While not all state legislative races have been called yet, Phil Murphy’s victory means Democrats are likely to control the governor's office and both houses of the Legislature. | Getty Images Murphy defeats Guadagno to become New Jersey's next governor

Democrat Phil Murphy, a millionaire former Goldman Sachs executive and U.S. ambassador to Germany who’s never held elective office, will succeed Republican Chris Christie as New Jersey’s governor after defeating Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno on Tuesday.

Murphy, a progressive who grew up outside of Boston and smiled so much on the campaign trail that he was mocked for it, will bring to Trenton a sharp change in style from the combative and Jersey-born Christie, who became famous for his public fights with constituents and politicians.


Tuesday's double-digit victory by Murphy, an unabashed liberal who supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and providing free community college, means New Jersey’s government will be under full Democratic control for the first time in eight years. At the same time, it will inevitably be read as a repudiation of the deeply unpopular Christie and equally unpopular President Donald Trump.

With 99 percent of the vote counted, Murphy was leading Guadagno 56 percent to 42 percent.

In his victory speech to supporters at Convention Hall in Asbury Park, Murphy tied his win to a backlash against the Trump administration.

“We will stand firm for New Jersey’s values and push back against the mean winds blowing at us from Washington D.C.,” Murphy said, decrying “mean-spirited actions to gut our health care.”

“We will stand with steeled spines and simply say and firmly say ‘with all due respect, Mr. President, you will not do that in the great State of New Jersey,” he said.

In addition to raising the minimum wage, Murphy pledged during his victory speech to re-fund Planned Parenthood clinics de-funded by Christie and institute new gun control measures.

After congratulating Murphy, Guadagno said her campaign’s principles will live on.

“Never forget what we were fighting for here,” she told supporters at The Addison Park in Keyport. “We were fighting for our families and we will continue that fight for lower taxes and a safer New Jersey. We will keep up the fight. We may have lost the battle, but we will win this war in the long run."

Come January, the 60-year-old Murphy will assume what is often called the most powerful governorship in the country.

He will have line-item veto power over the state’s roughly $35 billion budget and the power to name top state officials, like the attorney general, who, in many other states, are elected. But he will also confront a retirement system underfunded by billions of dollars after two decades of neglect, a deteriorating public transit system and an economy that has lagged the nation’s.

Guadagno will be succeeded as lieutenant governor by Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, an African-American from Essex County who served as speaker of the lower house from 2010 to 2014.

Although Murphy led in the polls by double-digits throughout the race, he frequently slammed Guadagno for her ties to Christie, whose 14 percent approval rating makes him the most unpopular governor in state history. He also tied his Republican opponent to Trump, who is also unpopular in New Jersey but not as politically toxic as Christie.

Murphy had to battle a different connection: His biographical similarities to New Jersey’s last Democratic governor, Jon Corzine, another former Goldman Sachs executive whom Christie defeated in 2009. Murphy describes Corzine as a “friend” but has insisted “I’m not Jon.”

Murphy has promised to be a governor “who has your back” — a direct shot at Christie’s scandals and frequent absences from the state. He's also emphasized his working-class upbringing outside Boston, saying his family was “middle-class on a good day.”

The governor-elect began his campaign with a number of pledges meant to appeal to liberal activists and public workers unions. In addition to promising free tuition at community colleges, he promised to increase protections for undocumented “dreamer” immigrants who came to the state as children and improve NJ Transit, which has been plagued by delays and outdated infrastructure.

But he's struggled to explain how he’ll pay for his programs, promising to raise taxes by about $1.3 million — largely based on increasing the tax rates on the state’s wealthiest individuals and an anticipated $300 million in taxes sales of legalized marijuana.

The amount, however, won’t come close to covering his campaign promises.

Murphy has also floated the idea of creating a state bank modeled on the only other existing one, in North Dakota.

One of Guadagno's main campaign proposals was a “circuit breaker” she said would relieve property taxes — the highest in the nation — for middle-class taxpayers. Under the plan, breaker would kick in if a resident’s school tax liability exceeds 5 percent of their yearly household income. The homeowner would receive a direct tax credit for any amount above that threshold, with a limit of $3,000 in savings per year, according to her campaign.

But Guadagno never explained in detail how she would pay for the program’s estimated $1.5 billion cost, only promising to find the money through a vague promise to “audit” Trenton.

Although New Jerseyans consistently rate property taxes as the most important issue facing the state, Guadagno had a tough time getting her message across, struggling to raise the funds necessary for significant television advertising in the expensive New York and Philadelphia media markets.

With polls showing her trailing badly, she shifted strategies in the final weeks of the campaign.

Capitalizing on Murphy’s pledge during a debate to make New Jersey a sanctuary state “if need be,” she began running a television ad reminiscent of George H.W. Bush’s infamous Willie Horton ad, saying Murphy would “have the backs of deranged murderers.”

The ad drew howls from Democrats, who called it racist. But it also caused some suburban and rural Democrats to distance themselves from their nominee’s position, and drew an enthusiastic response from conservative areas of the state.

Still, New Jersey’s natural Democratic tilt was too much for Guadagno to overcome. There are 879,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state.

Absent from the campaign trail but ever present in the race was Christie. A once popular governor, his approval rating plummeted in the aftermath of the Bridgegate scandal and as he spent most of 2015 and the first part of 2016 out of state in his unsuccessful bid for president.

Guadagno, who did not publicly criticize Christie during most of her time in state government, began speaking out against him in the last year, when he supported a hike in the state’s gas tax to fund transportation projects.

She often bristled at reporters who asked her about Christie, saying the race was about her, not him.

Spending in the race was lopsided. Murphy began laying the groundwork for his campaign in 2014, spending around $20 million on his primary election and millions more on a super PAC and non-profit think tank in the lead up to his campaign — most of it from his own pocket.

For the general election, he surprised many politics watchers by opting to participate in the state’s matching funds program, which limited his campaign spending to $13.8 million and required him to rely on other donors.

Murphy raised all $13.8 million, while Guadagno struggled, raising less than a third of it as of late October.

Murphy also enlisted marquee Democrats to stump for him in the campaign's final weeks, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and former Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore.

Although Guadagno has echoed some of Trump’s campaign themes, she kept her distance from the president, seldom mentioning him. The president, in turn, ignored Guadagno, taking to Twitter to encourage Virginia residents to vote for its Republican candidate for governor, Ed Gillespie, but not mentioning Guadagno.

New Jersey and Virginia were the only two states that elected governors on Tuesday. In Virginia, Democrat Ralph Northam defeated Republican Ed Gillespie.

Katie Jennings and Katherine Landergan contributed reporting.

UPDATE: This story has been updated with quotes from Murphy and Guadagno.

