Dr. Benjamin Dworkin, Founding director of The Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship Interview

Benjamin Dworkin talks with Mendte in the Morning about the NJ primary elections and who has the lead in both races.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now let's got to the real it's his real voice.
Doctor Benjamin Dworkin not Ai, founding director of the Rowan
Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship at Rowan University in Glassborough,
New Jersey. He's an old friend. Good to talk to
you again.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Then good morning, Larry. It's great to be with you.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
So it's a big day.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I am not AI.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
You prove it. It's a big day in New Jersey.
Looks like, and you correct me if I'm wrong in this.
It looks at this point like it's going to be
Jack Chitarelly for the Republicans.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
I know we're not supposed to say that, especially if
I'm a news guy, but I'm not anymore. I'm doing
talk radio, so I can say with some degree in confidence,
according to the polls, it's going to be Jack Chitarelly.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, it's very likely. He's been far ahead in all
of the polling that we've seen, and President Trump's endorsement
of him a few weeks ago probably sealed the deal.
Check literally, he has been running for ten years for governor.
He lost originally a couple times ago, then he actually

(01:08):
got the nomination, but lost by just a few points.
To Phil Murphy, the Democrat who's the term limited incumbent,
and he's been running ever since, and so a lot
of people know him and like him on the Republican side,
and the President does too.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, he's become a professional candidate. He is extremely polished,
and I know a lot of people say he's going
to be tough to beat, even in New Jersey, which
they say when it comes to governor is more purple
than it is blue. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Absolutely? Absolutely. We have traditionally been much more purple than blue,
as we are in federal elections here in New Jersey.
We go back and forth, and we've had eight years
now of a Democrat as governor, So at least historically speaking,
we would think that this is going to be a

(01:59):
good year for the report Publicans in terms of their
efforts to win back the front office as we call it,
the governor seat now.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
In the Democratic side. On the Democratic side, it's not
that clear. You have six pretty strong candidates, all who
are decently well known and have been successful in public life.
But Mikey Cheryl has a slightly depending on what you
poll you look at, she has a maybe a ten
point lead in others. She has a much slimmer lead,

(02:31):
But there are a lot of votes still out there,
aren't there.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Sure, we expect about five hundred and fifty thousand Democrats
in New Jersey to vote in this primary. And when
you have six top tier candidates, well funded candidates, talented
politicians running, everybody's got a plausible path to winning. In addition,
New Jersey provides taxpayer funding for gubernatorial elections, which means

(02:59):
nobody is running their campaign on the shoespring budget. Everybody
has got ten or a million or so to run,
and sometimes much more than that. Mikey Sheryl, congresswoman from
Morris County Essex County area, has always been in the lead.
And you were right that some poles have her a
little bit more, a little bit less, but she's always

(03:21):
been in the lead. It's been that way since we
started polling in this race about eight months ago. So
in that sense, the race has been very stable. No
one has been able to knock her off. Now that's
a poll. Now we're waiting for turnout and we have
to see how that all comes to play.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
How is turnout going to be today? You mentioned five
hundred and fifty thousand like, how does this compare to
a presidential election.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Oh, it's nothing compared to what we would see in
a presidential race, which gets much more voter attention. As
you might imagine, we expect about twenty two percent of
the Democrats, the registered Democrats in New Jersey to come
out and vote. So that's obviously when you're talking about

(04:09):
one in five, that's very small, but that gives all
of these candidates. When there's a smaller turnout, there's always
a more plausible path for each of them to get
the We are assuming about one hundred and seventy five
thousand votes that it's going to take to win.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Right, And so today all that money and the most
important thing today is to get out the vote machines.
Who do you think might have the best one given
their pasts.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, what we're looking at is probably Mikey Cheryl, and
that's one of the reasons why people are assuming at
this point she should win. What we used to have
in New Jersey up through last year was a party
designed ballot in these primaries, and each party organization in

(05:01):
New Jersey's twenty one counties got to give a special
line just for their endorsed candidates. So if you walked in,
you didn't know who to vote for, but you saw
a big list of all these folks under Joe Biden
or under you know, with some leading candidate at the top,
and all these people bomb that's who you voted for.
It drew people to that, to that line, and that's

(05:24):
what it was called the line the court said it's unconstitutional.
All these folks are now running without that preferred ballot
position in the primary, so that makes things open. But
the reason they get to your question about turnout, turnout
is still driven by party organs. The party organizations in
New Jersey's twenty one counties are still the way you

(05:47):
get your list of volunteers, you get your list of
people who are gonna make phone calls. You have ways
to do that, and that's a huge benefit if you
get that endorsement and get those kinds of resources. Mikey
Cheryl overwhelmingly has got party support in the counties that
deliver the most vote in these Democratic primaries, and that's

(06:08):
one of the reasons why we think a lot of
people are expecting her to win.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
That's why you're the best doctor, Benjamin to work in.
Founding director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy and
Citizenship at Rowan University at Glassboro, New Jersey. Thanks a lot. Ben,
we'll talk again.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
I look forward to it. Larry, thanks so much.