How the 'Blue Tsunami' Looked in New Jersey

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, Happy Friday, everybody. The Blue Tsunami New Jersey Edition. Politico's Matt Friedman wrote the morning after the election that it was a quote, big blue biblical flood. Another superlative, another hyperbole, which we've been collecting since the election. Politico New Jersey's Matt Friedman, big blue biblical flood. Why? Democrats won 11 of the state's 12 house seats, and they already have the two Senate seats. So that's only one remaining Republican out of 14 members of Congress from New Jersey.

That's Chris Smith, whose 4th district covers parts of Ocean and Monmouth counties. Tom Kane Jr., as you no doubt know, lost in the 7th district by about 16 points. He had won by a lot two years ago. We'll talk about that epic flip. In South Jersey, which may be the biggest story from Jersey of the election, Jeff Van Drew, who won by 17 points two years ago, lost to the mayor of Cape May. Who?

It went well down the ballot too. Democrats won a county office in Morris County for the first time since 1973 Morris County tends to be Republican.

They ousted the Republican sheriff, the Republican county clerk in Atlantic County, picked up two commissioner seats in Salem County, which Trump had carried by more than 19 points two years ago. So joining us now to talk about how it happened and what comes next and to take your calls is Matt Friedman, reporter for Politico New Jersey and author of their New Jersey Politico Playbook. Hey, Matt, welcome back to WNYC.

Matt Friedman (1:58)

Hey, Brian, thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer (2:00)

And New Jersey listeners, New Jersey edition of The Blue Tsunami. The lines are open for you. Did you flip your vote from red to blue this year? I would love to hear anybody who kind of represents the group of people who voted for Trump, for president in 2024, or maybe for Cain or Van Drew, for Congress in 2024, but voted for a Democrat last week. 212-433-WNYC. Tell us what changed for you in these two years. 212-433-9692. Call or text? And was it hard? Was it a close call if your tendency is to think that the Republicans represent you better, but not this year? Was it the war in Iran, the cost of living, something else? Did you move with the Democratic Party from backing moderates to a progressive like Anna-Lilia Mejia or Adam Hummowy? That's another whole thread of calls we could take because the Democratic delegation also moved to the left even within the scope of the Democratic Party. So 212-433-WNYC on any of that, 212-433-9692.

And we'll throw in one more question here, which we're going to ask Democracy Watcher Ann Applebaum when she comes on later in the hour and ask you again at that time, what about American democracy do you hope the new Congress fixes? What about American democracy do you hope the new Congress fixes? And of course, for this segment, what about New Jersey? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

From Jersey for this segment, call or text. All right, Matt, you went into election night thinking a blue tsunami was possible. So what did you see that exceeded even that expectation?

Matt Friedman (4:05)

Yeah, I thought, yes, blue tsunami was absolutely possible. When I would talk to my source, as both Democrats and Republicans, I was usually a bit more bullish on the Democrats than any of them were.

I'm not saying this to vindicate myself, but just to give you an idea of how I think people were somewhat traumatized by 2024 in New Jersey. It was such a freak election in New Jersey in which President Trump just two years ago came within six points of winning the state, and we had an extremely close contest up in North Jersey that was not expected to be close to this year, where it went so hard the other way, which is more in keeping with New Jersey, but even more so. So I would tell people when this election was coming, I was like, at first I was saying, back in the summer I was saying, I think this is going to look more like 2006 for Democrats than 2018 2006 was a bigger wave than 2018 because it was similar. It was that you had an unpopular war in the Middle East, you had an extremely unpopular president on his second term, who wasn't on the ballot but who was really driving the vote against him, and the base was pretty depressed with him, and what turned out later, I started telling people, you know what, I think this is going to be somewhere actually, I think I'm going to re-measure more towards Democrats. I think we're looking at something more like between 2006 and 1974, which is the biggest wave in political memory, I think in living memory, or one of them, at least since the 1950s. That was the Watergate Backlash wave, where Democrats took offices similar to this election, where they didn't. This election was actually what I did not picture, what absolutely nobody I talked to pictured was that this was on the same scale as the Watergate anti-Republican wave. Never seen anything like it in my lifetime. That was before I was born. That was, I'm sure, before many of your listeners were born. Absolutely nobody I talked to saw that coming. And to give you an example like Tom Kane, when I would talk to Democrats, how they thought that district they would go, they would say, yeah, we think the Democrat, Rebecca Bennett, will be kained by three to five points. And that's what our internal polling says. I was like, I think you guys are underestimating. I think she's going to beat them by eight. I said this to Republicans too, to be fair. I said, I think she wins by eight. But she won by 16