Sen. George Helmy (D-NJ) has a drastically different assessment of the 2024 race than his former boss, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ), who called President-elect Donald Trump’s strong performance in New Jersey a “sobering moment.”
Helmy, who served as Murphy’s chief of staff until 2023, said that New Jersey is still reliably blue, downplaying the idea that Trump’s 5-point loss there on Tuesday was the latest sign the state is shifting right.
Three years earlier, Murphy only won reelection by 3 points, a far closer margin than political observers expected.
“I think these are anomalies. I think the Democratic Party is in good shape in New Jersey,” Helmy told the Washington Examiner on Friday.
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Murphy, who appointed Helmy to replace disgraced Sen. Bob Menendez in August, agrees to a certain extent. He disputed the idea that New Jersey is suddenly entering swing state territory while speaking to reporters the day after the election.
Murphy cited as evidence Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) winning his Senate race by a 9-point margin on Tuesday. Kim will replace Helmy, a caretaker for the New Jersey seat, as soon as this month.
Still, Murphy struck a notably cautious tone on Wednesday, suggesting Trump’s narrow loss is cause for Democratic “soul-searching,” whether that be a change in messaging or policy.
For comparison, Murphy won his 2017 race for governor by 13 points. President Joe Biden’s winning margin in 2020 was 16.
“I don’t think we’re in swing territory, but I’ll tell ya — a mistake you could make right now is to put your feet up and think this is an aberration, and we’re not going to do that,” he said.
Helmy conceded that Democrats need to do a better job at communicating their message on the economy, blaming the presidential outcome on “inflationary pressures” the party was unable to escape.
In 2021, he said backlash to COVID-19 kept the governor’s race closer than political observers expected. Rather than a disappointment, he cast it in historic terms.
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“He was the first Democrat reelected, I think, in 40 or 45 years,” Helmy said of Murphy. “And if you look at his raw number, it far exceeded the raw numbers of some of our most popular governors, including Gov. Christie’s.”
By contrast, Murphy told reporters his narrow reelection “might have been the canary in the coal mine” for how 2024 turned out.
“Listen, it’s a sobering moment, how could it not be? Including in New Jersey,” Murphy said at a news conference. “We’ve been trying to war game this and do a post-mortem, and we still don’t have all the answers.”
Trump’s overperformance was hardly limited to New Jersey. He drastically improved on his 2020 margins in blue strongholds from New York to Rhode Island.
But the seismic shift has implications in the near future for New Jersey. Murphy is term-limited, meaning there will be no incumbent for next year’s governor’s race. Jack Ciattarelli, Murphy’s 2021 challenger, again plans to run for the office.
Murphy said that Trump occupying the White House was “one of the factors” that contributed to his electoral success in 2017 and wondered if backlash to his second term would help whoever next leads the Democratic ticket.
But he said it’s “too early to tell” if that race will be close.
Down ballot, he expects Assembly races to “play out in a fairly traditional way.” Democrats presently control both chambers of the state Legislature.
Across the last decade, Helmy has become an insider in New Jersey politics. Before he served as Murphy’s chief, he worked as a staffer for two of the state’s senators.
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But his own stint as senator will be quite short. Helmy, sworn into the office in September, is expected to soon relinquish his seat to allow Kim to get sworn in before the start of the new Congress.
“I will be ready to step down once the election is certified and we know it’s in the best interest for me to do so,” he said.