November 4, 2021
HISTORY GENERALLY WINS:
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's re-election was a historical rarity, but the narrow margin was not (PETER WEBER, NOVEMBER 3, 2021, The Week)
[H]istory was working against the Democrats in both races -- Virginia almost always elects a governor from the opposite party of the president, and before Murphy, no Democrat had won a second term in New Jersey since Brendan Byrne In 1977. Murphy is "also the first Democrat since Byrne to win during the first term of a [Democratic] president," The Nation's John Nichols notes. And while Murphy's breaking of a 44-year Democratic re-election curse is pretty unusual, his narrow margin of victory is not, as "political junkie" and "amateur historian" Russell Drew pointed out on Twitter.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 4, 2021 12:00 AM