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♪ >> Election day is a few days away, just in time for the next campaigns to begin.

I and David Cruz.

It is Reporters Roundtable.

Nancy Solomon, Stacy Sherman, Senior editor for Bloomberg, and Matt Friedman, reporter for Politico and author of "the New Jersey playbook."

Will hear from the panel in a few minutes, but we look at Tuesday's election day.

Every state lawmakers on the ballot, and while turnout may ultimately suggest otherwise, it has been an interesting race, if only because of how much potential news has to impact the results.

Let's bring in Michael Rasmussen to talk about all of this -- mica Rasmussen to talk about all of this.

Good to have you back.

Talk about the news affecting the race, did the collapse of offshore wind and the Republicans two seats?

>> It is hard to tell.

On one hand, the slow turnout election means you have voters who are paying more attention, so they will see and notice more.

They cannot just assume it will fly under the radar screen.

On the other hand, this is not a lot of time for campaigns to capitalize and get ads out the door.

Let them know who they think is at fault here, so it is unclear what kind of an impact they will have.

Even if it lets all the air out of the wind issue, so to speak, and lets the urgency out of it.

>> I was waiting for the first wind pun.

Thank you forgetting that when out-of-the-way.

Republicans are feeling pretty good about affordability, parental notification, and get your hands off my gas stoves, no?

>> When you consider the timing of the issues you mentioned, including wind, this is probably the toughest environment issue wise that the majority party has faced in a generation.

It is just a bad confluence, a bad group of breaks.

Republicans would say that they don't know what the Democrats are doing, but they have had a lot to deal with this season.

They have stuck with the messaging about affordability and on abortion, but it could spell some wildcards for them on Tuesday.

>> On the other hand, Democrats think they are making points with their base, saying Republicans are trying to abridge their rights to abortion services.

Do they have a point?

>> Here is where I think they have a point, and we could debate whether or not we think abortion is frightened or safely safeguarded in New Jersey, but if you are somebody who cares about abortion, are you inclined to vote for pro-life people, regardless of whether or not policies can change?

Is that -- are you going to look past the pro-life issues?

I am not sure that argument holds a lot of warrant.

The one thing we know for sure is that campaigns are talking past each other.

Democrats are trying to fire up Democratic voters to come out and Republicans are trying to do the same.

This is not a high persuasion election where we are trying to see which one is more important.

We are trying to see which one motivates the base of each party to show up.

>> Where are they trying to do that the most?

What districts does that create battlegrounds in?

Is it the same 3, 4, 11, 16 that we are all talking about?

>> Those four for sure, and in South Jersey, Democrats are fighting for resurgence, relevancy, they want to be back at the table.

That is where you see the grudge match with Matt's retirement.

You see the Democrat and monolith County who will be facing a tough race, and then you see they are also used to having Republicans come after in a rematch with Mike Pappas this time.

So those are the four primary districts.

The interesting thing is we have other peripheral districts, and I think that is a consequence.

We are not anywhere near 40 competitive districts, but we may be on a larger playing field thanks to the more competitive area.

>> Phantom candidates, I think the GOP says, or it has filed suit, you do not know what is an unknown campaign, not answering calls candidate heart, can you?

>> You cannot.

That is a problem.

And Matt will have a different opinion when you talk about the intent of a candidate, but there are a lot of candidates who do not really campaign.

They may be running as a protest vote.

There are dozens of people who file to run for president.

And that is the last you ever hear from them.

No website or social media.

We really cannot determine intent.

We can know it when we see it.

We can know it is a spoiler or the intent is to draw votes away from the other side, but that looks a lot like other third-party Kennedy sees, and it will be really difficult to try and discern -- candidacies, and it will be really difficult to try and discern that you have a legitimate candidacy and you have a not legitimate Phantom candidacy.

>> You have been posting a lot about vote by mail's and giving daily tallies, why is that important this time around?

>> For one thing, these are the only numbers we have so far.

For another thing, we know that Democrats like to vote by mail, and they like to vote early.

So it is not a true representation of what the electorate is going to look like.

Republicans are gearing up to get a big vote out on election day.

