Christie Beats Corzine for New Jersey Governor's Seat
November 4, 2009
By DEREK HARPER and THOMAS BARLAS
Staff writers
East Brunswick - Republican Chris Christie won a narrow victory over incumbent Democrat Jon S. Corzine to become the next governor of New Jersey.
Trailing by about 100,000 votes and 4 percent of the total vote, Corzine conceded at 10:55 p.m. at the Hilton here. He said he had called and congratulated Christie.
"We will work hard to make sure the transition is smooth and make sure we do everything that serves the people of this great state," Corzine said. He promised to continue to play a role on issues he believed in, saying, "We may be retiring from politics but were not retiring from life."
Christie took the stage at the Hilton Parsippany to the sound of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" to deliver his victory speech.
"Hey, New Jersey, we did it," Christie said.
"Yes we did," the crowd chanted in reply.
"This election isn't about me," Christie said. "It's not about (running mate) Kim (Guadagno). This election was, and is, about the future of the state we love, the great state of New Jersey.
"We are in a crisis. But I stand here full of hope for our future, full of expectations and dreams. Kim and I are going to get to work tomorrow to make that happen. Because tomorrow ... we begin to take back New Jersey."
Christie said he and Guadagno are "up to the task" to restore "hope and faith" in New Jersey government.
"We are going to take Trenton and turn it upside down," he said.
Independent candidate Chris Daggett conceded his candidacy at 9:45 p.m., with only about half of precincts reporting.
"We don't yet know who won this election," he said from the podium at the Dolce center in Basking Ridge. "But we know it wasn't us!"
Daggett was by turns practical and combative - urging the listening crowd to get behind the winner of the race, and saying he would also cooperate in any way with either winner, but reserved his harshest criticism of the race to the factors that brought the discussion into the gutter.
"My gut tells me that people are really angry at both parties," Daggett said.
Republicans and Democrats came to their respective headquarters Tuesday night prepared for a long evening, with final polls indicating the race was essentially deadlocked.
"It may be a close one," said Joseph Kyrillos, a state senator and former state Republican chairman, as Republicans gathered at the Hilton Parsippany. "We're hopeful that there will be a decision tonight."
Kyrillos, R-Middlesex, Monmouth, also said that his party was already prepared to deal with a race whose results may not be clear for some time.
But the mood began to change as results came in.
The mood was subdued in Corzine's election night headquarters at the Hilton here.
Most party leaders remained outside of the ballroom where the party faithful gathered to watch results on projection television. Conversation dropped off to a murmur in the gaps between the pop and rock songs played in the background.
Shortly after 9:30 p.m., Democratic Chairman Joseph Cryan briskly walked through the crowd lingering around the hot dogs, soda and cash bar at the election night headquarters.
Asked where the other Democrats were, he said, "Everybody's trying to figure out what's going on."
At the Republican headquarters, Kyrillos fired up the party faithful with a brief speech in the ballroom at 9 p.m., telling them, "In the places were Chris Christie should be performing well, we are doing very, very well."
He also told the crowd that CNN was reporting that Christie was winning about 58 percent of the independent vote, an electorate Christie needed to carry if he expected a victory.
Kyrillos said Christie, running mate Kim Guadagno and their families were "upbeat" about how the election was proceeding. The candidates and their families were monitoring vote totals from a hotel suite.
Things got especially upbeat after Daggett conceded.
"Your old friend Chris Daggett is conceding as we speak," he told those in the ballroom, drawing loud cheers and applause. "I sense that bit of news is no surprise."
Word that The Associated Press called the election for Christie began filtering through his campaign gathering at the Hilton Parsippany ballroom after 10:30 p.m.
The news turned a crowd that was upbeat to begin with into a mass of cheering people who waved Christie signs and sang along to songs played by a Bruce Springsteen tribute band.
Sensing official victory, the crowd started singing, "Hey, hey, doin' fine," and chanting, "Bye, bye Corzine."
