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Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno was clobbered by Phil Murphy in November’s election. But a town-by-town map of the election results is kinder to Gov. Chris Christie’s two-time running mate. The Republican candidate won 295 of the state’s municipalities. Murphy won 25 fewer towns. But unlike the presidency, there’s no electoral college selecting New Jersey’s governor, so Murphy won the way it counts: total votes. Murphy got 1.2 million votes to Guadagno’s 899,583, which was the fewest amount for a GOP nominee since 1989.

It was a bad week for establishment Republicans from New Jersey running for governor. And I'm not talking about just Kim Guadagno. Ed Gillespie managed to lose a big race as well. Both were New Jerseyans: Gillespie by birth, Guadagno by marriage. Let us dispense first with Guadagno, who was born in Iowa and came here after completing law school. From the beginning of this campaign it was obvious that her chances of getting elected governor rested with Chris Christie. -snip- Or in other words, it is run the same way the national party is run: by people like Ed...

-snip- At the bottom were all the local candidates. But at the top was the presidential candidate of whom the lieutenant governor had said a month earlier, "While I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, I will not vote for Donald Trump" in reaction to those "Access Hollywood" tapes. In the early evening, as Guadagno was shmoozing the crowd, that might have looked like a safe stance. All of the networks were predicting a Clinton victory. By morning, however, Republicans awoke to find themselves in a new era, one for which Guadagno was uniquely ill-suited. Her attack on Trump had alienated...

ABERDEEN -- Shortly before 9:40 p.m., Republican Kim Guadagno appeared on stage to concede the New Jersey governor's race to Democrat Phil Murphy, saying she made "the best possible case" to voters in her efforts to succeed Gov. Chris Christie. "We left no stone unturned," Guadagno, Christie's lieutenant governor, said, quickly arresting the lusty boos that sprang up at the mention of Murphy's name.

The beauty of Election Day is that no one has any idea what’s happening, Sure, people are voting, but for whom? As much as political pros analyze the electorate, they are basically clueless until voting stops at 8 p.m. So, small signs are important, or at least they seem to be. One such sign is turnout. And as voting began in Morris County this morning, turnout was surprisingly strong. “It almost seems like a presidential election,” is how one worker described the scene at a polling place in the Roxbury Township Library. Across town, a poll worker said the morning...

Average has Murphy up 14.4% We are screwed.

TRENTON -- On the eve of the election that will determine who will replace him, Republican Gov. Chris Christie wasn't lobbing any political bombs at the Democratic candidate. Instead, he took aim at his own mentor. Christie accused former Gov. Tom Kean of revisionist history when talking about his own state budget while defending Republican candidate for governor Kim Guadagno at a campaign event on Saturday. He suggested that Kean's state budgets weren't as frugal as the former governor let on.

As the state staggers toward Election Day on Tuesday, Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-25) opined on the state’s broken condition, the prospects of the next chief executive, and what he insists is the jarring disconnect of a liberal message in New Jersey contributing to a suburban chilling effect. The veteran movement conservative lawmaker acknowledged that he thinks the race between Democrat Phil Murphy and Republican Kim Guadagno is tightening, and as Democrats brace for what one source said will undoubtedly be a late Republican Governors Association (RGA) Willie Horton Hail Mary on sanctuary cities, Carroll said the cycle’s enduring issue...

Two major gubernatorial elections are on the Election 2017 campaign horizon. I wrote about the Virginia race one week ago. Ed Gillespie is now winning by focusing on Virginians’ day-to-day needs. More importantly, he is also doubling-down on his opposition to illegal immigration, and its deleterious consequences like the rising crime, gang activity, bad traffic, and diminishing quality of life.Across the Chesapeake, another governor’s race is raging. New Jersey, a colonial outpost for Quakers before the American Revolution, has turned into another California-style outpost of the urban-suburban divide, where compacted cities have been out-voting the more conservative rural and suburban...

Hillary Clinton is set to campaign for New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy days after former President Barack Obama campaigned for him. […] Individual tickets for the event featuring the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee are listed at $1,000, but the invitation asks potential guests to consider giving the top contribution, $4,300. […] Unlike the event with Obama, the Clinton appearance is not open to the media. …

WAYNE -- The race to replace Chris Christie as New Jersey's governor isn't sleepy any more. That much was clear Wednesday night as Democratic nominee Phil Murphy and Republican nominee Kim Guadagno spent much of their second and final televised debate shooting verbal arrows at each other. The event was held at William Paterson University in Wayne just 20 days before a Nov. 7 election that has often inspired little more than apathy among the state's voters. But if the rivals' first debate was contentious, this one was downright nasty.