What it does and can tell us is whether Democrats are performing up to their standard, whether they are getting their vote out.

In the third District, they are well above where they were in 2021 and where they ended up in 2021.

So they are fired up.

In another district, they are running behind where they were in 2021.

We can see that they have got further to go.

We can see whether or not Democrats are energized.

So far, I will tell you that it looks a lot like Tony 21, 20 -- like 2021 and 2022.

I can tell you so far, we are not detecting in the in person early vote or by the vote by mail some unevaluated and unseen surge.

Some way we were not expecting.

We are not seen evidence of that yet.

Not saying it cannot happen but we don't see evidence.

>> Lastly, thoughts on Terry Murphy beginning the process of exploring her candidacy for Senate?

>> So, I saw an interesting column on this that suggests that if Governor Murphy were to have a really bad night in his last midterm, let's face it, midterms are always a reflection of the executive, that that could reflect on Murphy.

I am not sure that Murphy will see it that way.

They will take their case likely to the county chairs and try and spread the wealth and see where that gets them.

Andy Kim is running in the meantime.

These are two great candidates.

I am looking forward to this one.

It is almost like we cannot get past this one first before people are gearing up for next year.

>> mica Rasmussen will be part of the cost of thousands who will be with us on election night to bring you the results and analysis.

Thank you for coming on.

Good to see you.

See you on Tuesday.

>> Sounds good.

>> Panel, Nancy, Stacy, Matt, good to see you all.

It has turned into an interesting election, I thought.

The news about Orsted this week was a bombshell, but is it going to claim any candidates?

What is the impact of the OØrsted news?

>> I think what Mica said is accurate in this is an election that turns out your base.

The last time the Senate was at the top of the ticket was 2011.

The turnout was 27%.

This is really not about persuading voters went about whose base is more excited.

From the indications we have seen, the Republican base has kind of a lot more to go on.

We do not know how this is going to play out.

Certainly, the idea of this project dying, Republicans already opposed to it, you know, more liberal voters, more pro-energy, it is more dispiriting towards the left side of this.

Really, there is no point trying to predict it.

We will not know until election day.

I think that if it does have any sort of impact on the election, it will be pretty small.

I was talking to one Republican campaign person, and they said, I have a neighbor on Twitter, a moderate Democrat, and I said to him in the morning, well, what do you think of this OØrsted thing?

He said, what thing?

For the most part, it is turning out the party base and he was more motivated.

To the extent that this specific news has a minor effect, it can swing in effect in the postrace.

>> Do you agree with Matt that it is not going to give anybody else after vote who probably was already ready to vote?

>> Yeah.

I agree with Matt.

You know, I think it is a huge deal and will have political implications for the Murphy administration.

I do not know that that will turn up so quickly in one weeks vote.

Like I agree with Matt, and I agree that in a low turnout election, I think there are several things going on that really could tip the scales because we are talking about such low numbers of voters.

>> Nobody cares about wind?

>> I don't know about that.

I think people had already made up their minds before, like they knew about this.

So, you know, they already decided the news that OØrsted is backing out, it might have just brought it more to the forefront .

People really do not know it was happening, so it might bring a few more voters who do not know this was happening in your jersey it might bring them to the voters both -- happening in New Jersey.

It might bring them up to the voters both.

You have your pro-wind and anti-wind people who were already going to the polls.

>> Pro-wind, anti-wind.

I love that.

Nancy Solomon, with districts so engineered by redistricting, is there any room for surprises and where might we see them?

>> I think what people have been saying is the conventional wisdom is that there are only a few districts that are purple districts, and that so many of them are engineered.

But I don't know.

I really think that all bets are off on a Tuesday on this one because the movement of her parental control, as it is called, which parents are upset about a policy that protects transgender students.

They are upset about sex education.

These issues came up in 2021 in the gubernatorial race.

They have been percolating ever since.

Mask mandates upset parents.

So, you are talking about, you know, one of the bigger groups in New Jersey that is advocating for this stuff.

They have got 481 school board candidates that they are recommending on their website.

