Corzine wins in N.J. for Democratic sweep

Sen. Jon Corzine convincingly defeated Doug Forrester in the race for governor of New Jersey last night, giving Republicans two stinging losses in the only statewide races in a year of declining job approval polls for President Bush and his party.

With 91 percent of precincts in the Democrat-leaning state reporting vote returns, Mr. Corzine won 1,071,905 votes, or 53.5 percent, to Mr. Forrester’s 865,485 votes, or 43.2 percent.

In a jubilant victory speech last night, Mr. Corzine said “we can change the way the public business is done in New Jersey.”

“We will restore the simple truth that public service is about serving the public,” he said.

Several cities held mayoral contests yesterday, led by New York, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg easily won in the heavily Democratic city against former Bronx borough President Fernando Ferrer.

The New Jersey race and the nation’s only other gubernatorial election yesterday — Democrat Timothy M. Kaine’s victory in Virginia over Republican Jerry W. Kilgore — were being closely watched by campaign strategists to see whether they signaled a change in the nation’s political mood ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when control of Congress and 36 gubernatorial seats will be at stake.

The Republican loss in Virginia — which Mr. Bush carried last year with nearly 54 percent of the vote — meant that Democrats have won back-to-back governor’s races in a state once considered reliably Republican.

“New Jersey has no national implications. That’s all about the state Democratic bench and local concerns,” said veteran elections analyst Stuart Rothenberg.

“But Virginia — you have to wonder whether or not there was a drag on the Republicans coming from the White House and the GOP’s national problems. Virginia is a state you’d expect Republicans to win,” he said.

Mr. Rothenberg said there were two explanations — either “Kilgore was a mediocre candidate, and the other is that there’s a lack of enthusiasm and energy among Republicans in part because of the national environment.”

Despite a nearly 2-to-1 Democratic voter advantage over the Republicans, the New Jersey governor’s race turned somewhat competitive in the homestretch.

Mr. Forrester pounded Mr. Corzine, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal lawmaker, for his opposition to tax cuts, for the state’s high property taxes and over his ethical troubles in a state where Democratic statehouse corruption has been a major issue.

The two collectively spent more than $70 million on the race, with Mr. Corzine mobilizing his party’s biggest political allies in organized labor and among black churches to whom he made significant cash contributions in the closing weeks of the campaign.

President Bush, whose public-approval ratings have declined this fall, did not campaign with Mr. Forrester, as he did Monday in Virginia with Mr. Kilgore.

Republicans, however, were able to cheer Mr. Bloomberg’s landslide election to a second term in New York, a longtime bastion of Democratic liberalism.

Story Continues →