Former President Barack Obama is returning to the campaign trail to stump for Democratic gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia as they gear up for next month’s elections. Thursday’s events mark the first time the former president is stepping back into the political spotlight since leaving the White House. Unlike more low-key appearances earlier this year, Obama’s foray into two states won’t be a one-and-done. He is planning more public appearances as the year closes, and preparation for the 2018 midterm elections begins. […] Obama is hoping to sway voters in New Jersey and Virginia, the only two gubernatorial...

NEWARK — The Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor opened his post-Labor Day blitz accusing his Republican opponent of abdicating her moral leadership. The Republican challenger retorted with accusations of race baiting. They were the type of hyperbolic accusations often thrown around in a nail-biting, nasty political campaign with such vitriolic attacks feeding a frenetic news cycle hungry for daily conflict and a riled electorate packing town hall meetings and rallies. This is not that kind of race. Despite an election that will mark the end of the tumultuous tenure of Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, and the fact that...

RUTHERFORD – The gubernatorial campaigns had their own challenges at the annual Street Fair here, unofficially the bellwether kickoff of the New Jersey general election season. Democrat Phil Murphy had to present just enough organic-looking authenticity to avoid projecting the clanking, bug-squashing arrogance of a passionless imperial army; while Republican Kim Guadagno needed to play up underdog passion without too nobly resembling the Spartan Army of Leonidas that got crushed by Xerxes. InsiderNJ tried to ply the “it’s over” narrative among Democrats, and they didn’t – for the most part – take the bait. “I think it’s fair to say...

TRENTON -- Already trailing badly in the polls, Republican New Jersey governor candidate Kim Guadagno has been hit with another devastating 1-2 punch: She's lost the confidence of a pair of deep-pocketed GOP groups that spend big on governor's races, NJ Advance Media has learned. The Republican National Committee, which is controlled by President Donald Trump, views the lieutenant governor as someone who hasn't been loyal to the president and officials there see her race as a losing cause, according to two sources familiar with the RNC's plans. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly....

TRENTON -- The latest poll in the race to succeed Chris Christie as New Jersey's governor shows Democratic nominee Phil Murphy with a commanding 27-point lead over Republican nominee Kim Guadagno -- though a majority of voters continue to say they don't know much about either candidate. The Monmouth University Poll, released Wednesday, found 53 percent of Garden State voters would choose Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, while 26 percent would pick Guadagno, the state's lieutenant governor.

HACKETTSTOWN, N.J. — The Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey sat on a plush beige couch in the Republican mayor’s condo, surrounded by Republican county officials and politicians, and offered up her plan to stem what is perhaps the state’s most daunting challenge — its deepening property tax crisis. She adopted it, she said, from an unexpected source. “This is a page out of the Democratic playbook, it really is,” Kim Guadagno, the lieutenant governor said, noting that the plan came from a proposal in deep-blue Illinois. With Republicans controlling the White House, both chambers of Congress and having...

NEWARK -- Phil Murphy, a former banking executive and U.S. ambassador to Germany who has poured millions from his own fortune into the race for New Jersey governor and vows to reinvigorate the state's economy, fought off five rivals Tuesday night to win the Democratic nomination in the battle to succeed Chris Christie. The Associated Press called the race for Murphy about an hour after the polls closed.

WEST LONG BRANCH -- Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who has spent the last eight years as Gov. Chris Christie's second-in-command and now vows to slash the state's notoriously high property taxes, defeated four opponents Tuesday to secure the Republican nomination to succeed Christie as New Jersey's governor. The Associated Press called it for Guadagno about an hour and 20 minutes after the polls closed. Now, Guadagno, a 58-year-old Monmouth Beach resident, will battle former U.S. ambassador to Germany Phil Murphy in the Nov. 7 general election. Murphy bested five rivals to emerge the winner of Tuesday's Democratic primary.

What happens if a state with a population roughly equal to that of Kentucky and Louisiana combined held a major election and no one noticed? That seems to be occurring in New Jersey, which is electing a new governor this year. It may be the Democrats’ biggest gubernatorial win in the state in over 40 years. A Democratic romp in a state Hillary Clinton won easily might not seem like a surprising result. But New Jersey usually features competitive governor’s races. Over the past 40 years, Democrats have won the governor’s mansion four times to Republicans’ six. New Jersey’s current...