That gives you a sense of the scope of, you know, if they are reaching 100,000 parents who are angry and are going to turn out to vote on an election that may they normally would not have voted on, that is a real wildcard.

Matt reported on this a couple of weeks ago, I think he was the first one to point out that this selection is not a deal in any sense of the word.

And I thought when I read his piece, light, hmm, I don't know about that.

And I started doing reporting, and it is like, oh!

Holy cow!

Anything could happen on Tuesday.

>> Stacy, there is talk over the red wave.

You hear it a lot from Republicans mostly.

Will Republicans overpromise and under deliver again?

>> Do you know what?

Since the morning I woke up and found out that Donald Trump was my president, I do not take anything for granted.

Anything can happen in this state.

I need, and you have, if there are districts that people take for granted, you wake up and you have a new legislator.

Anything can happen here in these elections with so few voters going to the polls.

If you get a couple hundred people out, you can turn, you know, you can win.

Anything can happen.

>> Matt, given the unpredictability of all of this, can you pick a winner and loser that we do not see coming?

>> No, I certainly would not try to venture any predictions.

They are a couple of potential surprises, like where the parties are playing low-key, where in a certain type of election, maybe a surprise could happen.

I would look at two assembly seats in different districts, in the 14, for the open assembly seat there, Dan Benson, the Republicans are making a little bit of a play for that.

And you also see that Senator Testa is sending campaign literature from his own account, targeting Democratic legislators in that district and district 16 and a couple of others, where he is going out on his own.

I would also say that in the 30th district, the liquid Orthodox Jewish community wants representative in Trenton.

They are running a Democrat named who was a Republican, who by all accounts, would probably vote for Republican legislation.

He would probably vote Republican on everything except leadership.

So he is really just kind of a, you know, it is a leadership thing, but they have a huge voting block and that could potentially be a surprise and a heavily Republican district.

I think one thing that Democrats do have that we do not talk about a lot is that they have steadily built up this -- when we talk about a low turnout election, what they did in 2018 and 2019 when they passed these laws, everybody who had signed up for a mail-in ballot insert elections before them and going forward now automatically get them every year, so that is a way of engaging Democratic leaning voters who do not often show up to off year elections like this one.

But now they get a valid.

So -- now they get a valid, so -- ballot so it is easy for them to send it off.

With Republicans just listening to a guy who took every chance he could for his own personal political reasons, not for the good of the party, but are own political reasons, he decided to crap on vote by mail.

You have mistrust on the Democratic side of the system and Republicans have embraced it.

That is going to be a Democratic advantage.

They have a built-in -- I would not call it firewall because it isn't bulletproof -- but especially in New Jersey, where the party has built up over the years, now you are seeing it more in North Jersey, too.

There are potentially more Democrats who would not normally be engaged you are being engaged by vote by mail, and much more than Republicans.

That is a factor we do not talk about that does work to Democrats' inherent advantage.

>> You mentioned South Jersey.

Let's talk about these phantom candidates.

Stacy, are Democrats playing dirty tricks by putting up phony candidates to siphon votes in South Jersey?

And I Republicans care that it is going to work?

-- and our Republican scared that it is going to work?

>> Mica says something interesting about intent.

It is very hard to figure or prove intent.

It could be said that any independent candidate running for president is a phantom candidate because they know there is a slim, slim chance of them ever winning, so they are doing it to take votes from the majority candidate.

It is tough to prove intent.

It seems, you know, it seems you could figure out what their intent is.

There is no way of proving it.

Seems like a dirty way of swaying the election in a turnout election that is low.

Interesting.

>> You have been all over this.

>> we have to draw a distinction between proving and knowing in a commonsense level.

We are not judges or juries.

What Mica was talking about, let's say that for the court.

Let's talk about common sense and all the evidence we have right now.

These candidates are full of crap, they are phantom candidates with no intention of running.

I don't know why they are doing it or how they were convinced, but they are not real candidates.

If you were protesting something, then protested.

It is clear from the totality of circumstantial evidence that these people have been encouraged to run and have been helped by people connected with the South Jersey Democratic machine to get on the ballot and their purpose is to mislead voters and draw conservative leaning votes from no information voters away from Republican candidates, it is very clear when you look at the evidence.

