Stomping Grounds: Crisis Communications; Missed Votes; SCI; and Voting in 16 Weeks

New Jerseyans aren’t always civil, but it’s still possible for a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican to have a rational and pleasant conversation about politics in the state. Dan Bryan is a former senior advisor to Gov. Phil Murphy and is now the owner of his own public affairs firm, and Alex Wilkes is an attorney and former executive director of America Rising PAC who advises Republican candidates in New Jersey and across the nation, including the New Jersey GOP. Dan and Alex are both experienced strategists who are currently in the room where high-level decisions are made. They will get together weekly with New Jersey Globe editor David Wildstein to discuss politics and issues.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass went on a trip to Africa despite warnings that her city was at risk of wildfires — and then she didn’t come back right away.  What are the best practices for elected officials — especially for a mayor or governor — to deal with the dilemma of say or go, or stay or return home, during weather-related crisises? 

Dan Bryan: Whether or not the criticism is fair, it’s real, and it’s something every elected official needs to consider when they plan out-of-state travel. California sees wildfire warnings all the time – it’s easy to say now that she shouldn’t have left the country, but I’m not sure how fair it is. And we should note that the Mayor returned as soon as the fires started.

So is the criticism fair? Probably not. In 2025, does it really matter if an elected official is out of state when a snowstorm or other natural disaster hits? Not really, though I’m sure they’d much rather be at the helm of disaster response. But when the public sees disaster strike while their elected officials are out of state, they are in no mood to be rational.

When these situations arise, my mind always goes to December 26, 2010, when a blizzard dumped an unexpected two feet of snow on New Jersey (the storm is memorable to me – in addition to working for the Mayor of Hoboken at the time as we worked through storm response, it was also the day I met my wife). Governor Christie and his family were in Florida for vacation when the storm hit. He made the decision that there wasn’t much he’d be doing for the state if he were in New Jersey, and that he would stay on vacation. But with his LG out of state as well, the Acting Governor was Senate President Sweeney, driving home the Governor’s absence even further.

Should he have left for vacation? Of course – he had no way to know the storm was coming. Any criticism of that is unfair.

Should he have left after a day to show face in the state? Probably. I think, looking back, he would likely agree that the political consequences of this decision followed him for years.

Should his Lieutenant Governor have been in state while he was on vacation? 1,000% yes. That’s what the office is for.

There isn’t a way to handle these situations perfectly – anyone can be caught off guard, and it’s unfair to expect a Mayor or Governor never to leave on a trip. But the actions they take from the first second they find out about a situation back home will be deeply and harshly scrutinized – they should act accordingly.

Alex Wilkes: I sincerely hope whatever Phil Murphy’s remaining plans are to make New Jersey the “California of the East” simply cannot come to pass in the next 11 months. Like New Jerseyans, Californians are some of the most overregulated and overtaxed people in the country – and what has it gotten them? Empty fire hydrants and generations of memories reduced to ash.

From an optics standpoint, if you’re not on the ground, in the command center, flanked by officials, and providing regular updates, your political future is pretty much dead on arrival. But that ship had long sailed when the mayor’s team agreed to this tone-deaf trip however many months ago. Unlike the jokers in Washington, governors and mayors have real executive power that impacts our day-to-day life. If you’re an elected official, and your non-essential travel takes place during your state’s hurricane, snow, heat wave, wildfire, flooding, etc. season, do the taxpayers a small favor: don’t go.

The real problem here, though, is the complete failure to plan for this foreseeable disaster. An ill-advised trip to a country 17 hours away may have been a footnote to this situation had the reservoirs been full, firefighting budgets not been cut, and the sum of this under preparedness not causing a full-blown housing insurance crisis that will drive up rates for the rest of us. What a terrible – and tragically avoidable – start to 2025.

The House passed two controversial immigration bills, including the Laken Riley Act that mandates the detention by ICE of undocumented immigrants charged with certain crimes.  Two New Jersey House members running for governor, Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer, missed those votes.   Going forward, how should the two navigate a decision to miss votes vs. campaigning in New Jersey?

