With 61% of total votes reported, Republican Jack Ciattarelli is currently leading incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy. Ciattarelli has taken large leads, as expected in Ocean County, Monmouth County, Hunterdon County, and Bergen County, but as these largely Republican strongholds have counted nearly all of their votes, New Jersey’s urban areas will soon take the stage.
As of 11 p.m., Ciattarelli had 854,084 votes compared to Murphy’s 802,261 votes.
Dominant Democrat counties Essex and Passaic have not yet reported their votes beyond vote by mail ballots and early voting numbers. Those two counties will be the key Murphy needs to bounce back against Ciattarelli.
Ciattarelli’s largest margin comes from Ocean County where 195,000 votes have been counted and Ciattarelli received 68% of them.
With tallies nearly all accounted for in predominantly Republican counties, both Ciattarelli and Murphy are now eagerly awaiting results from northern counties such as Union where 33% of the votes are still uncounted, Mercer, Somerset and Burlington County with large numbers of ballots to be accounted for.