New Jersey Republican Committee Chairman Jay Weber called the party's get-out-the-vote efforts on Tuesday "the best ground-level effort that our party has undertaken." That effort included more than 150,000 volunteer phone calls, he said.
Weber said turnout in traditional Republican strongholds was strong. In particular, he said Christie campaign officials were happy with turnout in Ocean County.
As results came in, the Republican Governor's Association congratulated Christie.
"Chris Christie secured a major victory for the Republican Party tonight," said RGA Chairman Haley Barbour in a statement. "Defeating a deep-pocketed incumbent in a Democratic state like New Jersey is a tremendous accomplishment and signals the beginning of the GOP's comeback."
Election night came after a final flurry of campaigning in northern and central New Jersey.
Corzine voted at about 6:30 a.m. at an Elks Lodge in Hoboken, Hudson County. Afterward he attended seven events, including a pair of diner stops with running mate state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, before arriving at the election night headquarters in the early evening.
Christie voted at about 7 a.m. in a Mendham fire station in Morris County. From there, he and Guadagno fanned out and made nine stops.
After Daggett voted shortly after 9:15 a.m. at Fellowship Village in Somerset County, he made a half-dozen stops, greeting commuters at the Port Imperial Ferry Terminal in Weehawken, Hudson County, in the morning and the Ridgewood Train station in Bergen County in the afternoon.
Corzine's approval ratings had languished for most of the year and a half after he had proposed paying off billions of dollars of state debt with long term leases of the state's toll roads.
On the other hand, when Christie entered the race in January, it was on the heels of almost seven years as the state's U.S. Attorney, a time when the office drew fame after it successfully prosecuted more than 130 corrupt officials.
Both won their respective primaries in June.
Christie had to fend off a conservative challenge by former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, even though Christie had virtually unanimous support from the state's Republican Party.
Christie's high point came shortly after his former office arrested 44 people on an array of public corruption and money laundering charges days after Christie named Guadagno, the Monmouth County Sheriff, his running mate. Polls afterward staked Christie to a large, double digit lead.
But the Corzine political apparatus took over. They capitalized on several Christie missteps. It hammered him with advertising that published reports indicated were cleared by White House staff that feared losing the only incumbent governor's seat to a Republican. The ads attempted to brand the ex-prosecutor as a hypocrite with different standards for his and others' conduct.
Corzine may have been aided by the emergence of Daggett, the independent, whose strong performance in an early October televised debate drew attention to his candidacy.
Daggett's campaign centered around his proposal to reduce property, income and corporate taxes by expanding items covered by the sales tax. It drew disaffected Christie and Corzine supporters, according to polling data, who were put off by the negative campaigning and the lack of specific proposals for the next term.
Support for Daggett faded in the final days, after reaching as high as 20 percent in some polls. Christie and national Republicans targeted his campaign, after polls suggested that he was drawing Republicans away.
Corzine drew on national Democratic leaders, attempting to ride the coattails of President Barack Obama, who overwhelmingly won the state last year.
Obama made three visits and Vice President Joe Biden made a number of stops, including one in Atlantic City, and lower level cabinet members appeared on a near-weekly frequency.
Christie eschewed many of the more prominent national Republican Party leaders and large scale rallies for lower-key events with state officials.
Finances also played a significant role.
State records show that Gov. Jon S. Corzine, the independently wealthy former CEO of Goldman Sachs, gave or loaned $22.6 million to his general election campaign, on top of $3.25 million he gave to his primary campaign.
Christie and Daggett, however, had agreed to take public financing for their campaigns and were constrained by the $10.9 million spending limit. Corzine did not take public financing, and was not limited.
His campaign had spent $25.9 million by the time mandatory campaign finance reports were filed Oct. 23. Final figures, due Nov. 23, will likely show significantly more spending.
Staff writer Juliet Fletcher contributed to this report.