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Roughly two months before the Virginia gubernatorial election in 2021, the wheels completely fell off of Democrat nominee Terry McAuliffe’s campaign after he blurted out, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” during a debate with then-GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin.
In response, Youngkin, his campaign, and the GOP capitalized on it with ruthless precision at a time when parental rights were under attack at state and national levels, and McAuliffe did himself no favors when pressed on his answer during the interviews that came in the weeks that followed.
By the time Election Day hit, the McAuliffe implosion concluded with Youngkin emerging victorious in a purplish-blue state just months after our supposed intellectual betters had concluded that McAuliffe was the odds-on favorite to win a second (non-consecutive) term.
I’m getting similar vibes this election cycle, with Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and her gubernatorial campaign seeming to be in a freefall with just weeks to go before she and her Republican opponent, former NJ State Rep. Jack Ciattarelli, face off at the ballot box.
SEE ALSO –>> ‘A Big Deal’: Labor Union That Endorsed Dem NJ Gov. Murphy in ’21 Now Backing GOP Opponent’s Campaign
As RedState reported Thursday, amid questions surrounding revelations from a 1992 Naval Academy cheating scandal, where Sherrill admitted that “I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk,” we learned that the race was now in a dead heat, a stunning turn around for Ciattarelli, considering some previous polls had shown Sherrill with double digit leads between 10 and 21 percent.
In an update to this development, Sherrill’s campaign has released an internal poll that allegedly has her up by seven percent:
But as some numbers crunchers and political observers noted, in reality, this isn’t good news for Sherrill. Former 538 senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich observed, for instance, that:
Further, Democrat coalitions in New Jersey are getting panicky about Sherrill’s chances of turning out the vote among core constituencies Democrats have traditionally relied on to drag them over the finish line:
With weeks to go in New Jersey’s high-stakes governor’s race, key members of Democrats’ diverse coalition, including union and Black leaders, have been raising concerns — even when they’re not supposed to.
[…]
Traditionally, organized labor has backed Democrats. That’s not necessarily the case in the Trump era — a potential problem for Democrats in a state with one of the nation’s highest rates of labor union membership. Traditionally, organized labor has backed Democrats. That’s not necessarily the case in the Trump era — a potential problem for Democrats in a state with one of the nation’s highest rates of labor union membership.
In a key sign Democrats are worried, the report noted they were now downplaying expectations, being “quick to note that Democrats have not won three consecutive governor’s elections in New Jersey since 1961.”
And to make matters worse for Sherrill, Ciattarelli has landed another endorsement one would expect the Democrat in the race to get:
It’s clear the momentum is all going in one direction. Will Ciattarelli be able to flip the Garden State this time around, after coming so close against current Gov. Phil Murphy in the prior election? It’s gonna be fun to watch how this plays out.
