How does the Trump earthquake rattle New Jersey Democrats?
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network
..... As New Jersey Democrats sort through the earthquake of Donald Trump's stronger-than-expected showing Tuesday, [11/05/2024] they may find it worthwhile talking to one of Frank Argote-Freyre's students at Kean University, whose family immigrated from Peru five years ago.
.....
The student and Argote-Freyre, a Latin American historian, embarked on a discussion last week [11/03/2024] about the upcoming election. the student admitted that his family was going to vote for Trump. he explained that they were planning to buy a house and felt that their chance would improve under a Trump presidency.
..... But what about all of Trump's immigrant bashing and raw xenophobia?
..... "He says, "well, that has to do with illegal immigrants. That's not me," said Argote-Freyre, who is also chairman of the board of the Latino Action Network foundation, a nonpartisan civil rights and social service origination in New Jersey.
..... "He did not see himself and his family reflected in Trump's words, he added. "Trump was talking about somebody else, and not him. so this is the kind of message that we need to think about."
..... that brief exchange may provide postmortem insight for Democrats as they scramble to understand how Trump, who lost New Jersey by 14 points in 2016 and 16 points in 2020, could come within five points of capturing this reliable blue redoubt of the liberal Northeast.
.....
It was closest presidential race in New jersey since 32 years ago, when then-President George H.W. Bush lost the Garden State to Bill Clinton by a mere three points.
..... The unexpected close finish in New Jersey was result of a Harris "nosedive," as Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray described it, rather than a Trump surge. Harris notched 2,100,255 votes (with more than 93% of precincts reporting), which is 508,000 fewer votes that were cast fro President Joe Biden, a 19% drop from four years ago. Trump, meanwhile, collected 1,883,313, or just about 11,000 more votes than in 2020, or lest than 1%.
..... In other words, there was no great shift in New Jersey for Trump, but a lack of enthusiasm for the Harris candidacy. Still, governor Phil Murphy on Wednesday [11/06/2024] described the results as a "sobering moment."
..... "A mistake you could make right now is to put your feet up and think this is just an aberration," he said at a news conference in Newark.
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But in fact, the sharp decline in democratic turnout form four years ago does suggest that the Democratic Party did put their feet up with confidence that New Jersey was solid for Harris and that Trump posed no real threat.
..... the state Democratic Party and leadership did not deploy a vigorous get-out-the-vote operation with the exception of supporters for Sue Altman, who last in her bid to unseat Republican Tom Kean Jr. in the 7th congressional District. Instead, brigades of New Jersey volunteer spent their weekends in neighboring Pennsylvania, a battleground state that Harris eventually lost.
..... They (Democratic officials) will work hard when the Legislature is on the line, not for somebody lees," said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Polities.
..... Harris' poor showing also comes at a time of growing anxiety as New Jersey heads into a pivotal gubernatorial year in 2025, which unofficially began the
minute after Tuesday's [11/05/2024] election was concluded. If history serves as a guide, Republicans are posed to capture the governor's office - voters traditionally select a candidate from the opposite party after a governor serves two consecutive terms, and Governor Phil Murphy's second term ends January 2026.
..... Democratic registration has stagnated since the party swelled its ranks in the Barack Obama presidency. The Democrats have slightly over 900,000 more register voters than their Republican counterparts, but that's down form a high of 1.2 million just a couple of years ago. Meanwhile, Republicans are gaining ground.
..... To an increasing number of voters, Trump 2.0 is no longer the same shocking, toxic figure as he was when he rolled down the escalator at Trump Towner and began his long career of immigrant bashing. Trump scored a stunning triumph by winning the reliable blue bastion of Passaic County, powered in part by his appeal to Latino voters.
..... And in Hudson County, a Democrat
stronghold with a large Latino population, Trump lost by 28 points. but that represented a dramatic 19-point improvement form 2020. the Hudson shift cause the notice of Steve Kornacki the MSNBC political analyst during his election night coverage.
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"Hudson County, just across the river - this is where Union City, New Jersey, is, for instance. It's 80% Hispanic," said Kornacki, who began his reporting career in New Jersey. "This is one of those giant core Democratic counties the Democratic Party relies on. That's a massive, massive shift. And again, that speaks to Trump's gins, it really would seem, with Hispanic voters."
..... Trump's gains in the Latino stronghold that Democrats relied on are certain to be among the most closely evaluated in the coming months.
..... It comes with a certain irony: Murphy has made the plight of undocumented immigrates one of his high-profile issues since he took office in 2017, declaring New Jersey, at one point,, a "sanctuary state."
..... But some Democrats, lawmakers and community activists said Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates treat Latinos as a monolith, showing solidarity in outrage over Trump's demeaning comments but failing to recognize that many more established Latino immigrants are more concerned about pocketbook issues, like inflation, tax and regulatory relief for their small businesses, and a priority on security. And abortion rights are not a top-of-mind issue in parts of the community that are religious, Argote-Freyre said.
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"Every Latino household in the state of New Jersey is actually talking about a lot of the things that we believe should put them squarely in the Democratic column, but we're not talking about it enough with them ... like their trepidation around the economy," said Senator Troy Singleton, D-Burlingotn. "The stock market could be 50,000 miles away form what they're thinking about day to day. And we have to do a better job of having that conversation when talking about safety."
Democratic leaders face backlash
..... Julie Roginsky, a veteran Democratic strategist, argues that Trump's storing showing in the state was fueled by growing voter disgust with the New Jersey Democratic leadership's failure to address chronic quality-of-life issues.
..... She argues that the party leaders obsessed over their own political priories - Murphy and his allies spending six months failing to secure a U.S. Senate nomination for Murphy's wife, Tammy: working to curtail access to public records and boosting their power to raise campaign cash - while failing to address voter concerns over toll hikes, a crumbling transit system, fare hikes and rising property taxes.
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"This was a backlash at the Democratic Party leadership in New Jersey," Roginsky said. "T Hey couldn't vote against Phil Murphy again, and they couldn't vote against the party leadership in New Jersey again, because none of them were on the ballot. They took it out on Kamala Harris ... and they took it out on Democrats across the board in the state. And if this is not a six-alarm fire for the Democratic Party going into 2025 to figure out how to communicate with voters and to actually listen to them, then I don't know what is."
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But Ben Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship, doubts that most voters who turned to Trump are that attuned to the political dramas of Trenton, and he noted that lawmakers enacted the generous ANCHOR rebate program. but he said some of the ongoing problems plaguing transit and other quality-of-life issues are still very much part of the daily and, at times, difficult life of working and commuting in New Jersey.
..... "We have a supply-side problem in polices," Dworkin said. "The kind of democracy we're offering citizens is unfulfilling. It's too slow; it's too dysfunctional, it seems too much based on insider power. and i think there is a reason why people will look for folks who will shake up the system."