NJ Democrats not expected to change agenda for election 2023: Video
Senior political writer Charles Stile sees not much changing for New Jersey Democrats.
Time to cast your vote New Jersey. Follow along here for live coverage of the 2023 elections.
We’ll have updates from local races across the region, including municipal, school board and ballot measures, as well as the state Legislature.
Check back here throughout the day and night for live updates from our reporters from the polls, including comments from candidates and voters. Don’t forget to refresh after the polls close Tuesday to see results for your local races.
You can see votes counts as precincts start to report here. And state Senate and Assembly results will be here.
More: Our guide to Central Jersey’s 2023 elections for state, local offices and school boards
Check back for updates.
In South Brunswick, the only Middlesex County town in the 16th District, Zwicker has polled 3,590 votes to Pappas’s 1,150 votes. That does not include the votes cast today at the polls.
The Hunterdon County Clerk has posted the early voting totals which now gives Zwicker a 4,373 to 2,457 lead over Pappas.
The first vote tallies are starting to come in.
In Hunterdon County, in the 16th Legislative District, incumbent Democrat Andrew Zwicker outpolled Republican challenger Michael Pappas, 3,203 to 1,462. That doesn’t include today’s votes or early voting.
There’s still a long way to go.
The polls have closed in New Jersey. Counting commences. Results should be available in some counties within the next few hours. But some races will be too close to call, and mailed ballots postmarked on time can be counted as long as they county boards of election receive them by Nov. 13.
It’s 7 pm Do you know where your vote is?
Polls close at 8 pm in New Jersey and the counting will begin once everybody in line at 8 pm casts a ballot.
We expect the first results to start rolling in by 9:30 pm with the smaller towns in Central Jersey. It may be midnight or beyond when the county clerk’s offices report the tallies from the larger towns.
And remember tonight’s numbers are unofficial until all the absentee and provisional ballots are counted in the coming days. It ain’t over until the county clerks sing.
Though it’s an off-year election, the races in Central Jersey will have an impact on state, county and municipal governments as well as local school boards.
The dominant state legislative race in Central Jersey is in the 16th District which has been targeted by the state GOP as vital to its plan to cut into the Democratic edge in both the Senate and Assembly. Democrats hold a 46-34 edge in the Assembly, where 41 votes are needed for a majority, and a 25-15 lead in the Senate, where 21 votes are needed for majority control.
In an expensive. hard-hitting campaign, incumbent Democrat Andrew Zwicker is fighting a challenge from Republican Michael Pappas, a former Congressman hoping to make a political comeback.
In the Assembly race, incumbent Democrat Roy Freiman and newcomer Mitchelle Drullis are being challenged by Republicans Ross Traphagen and Grace Zhang.
We will also be keeping a close eye on several mayoral races in Central Jersey, including the Middlesex County communities of Highland Park, Jamesburg, Metuchen, Monroe, North Brunswick, Old Bridge, Sayreville, South River, Woodbridge, and the Somerset County towns of Bridgewater, Franklin, Somerville, Manville and Raritan Borough.
We will also be following ballot questions on school projects in Bridgewater, Hillsborough and South River.
We will also keep you updated on mayor races in Clinton Town and Mountainside and any upsets.
Federal observers will monitor polling sites in Union County to make sure the county is complying with the Voting Rights Act, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.
In June, a federal court approved a consent decree that requires the county to print ballots in English and Spanish, among other things, such as making trained bilingual election officials available as well as poll workers to help Spanish-speaking voters.
The agreement followed a complaint by federal prosecutors that alleged the county violated provisions of the Voting Rights Act protecting residents with limited English proficiency and people with disabilities.
Those reporting potential violations of federal voting rights laws may contact the Civil Rights Division at civilrights.justice.gov or 800-253-3931.
Taxes and the economy are the biggest concerns among New Jersey voters when deciding how to cast their ballots, according to a Rutgers Eagleton poll released on Election Day.
Forty percent of those polled named fiscal issues as most important to them.
“The culture wars redux we have seen this election cycle may sound nice in sound bites and mailers and may galvanize some in each party’s base and persuade some in the middle,” said Ashley Koning, an assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University New Brunswick.
“But Democrats, Republicans and independents alike say they are most concerned about the economy, cost of living and taxes — and plan to vote with these issues in mind,” Koning said.
When pollsters asked directly about specific issues, 87% of respondents said affordability and cost of living were major factors in deciding their votes, another 87% said the economy and 83% said taxes.
As for other issues that respondents said had a major impact on how they voted:
- 70% said gun violence
- 59% said abortion
- 47% said parental involvement in education
- 27% said offshore wind
Those polled didn’t have strongly positive views on the New Jersey Legislature: 22% had a favorable impression, compared to 25% with an unfavorable impression. Almost half, or 46%, had no opinion on the legislative body at all, and 7% were unsure what the state Legislature is.
The poll of 974 adults was conducted from Nov. 3 to Nov. 5, with a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
Nearly 124,000 New Jerseyans cast ballots in person at polling places during the state’s early voting period between Oct. 28 and Nov. 5. And nearly 407,000 voters returned absentee ballots through the mail and in person by Monday, according to an analysis by Ryan Dubicki, elections researcher for the Associated Press.
Of the 530,000 ballots cast before Election Day, Democrats tended to take advantage of early voting more than Republicans, turning in 320,000 ballots compared to the GOP’s 127,000 and the 82,000 votes cast by voters unaffiliated with either party.
