Stomping Grounds: What happened in Election ’23

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.  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.

New Jersey Globe: Just one question – in a couple of parts — but please be thorough and cover the whole state: At the legislative level, this was a Democratic year, but Republicans had some success at the local level.  There were races all of us thought would be closer that weren’t.  What happened – and why?

Dan Bryan: Put simply, Democrats had better messages, and better messengers.

To state the obvious, this was a good day for Democrats. But Republicans lost these elections just as much as Democrats won them. Many districts that we thought would be close weren’t, and many districts that we thought Republicans would safely win were competitive.

I think the outcome of this election comes down to three components:

1. The national mood was clearly good for Democrats. The Ohio abortion ballot initiative won handily in a red state, Governor Beshear was easily reelected in Kentucky, and Democrats won state-level elections in Virginia and Pennsylvania. We like to think we live in a bubble here in New Jersey, but there’s no doubt this helped.

2. Democrats ran smart, structured campaigns with strict message discipline. As a party, we knew that our core issues (affordability, the economy, gun safety, and a woman’s right to choose) were also the priorities of the electorate. Democrats were ruthlessly consistent in their messaging, refusing to let Republicans set the conversation. And let’s remember what message discipline looks like in real time – howls from the sideline for not engaging with Republicans on their terms, and instead pivoting back to the issues we knew were winners with voters. And, importantly, Democrats were able to raise the resources necessary to communicate effectively.

3. Republicans swung and missed with their campaign strategy. Instead of focusing on the issues New Jersey cares about, they invented new culture war issues on a weekly basis, throwing everything against the wall and hoping something stuck. In many of these cases, the core premise of their issue was a lie, such as parental notification in schools. This was a cynical, bad-faith strategy from the beginning, and it blew up in the face of a strong Democratic strategy. Much has been said about their structural disadvantage with voting by mail, but considering the amount of damage former President Trump did to democracy in our country, forgive me if I don’t shed a tear for the damage he did among his own party.

But with that said, I want to reiterate how well our Democratic campaigns were run. Under the leadership of Iris Delgado and Nick Fixmer, DACC and NJSDM operated with structure, consistency, and discipline. The synergy between the committees and the campaigns was evident – not a lot of wasted energy, or dollars. Instead of cheap gimmicks, the team came to the table with focus on getting out the vote and ensuring victory on election day, and nothing else.

Congratulations to them, to Governor Murphy, Speaker Coughlin (who is now the longest serving Speaker in New Jersey history), Senate President Scutari, Chairman McCabe, and State Party Chairman Jones, and to everyone involved in campaigns this cycle. Savor this victory on behalf of working families in our state.

And with all of that positivity out of the way, Democrats now need to turn their focus to 2024 and 2025. There are critical races coming up, campaigns that will shape the course of New Jersey’s future. One good cycle doesn’t mean we can let our guard down. We must send a strong federal delegation to DC in 2024, and in 2025, we must ensure Democrats send a trifecta back down to Trenton. We have all seen the damage a Republican administration can do. We’ve made so much progress in the last six years, but it’s nothing Republicans can’t undo with one single good election night in 2025.

Alex Wilkes: ​​I’ll start with the bad news first: this was an ugly night for us in the legislative races. A lot of good people lost, and some pretty undeserving stooges got a golden ticket to Trenton.

From a messaging standpoint, I truly don’t think at roughly 30% voter participation that you can fairly say that this was a slam dunk for or against any one issue set. I’ve heard some talk about this being a repudiation of “cultural issues,” like parental notification, but as my good friend Tom Szymanski pointed out, since when is abortion not a cultural issue? Both were used to drive out the respective bases.

It’s how they voted that matters. The bottom line is that the machine totals in many of these districts demonstrated that we had at least an equal number, if not more, voters on Election Day motivated by our issues. Though we are outnumbered in most parts of the state, Republicans had enough of a pool from which to draw Vote-By-Mail voters and Early Voters that would be animated by issue sets more favorable to us. We just didn’t reach them, and the Democrats did so with aplomb.

And it wasn’t for lack of trying. Both the NJGOP and a number of outside groups worked diligently to fix this, but it will take more than one cycle to solve. The wariness of these new voting methods is endemic in our conservative culture, much in part to the purposefully chaotic way in which they were introduced by Democrats. When Phil Murphy put thousands of VBM voters like me in 2018 on a permanent list and then ran the 2020 election by an absurd all vote-by-mail program, these moves were meant to sow distrust in the system. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t single out former President Donald Trump’s repeated undermining of these new types of voting. It hurts us in places like New Jersey. And I get it, I really do. I, too, wish that voting took place on one day, we learned of the results before 10 or 11 PM, and then we all went to bed — but that’s just not reality anymore. We have to make up the difference here, and, fortunately, there are places like Florida and Ohio that give me great hope for that.

The spending disadvantage hurt, too. With our campaigns being outspent almost 10-to-1 in some cases, that gave our opponents a massive leg up in being able to implement successful VBM and early vote programs, while driving out just enough voters on Election Day. Many of our top races were competing with huge buys on New York City and Philly broadcast for weeks. That’s incredibly tough on challenger campaigns looking for an upset.

Finally, I think you need to consider the “ratfucking” (sorry, only a Nixon-era term will do here). The advantages of incumbency are one thing, but what the Democrats did this cycle was next level corrupt. I don’t even know where to start. From Governor Murphy sending out ANCHOR rebate in October and keeping the Orsted news under wraps for a critical week to Gateway funding showing up on election eve all the way down to Senator Gopal sending free lunches to police stations and senior centers on Election Day, you can’t tell me that it all wasn’t just slightly more polite than Bob Menendez and the gold bars.

I’ll include in the above the so-called Election Transparency Act. It started out as an ugly, backroom deal this spring and ended with so many Democratic campaigns violating disclosure and filing requirements with impunity, including running phantom candidates for the express purpose of confusing voters. All of this from a party that so loudly complains about election interference and transparency. With the agency now controlled by their Governor, Democrats will take the fine in exchange for more votes every time. I’ll give them this: they play for keeps.

On a positive note, the local and county successes were not only our bright spot on a dark night, but they also serve as our North Star going forward. Sure, there were some that were more specific and issue-driven like towns where complaints about overdevelopment were ignored by Democratic incumbents (and the local Republicans did a terrific job making them own it). I do think, however, that when you look at counties where we saw big victories like Cumberland and Monmouth, as well as towns like Paramus, it came down to impeccable organization. They truly leave no stone unturned.

And to conclude with some hope for my beleaguered Republicans: no one has hubris quite like Phil Murphy and New Jersey Democrats. If they take – as I suspect they will – the results from a low turnout election to double down on electrification mandates, lawsuits against school districts, ceasefires in Gaza, and whatever else they want to push, it will be a very interesting 2024 and 2025!