Alex: I think you will largely see a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction on missing some of these key votes between Josh and Mikie. They’ll get attacked on some from the left by Fulop and Baraka and maybe from the right by Sweeney on some – but not by each other backed by a boatload of cash. I think to the extent one of them sees an opportunity and tries to break from that, it would be like a much less dramatic moment in 2008 when John McCain suspended his campaign to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. Whatever the late Senator’s motivations were, calm, cool Obama won the narrative (and the election). New Jersey is where it counts right now, and I am fine with Hakeem Jeffries being perpetually down 2 votes.

From a substantive angle – and a personal one, as a constituent of one of these clowns – shame on them. If you’re too afraid to go back to Washington to take a stand on protecting Americans from dangerous criminals who should have never been here in the first place? I hope November treats you about as well as you’ve treated all of us.

Dan: This is politics – both candidates will be attacked regardless of their actions. If they miss campaigning in New Jersey for business in DC, they’ll be criticized for not caring enough about the election, and if they miss votes in DC to campaign, they’ll be criticized for not doing their job.

As long as they’re careful about the votes they miss and the time they spend in DC, I don’t think voters will care as much about this as their opponents hope they will. It’ll be fodder for opposing campaigns, but voters will likely chalk the attacks up to politics and focus more on what the different campaigns are doing and saying about how they can improve their lives.

The new State Commission of Investigation executive director, Tiffany Williams Brewer,  is under fire for taking a $175,000-a-year job in New Jersey months after she bought a home in Maryland and is clearly working as a law professor at Howard University in Washington right now.  How did she do handling this?

Dan: Brewer was right to resign. I don’t know many of the details of her situation, but clearly working another full time job while maintaining residency in another state is not acceptable, especially in a job like that.

Alex: I agree with Dan. Her only choice was to resign. The trick in New Jersey is to get your graft through a scheme so incomprehensible that the state’s few media outlets – and even social media in all its brevity – simply can’t keep up with covering it. Having a principal residence in one state when you’re in charge of investigating corruption in another? You can hear the oinking all the way up the Acela Corridor.

Vote by mail ballots go out in sixteen weeks.  When should candidates for governor and the other offices begin to start communicating directly with voters?

Alex: ​​No line, no more winter parlor games. Get yourself a data-driven plan to talk to 4s, 3s – and even 2s, 1s after perhaps the most dynamic presidential election in our history – and turn them out as early as possible.

Of course, there’s definitely value to courting county committee members and elected officials, particularly in places where county organizations still have money and power. But their vote now – at the earliest point on the calendar ever – is weighted (in theory, not necessarily in practice, hence the need for good data) the same as your entire primary audience. Go get ‘em.

 Dan: Yesterday!

The gubernatorial race is underway – we’re only a few weeks from the first debate, we’re starting to see ads on TV, and the media is finally beginning to focus on the campaign. While we won’t see much advertising on broadcast TV until the candidate window opens in a few months, campaigns could absolutely be up on streaming, social, and, eventually, addressable cable, even if at low levels.

The “moneyball” campaigns of the Obama era (a one-size-fits-all formula of what you spend, when you spend, and how you spend it) are ending. Campaigns will be rewarded for being bold, aggressive, and creative. Unconventional campaigns with unconventional candidates will have an edge over the typical campaign with the typical candidate (see, for instance, the unfortunate success of our once and future President).

In addition, the voting calendar has changed dramatically. In this year’s Democratic primary, as many as *half* of primary voters will be voting before election day, whether by mail or early in-person. That means they’ll be making their decisions as early as late April, a full month and a half before election day. Campaigns should evolve with the times – if voters are getting their ballots six weeks before election day, they need to ensure they’ve made their cases by the time voting starts, not by the time it ends.

So while it still makes sense to spend money wisely and strategically in a capped race, campaigns must also be flexible, creative, and aggressive when it comes to communicating early and often with the electorate. In politics, fortune often favors the bold and punishes the conventional.