Phil Murphy won’t run for president

Gov. Phil Murphy isn’t joining fellow New Jerseyan U.S. Sen. Cory Booker in seeking the presidency.

“Charlie, I’m not running for president by the way. I appreciate your asking that,” Murphy told Charlie Stile, a columnist for The Bergen Record, at an unrelated press conference Tuesday.

Murphy endorsed Booker on February 1, they day the former Newark mayor announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination.

Murphy’s statements come after a recent Monmouth University poll showed voters disapproved of the governor in greater numbers than they did last April.

Monmouth Poll Director Patrick Murray told Stile, who last week wrote a column about the possibility of Murphy ending his tenure as governor early in order to seek the presidency, that there was little doubt the possibility was hanging over voters’ minds.