’s rule not only precipitated the lawsuits, but also became a key election issue, generating support for Republican candidates who...

President Trump is in a whole lot of trouble. Andy Beshear, who has claimed victory in the Kentucky governor’s race, showed that Democrats prosper when they focus on what he called “kitchen-table issues.” In Virginia, voters demonstrated that support for gun control is now an asset, not a liability, in American politics. More broadly: Railing against impeachment and attacking Democrats as “socialists” won’t get the job done for Republicans when the GOP finds itself on the wrong end of questions such as health care and education.

There is no sugarcoating yesterday’s election results: Republicans had a bad day. Their losses especially in many suburban areas (such as around Philadelphia) are not a good omen for next year. They were trounced badly in Virginia, despite the supposed Republican-friendly gerrymander. (And let’s see how fast liberals forget about how gerrymandering is an “offense to democracy” when they are in charge of it in more states two years from now. Gerrymandering only became a “scandal” when Republicans got good at it.)There are still good reasons to think Trump will be re-elected next year, and I’ll return to that...

Democrats appear to have lost at least three and as many as five seats in the New Jersey Legislature, including the only Senate race on the ballot. And they did not flip any of the three districts they were targeting in this year’s election, which took place yesterday. With 100% of districts reporting, Republicans captured the Senate seat in the southernmost 1st District, as well as both Assembly seats there. They also held a smaller lead in the neighboring 2nd, a split district with a Republican senator that includes Atlantic City. That race, however, had not been called with fewer...

New Jersey Republicans defied expectations Tuesday night and won key battleground races in South Jersey. The biggest surprises of the night came in South Jersey’s battleground districts, where Democrats were looking to build on their momentum from the 2018 midterm elections and make gains in areas that historically leaned conservative. In District 1, State Sen. Bob Andrzejczak lost his reelection bid Tuesday to Republican challenger Mike Testa in one of the key races in South Jersey. The results in the 8th were a setback for Democrats who turned the district increasingly blue in the Trump era.

All 80 seats in the Democrat-dominated state Assembly are up for grabs today, but there’s no race for governor or for president at the top of the ticket. That should lead to low turnout. And low turnout usually favors Republicans. But the smart money says that after the votes are counted, Minority Leader Jon Bramnick’s minority will be even smaller than it is now, with a 54-26 Democrat-Republican split.

Former Gov. Chris Christie has apparently had enough of being quiet about his successor, Gov. Phil Murphy. When Christie left office, the brash Republican known for grabbing the spotlight and speaking his mind vowed he wouldn’t offer a running commentary on Democrat Murphy’s performance. He suggested he wanted to transition into an elder statesman.

VINELAND, N.J. – Scrutiny of Governor Phil Murphy’s sanctuary state policy (promulgated by activist state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal) reached new levels this week when an illegal Honduran immigrant was arrested on suspicion of sexually assault and murdering a Jersey City nanny. The suspect had reportedly been deported not once but twice over a decade before the incident in question. A top 2019 legislative candidate didn’t mince words in assigning blame for this latest avoidable tragedy.