What New Jersey Can Tell Us About the 2020 Elections
This is part 2 of a 3 post series on the 2018 Midterms and the Aftermath in New Jersey and the U.S.
Here is part 1: Recapping the 2018 Midterms and the Sick Tricks that Defined Them
You can’t compare New Jersey to the rest of the country- its residents are more educated, financially well-off, and diverse than most of the country. However, it’s historically a moderate state that just escaped eight years of Republican Chris Christie as governor. Several Democratic elected officials across the state endorsed his reelection. Last year, however, Governor Phil Murphy ran on a progressive platform that you wouldn’t think was possible in New Jersey. He promised to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund government investment in the economy, infrastructure, public schools, and colleges. He also promised to fully fund the state pension system, adopt an equal pay law, support additional gun control legislation, legalize marijuana, pass criminal justice reforms, and provide financial aid to the state’s undocumented students. Although the Senate President is a Democrat with more moderate fiscal policy positions than the governor, New Jersey is one of the few states in the country where Democrats control the governor and state houses.
After the midterms, this image from NJ.com was widely shared by locals on social media:
Within four years, Republicans went from having six congressmen to having only one. Democrats hold every seat in the Congressional delegation except one. Obviously, a lot of people were happy, but this map doesn’t amount to anything if Democrats aren’t pushing policies that address the issues that got them elected in the first place. They should be reminded of these maps:
This is a map created by NJ Spotlight in 2013 that highlights state-wide gaps in household incomes. New Jersey ranked as the second wealthiest state in the country between 2008 to 2012. The median income in the state was $71,637. More than a quarter of the state’s municipalities had a median household income of at least $100,000 while the poorest areas of the state had median household incomes closer to $26,705.
This is a map created for a January 2017 article by NJ.com that addresses income inequality per town in New Jersey. Despite a national economy that was recovering from the 2008 Great Recession, more wealth was concentrated in fewer people as wages remained stagnant for the middle and lower class. At the same time, the cost of living has been increasing every year.
It’s not hard to see why someone like Republican Tom McArthur lost his congressional seat. New Jersey is ranked as the 7th worst state in the country for income inequality. The income of the wealthiest five percent in the state is more than 14 times those of the poorest families. What did McArthur think was going to happen when he voted for a Trump tax plan that significantly reduced property tax exemptions for New Jersey residents AND also voted for gutting the Affordable Care Act?
Democrats in both state and federal elected offices are going to have to address income inequality head on if they want to retain their seats. It’s the issue that Trump stole from Bernie Sanders and crassly overly-simplified. Trump ran on being an independent businessman who would shake things up in Washington and bring jobs back to the country. He distorted the issue Bernie was selling- the majority of jobs in this country are not paying enough for people to afford the high costs of housing, health care, and raising a family.
In New Jersey and across the nation, we need to ensure people have access to jobs they can depend on to take care of their families’ basic needs. We also need to make sure the costs of living are fair and just. That’s the reason why Democratic Senator Bob Menendez’s campaign relentlessly reminded voters that his Republican opponent Bob Hugin and his pharmaceutical company made millions of dollars by raising prices several times on life-saving cancer drugs. A system where large corporations are taking advantage of the struggles of working-class people is not a fair and just system.
As 2020 approaches, will Democrats be able to get this message across in the face of Trump’s persistent efforts to manipulate the media?
