By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP — Many pundits around the U.S. were predicting a blue wave to sweep the nation based on early voting and polling.
John Froonjian, executive director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University, said choices will “depend on the region, on the state” but that “in blue-state New Jersey, we have seen quite a bit of enthusiasm and new voter registration on both sides, but more on the Democratic side.”
He said there have been new registrations for Republicans as well but that “Democrats do seem to really be enthusiastic.”
As of Oct. 31, more than 90 million people had already cast their ballot, more than 65 percent of the number in the 2016 election.
“It speaks to how important this election is to many, many people,” Froonjian said. “I think the election is a referendum on President Trump and I think that factor is going to influence races up and down the ballot.”
He said one sign of a blue wave is “the majority of early vote-by-mail ballots coming in seem to be from the Democrats.”
That does not mean the Republicans are not going to vote, he said, but “I think it’s a sign of just how ramped up the Democratic side is. It’s like they can’t wait to vote.”
Asked if the numbers mean more people will vote in this election or whether the convenience of mail-in voting is allowing people to vote early, he said it’s hard to say.
“We are in such uncharted times it is hard to say definitively what’s going on, but at least part of it is the sign of the enthusiasm that is out there this election and the stakes that people feel about this election,” Froonjian said.
Using the primary elections as an example, he said a lot more people voted than in past cycles but that what was particularly telling was the high turnout for some Democrats who had no opponents.
“In the First Congressional (District), Donald Norcross had no opponent this time and got 20,000 more votes than he did two years ago when he had primary opponents,” Froonjian said.
More telling yet, he said, was in the Third District where they had a “super-competitive Republican primary” featuring David Richter and Kate Gibbs who “really slugged it out.”
“Meanwhile Andy Kim, the Democratic incumbent, had no primary opponent and still got more votes than both Republicans combined,” Froonjian said. “So what does that tell you? There’s not even a primary on the Democratic side but the voters just had to come out and show support, or vote or express themselves and cast more votes than in a hotly contested Republican primary.”
While Froonjian believes Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden will win blue New Jersey, he said President Donald Trump is not as unpopular in this region as he is in the rest of the state.
Asked if that is not odd given Trump’s infamous behavior while owning a number of casinos in Atlantic City — multiple bankruptcy filings and refusal to pay vendors for work performed that drove them out of business, among other things — Froonjian said that’s almost ancient history in the world of politics.
“You would think that, and if you think that there’s a good chance you are over 50 years old,” Froonjian said, adding that people have short memories. “That happened in the 1980s, so we are talking at minimum 30 years ago.”
He said many people living here may not have even been around during those days.
“Keep in mind that we are a transient society in general but in south Jersey, where so many jobs depend on the casino industry and the tourism industry, when things go bad people move, when things are good people move in,” he said. “A lot of the people who were here when Donald Trump owned casinos are not here anymore and did not personally live through those times and remember those times.”
He said if a blue wave does happen, it will have far-reaching ramifications.
“We talk a lot about president, U.S. Senate and Congress, but really, really important also are the down-ballot races in all of these states,” he said. “So if there is a Democratic wave, and people vote down the party line, they could be electing Democratic majorities in state legislatures.”
That would become hugely important after the U.S. Census data is released and congressional boundaries are redrawn.
“A Democratic sweep this year could have implications at the state level and create congressional districts that are more favorable to Democrats or at least become more swing districts where they have a chance,” he said.