ASBURY PARK, N.J. _ Philip D. Murphy, a former Wall Street banker and diplomat who defined his candidacy in opposition to incumbent Chris Christie, was elected the 56th governor of New Jersey Tuesday.
Murphy, 60, a Democrat who has never held elective office, campaigned as an unabashed liberal who would eschew the Republican Christie's pugnacious style and resist President Donald Trump's policies on issues such as health care and immigration.
Democrats also looked poised to retain or even expand their majorities in the Legislature, likely making New Jersey the seventh state under full Democratic control.
Murphy, of Middletown, Monmouth County, defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, 58, who struggled to raise money and distance herself from her politically toxic boss.
He will inherit a state that has underfunded everything from the pension system for public workers to schools to public transit. And he's promised to do better on all counts.
Murphy will take office on Jan. 16 along with his lieutenant governor, Sheila Oliver, who will vacate her Essex County Assembly seat.
Murphy's policy proposals read like a liberal wish list: he wants to nearly double the state's minimum wage over time to $15, legalize (and tax) recreational marijuana, and offer free community college without means testing.
He also wants to "fully fund" pensions and schools, but details are murky as to how he'd pay for it.
Murphy announced his candidacy a full year before the Democratic primary and immediately loaned his campaign $10 million.
He became the odds-on favorite in October 2016, when his chief rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senate President Steve Sweeney of South Jersey and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, announced they wouldn't run for governor.
Murphy went on to spend $20 million of his own money in the primary and won easily, with the full support of the party apparatus.
For her part, Guadagno, also of Monmouth County, ran for months on a pledge to reduce property taxes and a warning that Murphy would raise every tax he could. In the campaign's final month, she took a hard-line stance on immigration, but her turn to the right failed to generate the wave of GOP base voters she needed to win.
"Because of Gov. Christie's incredible unpopularity, voters in the state of New Jersey were essentially unwilling to consider electing another Republican governor at this point," said Brigid Harrison, a professor of political science at Montclair State University.
Although Guadagno wasn't personally close to Christie and had a more soft-spoken approach, she couldn't shake his shadow. On paper, she was the governor's second-in-command. So if she took credit for job growth, Guadagno couldn't dodge the rest of the Christie record.
"You've been beside him every step of the way," Murphy said in their first debate.
Just as important: voters weren't paying close attention to the race. A majority of likely voters didn't know enough about either candidate's political views to say whether they were in line with New Jersey residents, according to a Nov. 1 Monmouth University poll. More than one-third hadn't even formed an opinion on the candidates.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in New Jersey by about 880,000. A plurality of voters is unaffiliated with either party, but fewer independents vote in non-presidential years.
Pollsters were predicting record-low turnout; it was 40 percent in 2013.
