New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has created enough distance between himself and Jack Ciattarelli and has won the 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial election. One week after a tight race on election night, Murphy has extended a commanding lead of 3% over Ciattarelli, totaling 81,000 votes. With the number of outstanding provisional ballots being too low for Ciattarelli to catch up, Murphy has unofficially won the election.
All mail-in ballots have been legally received as of 8 pm Monday.
“It’s not even close,” Phil Murphy said after Ciattarelli continues to refuse to concede the election, walking in the footsteps of former President Donald Trump.
With some provisional ballots left to be counted, Ciattarelli now trails by a greater margin than the difference between Virginia candidates Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe. In that race, Youngkin defeated McCauliffe by 63,500 votes and a 2% margin.
At this point, Democrat Governor Phil Murphy is the clear winner, pending any evidence by the Ciattarelli campaign of perceived election fraud or voter suppression. Evidence that has not yet been submitted by the GOP or the Ciattarelli campaign.
According to reports, Ciattarelli has a team of lawyers from the RNC investigating election irregularities and fraud, but at this point, has not publicly reported any findings or released any valid claims needed to continue his refusal to accept last Tuesday’s election results.
Earlier this week, Ciattarelli said he’s going to wait until every vote is counted before conceding to Murphy, who will begin his second term as governor in January.
Murphy has ended the Democrat party’s 40 year reelection winless streak. This is the first time since 1977 that a sitting Democrat won re-election in New Jersey, dealing an embarrassing blow to Ciattarelli. Ciattarelli is now a two-time loser in the race for governor. In 2017, Ciattarelli was easily defeated by former Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno.
In 1977, Republican State Senator Raymond Bateman lost to Democrat incumbent Governor Brendan Byrne.
Despite Ciattarelli’s gubernatorial defeat, New Jersey Republicans claimed victory overall against Democrats by unseating key party members, including Senate President Steve Sweeney. Sweeney, like Ciattarelli, has continued to refuse to concede to his opponent, Edward Durr. Sweeney is expected to release a statement today, accepting his defeat.
As Ciattarelli continues denying the results, he treads on ice walked on by former President Donald J. Trump who continues his 2020 “Stop the Steal” campaign to this date. Ciattarelli has previously rebuked Trump’s claim of election fraud and blamed Trump for the January 6th breach of the U.S. Capitol building.
“The race is over,” Phil Murphy said on Sunday. “Assemblyman Ciattarelli is mathematically eliminated, and he must accept the results and concede the race. His continuing failure to do so is an assault on the integrity of our elections.”
Murphy disputed GOP claims that the New Jersey election was run unfairly.
“This thing was run fairly. It was run transparently. Every vote will be counted, but when it’s mathematically impossible to win, I think it’s dangerous,” Murphy said at Monday’s COVID-19 briefing.
The Governor also said Ciattarelli’s actions are now bonding on dangerous to America’s democracy and Ciattarelli should concede.
“I think it’s bigger than winning or losing. It gets to question what it is to be an American and respect the institutions of – that we count on as a society including democracy,” Murphy added. “If it’s mathematically impossible, it’s dangerous. This is not what America is about.”
Shore News Network has analyzed the 2021 election and at this point, there is simply not enough outstanding ballots in Republican-leaning counties for Ciattarelli to catch up. Most outstanding ballots now are in counties that leaned heavily in Murphy’s favor to date.
“We have looked extensively at this year’s election data and by the numbers, it is impossible for Ciattarelli to bridge such a huge gap,” said Shore News Network editor Phil Stilton. “Phil Murphy is our governor unless Ciattarelli’s campaign can deliver on these breadcrumbs about election fraud and voting irregularities. Short of that, there’s nothing left for the Ciattarelli campaign to do at this time, but to concede.”