Christie delivers N.J. GOP victory

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. | Republican Chris Christie won New Jersey’s closely watched governor’s race Tuesday, ousting an unpopular Democratic governor in the solidly blue state and delivering an embarrassing setback to President Obama.

In his victory speech, Mr. Christie, 47, vowed to change the way business is done in a state plagued by political corruption and struggling to regain its footing after being hammered by the economic recession.

“Tomorrow, we are going to pick Trenton up and turn it upside down,” the former prosecutor told cheering supporters in a reference to the state’s capital.

With 97 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. Christie led Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine 49.2 percent to 44.5 percent. Independent candidate Chris Daggett, who had garnered only about 5.5 percent of the votes, was the first to concede late Tuesday.

Mr. Corzine in his concession speech to supporters at the East Brunswick Hilton, said he might be retiring from politics but he would not stop being a voice for important Democratic causes such as health care, education and organized labor.

“At the end of the day, elections are not about the people who are running,” Mr. Corzine said. “It’s about the choices we make.”

Low turnout in Democratic strongholds appeared to have hobbled the Corzine campaign and helped break the party’s grip on New Jersey, which hadn’t gone Republican in a statewide race in a dozen years.

The Christie victory will be interpreted as a rebuke of Mr. Obama and a blow to his ambitious agenda in Washington. Mr. Obama raised the stakes for the White House in the race by campaigning five times with Mr. Corzine in the Garden State.

Most voters said Mr. Obama was not a factor in how they cast their ballot, according to a CNN exit poll.

The exit poll showed that 60 percent of voters said Mr. Obama did not figure into their vote, 20 percent said their vote was cast in opposition to the president and 19 percent said it was to support him.

“It’s a game-changer,” said Assembly member Sheila Oliver, a Democrat, who is in the running for the job of speaker and finds herself contemplating the previously unthinkable reality of working with a Republican governor.

She blamed the national economy for souring voters on Mr. Corzine.

“You just have an angry electorate,” Mrs. Oliver said.

A surge of mail-in ballots spurred talk of election fraud in the tight race for New Jersey governor that was still too close to call after polls closed Tuesday.

Mr. Christie, insisting he was not worried about shenanigans in the vote count, said his campaign had more than 300 volunteer lawyers monitoring the process and by noon Tuesday already had lodged more than 600 ballot challenges.

Story Continues →