FILE - New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy meets with Senate President Nicholas Scutari, right, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, second right, before he delivers his State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature at the statehouse, in Trenton, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. New Jersey wraps up voting Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, for a new Legislature, with all 120 seats on the ballot, as Republicans fight for controlling either chamber for the first time in more than two decades. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey Democrats fended off Republican challenges in pivotal state Senate races and flipped three Assembly contests from GOP control Tuesday, buoying the party’s prospects after a bleak showing in the last election.
State Sen. Vin Gopal defeated Republican Steve Dnistrian in the coastal 11th Legislative District and incumbent Andrew Zwicker beat former GOP Rep. Michael Pappas in the 16th District, which includes Princeton. Gopal’s running mates Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul also defeated Republican incumbents in the same district. In Ocean County’s 30th District, Rabbi Avi Schnall defeated GOP incumbent Assemblyman Edward Thomson.
“I think voters are tired of the political bickering,” Gopal said Tuesday before his victory. “They want people to bring them together. There needs to be discussion and debate and decorum back in government.”
That campaign was among the most heavily contested this year, and saw more political spending than any other race, according to October figures from the state’s campaign finance watchdog. Zwicker’s contest wasn’t far behind.
Other races were too early to call.
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy enthused that Gopal was “an extraordinary” colleague in the state Senate, and Democratic Senate President Nicholas Scutari said in a phone interview that Democrats won because they listened to voters on affordability and women’s reproductive health.
“I think we’re in the right place on that issue and the truth is if Republicans got a foothold on the majority, they would tear down those rights,” Scutari said. “They’re protected in statue and not in the Constitution.”
Gopal and Democrats aimed to keep the campaign centered on Democrats’ efforts over the last year to provide property tax rebates. The Democrats also focused heavily on abortion, arguing that a GOP-led Legislature could begin to roll back abortion protections in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In an interview earlier this year, Dnistrian said a top issue he heard from voters was concern that parents didn’t have enough control over school districts. The issue made headlines when the state attorney general sued three Monmouth County school districts, charging they violated the state’s anti-discrimination law with policies that called on officials to notify parents if their children had come out as transgender. State school guidelines and a 2017 law call for keeping a student’s orientation confidential.
All 80 seats in the Assembly and all 40 in the Senate were up for grabs, with the Democrats controlling both chambers.
Murphy, a Democrat who was not on the ballot but whose second-term agenda will depend in part on the makeup of the Legislature, held a number of get-out-the-vote events Tuesday. At an event in vote-rich Bergen County in suburban New York City, Murphy underscored his administration’s and Democrats’ role in protecting abortion rights.
Republican State Party Chairman Bob Hugin said Tuesday before races had been called he thought the GOP was talking about issues that mattered to the public.
“The biggest thing is the issues that we have raised are the ones that voters want to talk about. We changed the dialog in the state,” he said.
New Jersey’s Legislature has 40 total districts, with each sending one senator and two Assembly members to Trenton. Both parties typically run all three candidates together on a ticket. The 11th District was among the most closely watched in part because it’s where Democrats control the Senate seat and the GOP controls the two Assembly spots.
Voting started in late September when the first mail-in ballots went out. The state also offered early in-person voting.
State figures showed some half a million ballots had already been cast before Election Day, including votes by mail and early in-person voting. Still, the majority of ballots in New Jersey are typically cast on Election Day.
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This story has been corrected to show that Republicans control both of the Assembly seats in the 11th District, not one.