Well, you cannot prove it, well, I mean on a commonsense level, you can.

I challenge them to come at me.

Also, South Jersey Democrats have a history of doing this.

I do not know political operative Steve, Hope you are watching, I don't know if Steve ask you is behind these, but I do know that in 2010, Steve askew was cited in the newspaper as encouraging a phantom candidate.

He is the main political operator for Democrats.

>> Let's get Nancy in on this.

Nancy, I did not think the South Jersey machine had it in them anymore.

This obviously smells like a George Norcross thing, but he is retired.

Isn't he?

>> No.

I don't think he is retired and never did.

This is an indication.

To be fair, the South Jersey Democrats get slapped down for taking elections for granted and allowing Steve Sweeney to go down.

And now, you know, they are in there, fighting.

So, you know, there is that, but obviously fighting with phantom candidates is not what you want to see.

I don't think the point should be, you know, is this criminal or how it should be stopped.

I think the point is in the importance of these kinds of stories is to highlight all of the problems we have with our ballot.

And all the problems we have systemically with the way that we elect our candidates in New Jersey, and the power of the political machines.

So, this is a great entryway, even the word phantom gets the work people interested.

It is a great entryway into not just the dirty tricks but also all the problems with the New Jersey ballot and why our system needs reform.

>> Time for our only in Jersey moments, headlines and notes that are quintessentially Jersey.

Matt?

>> I think it is funny that they call the lobby elections transparency act when receipt transparency flouted by phantom candidates, which have a Super PAC supporting them that has hidden its donors ahead of the election.

If we ever truly know who its donors are, we will not know until after the election.

There is a new Super PAC that is spending tens of thousands of dollars in Sayreville to promote the return of the former mayor, Kennedy O'Brien, and when I talked to the person whose name was on paper, he told me, Kennedy O'Brien said they were starting a pack and want me to be president.

So the election transparency act has so far, there is some disclosure groups that we might have gotten before but there are loopholes that people are taking advantage of this group in Sayreville is highly donors by having them give less than $7,500.

>> Nancy?

>> I think the most Jersey thing for this week is what did not happen, which is that there are no candidates legit, you know, who have jumped into the race for Bob Menendez's seat.

The minute Tammy Murphy signaled with a little trial balloon weak story that she was being asked to run for the Menendez seat, there has not been a peek of any of the candidates you would expect to be interested in the seat.

I think that is really only in Jersey because it is, once again, it is the power of the political machines and the endorsement process, and the way they can control the primary ballot that is keeping people away from that race because if Tammy Murphy wants it, it is hers to take.

They have done both the leg work and donated the money to be in a position to get those party endorsements for her to escape to victory in a primary.

>> Mine comes from the mile Square city, Hoboken, where a municipal election is taking place next week.

The big issue is not taxes or public safety, not the rowdy nightlife, or even flooding.

The issue everyone seems to be talking about this election day in Hoboken is rats!

It seems the slinky waterfront city has been overrun by rapacious rodents.

The boom in outdoor dining is allegedly to blame, but in a town where politics can get really dirty and smelly, it is refreshing, I guess, to see that the rats are running around Perry Park and not running for office.

And that is roundtable for this week.

Nancy, Stacy, Matt, good to see you all.

Thank you to Mica Rasmussen for joining us.

Join us election night, Tuesday, for a special edition of Reporters Roundtable at 8:00 p.m., with Steve, Bob, and many more.

And then at 9:00, the entire news team takes over for lot coverage throughout the night with reporters in key districts and expert analysis at 8:00 on NJPBS and are streaming platforms.

Follow us on X at RoundtableNJ and scan the QR code on your screen for more content.

I am Terry Cruz.

Further crew at Gateway Center, thank you for watching.

We will see you again Tuesday night.

>> Major funding for Reporters Roundtable is provided by RWJBarnabas Health, let's be healthy together.

Promotional support provided by the New Jersey magazine, reporting on legislative leaders in all 21 counties of the Garden State since 1954, and by politicos New Jersey playbook, topical newsletter on Garden State politics, online at Politico.com.

♪