Embedded Files
by Ari Schaffer
On November 2nd, 2021, the election for the new governor occurred in New Jersey, between the two primary candidates: Phil Murphy representing the Democratic Party and Jack Ciattarelli from the Republican Party. Phil Murphy, born on August 19th, 1957 in Needham, Massachusetts was the previous governor who was looking to renew his power by running for re-election. On the other hand, the new candidate, Jack Ciattarelli was born on December 12, 1961, in Somerville, New Jersey. He served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 2011 to 2018 and attempted to sway the people in his favor and win the election. Despite most sources claiming Murphy to have a sizable lead over Ciattarelli by as much as 10%, the election proved much closer than anticipated when all of the votes were counted.
It took nearly two weeks to count all the 2,556,031 votes, but in the end, it resulted in Governor Phil Murphy’s re-election, which came as little surprise considering the widespread popularity of the Democratic Party in New Jersey (evident in the most recent presidential election where Joe Biden had a 15% lead over Donald Trump). In the end, Phil Murphy received 51% of the votes which was 1,315,244 people, while Jack Ciattarelli gained 48.1% which was 1,240,787 people, a 2.9% difference between the two. The other 0.9% of votes accounted for candidates who were part of the Green and Libertarian parties, and many write-ins.
In Warren County, where Hackettstown High School is located, the number of votes for Jack Ciattarelli differed greatly from most other counties, considering the fact that nearly double the number of votes for Murphy went instead to Ciattarelli, which was widely predicted as a result of Warren County being one of the only counties that voted largely in favor for the Republican candidate in the 2020 presidential election. On November 11th, Jack Ciattarelli seceded from the race when it was apparent there was no chance of him winning, but in his statement he went out with the message that he wants to run in the next election again, sparking hope for any of his supporters. Knowing the statistics and the winner, now the attention can be shifted to what Phil Murphy is planning to accomplish in his second term.
The most important focus for Phil Murphy during this term is to continue to fight against COVID-19, and to attempt to have as many people vaccinated as possible. Most of Murphy’s time as governor has been dominated by trying to stop the spread of COVID-19 in New Jersey, with the many mandates and laws that have been put in place to attempt to reduce risk as much as possible. Since the vaccines have become accessible to the public, Murphy has transferred his focus towards promoting vaccination and lifted some restrictions he had put into place previously, while still trying to be as safe as possible by having New Jersey completely vaccinated for all ages. He posts updates on the social media app Twitter nearly every day to let the people know the number of vaccinations in the state along with other details regarding the virus. Other issues that Murphy wants to address is by finishing the work during his previous term containing laws which had been considered by Congress such as the gun restriction laws, education reforms, and ensuring the right to abortion. Many of these topics are controversial as they separate the two major political parties from each other, but Murphy sees the laws and reforms as what is best for the people. Other than working to end the ongoing pandemic and finish work from his previous term, Murphy’s re-election campaign discussed new ideas such as improving the entire school system for public schools, building a stronger economy, and making both education and healthcare more affordable in New Jersey. Phil Murphy’s slogan, “Stronger. Fairer. Forward.” has been widely shown throughout everything he wants to do to help the state move in a positive direction, but now the question is: will he be successful?
Google Sites
Report abuse