The election comes as Trump administration developments swamp headlines, spurring Murphy to lash out at the Republican president and wedging Guadagno between an unpopular White House and a governor of whom most voters disapprove.
To no one's surprise, the l0w-profile New Jersey gubernatorial primaries were won by the front-running Establishment candidates, Democrat Phil Murphy (a former ambassador to Germany and CEO of Goldman Sachs) and Republican Kim Guadagno (two-term Lieutenant Governor and heir apparent to current Governor Chris Christie) on Tuesday.
A former Wall Street executive and Christie's second-in-command are the leading candidates and Tuesday's winners will compete in the November 7 general election.
Murphy and national Democrats immediately pitched him as a bulwark against Trump and promised a departure from Christie, while Guadagno and national Republicans have come out aggressively against Murphy, bashing him for his time as an executive with Goldman Sachs and comparing him with unpopular Democratic former Gov. Jon Corzine, a Goldman alum Christie defeated in 2009.
John Parilla, 75, an immigration lawyer from Alpine, voted for Republican front-runner Lt. Gov Guadagno and said he likes the range of experience she brings to the job.
Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (gwah-DAH'-noh) told reporters she was "humbled" after voting in Monmouth Beach and she encouraged her supporters to vote.
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One of the fans watching the players go through their pregame routines was Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. But the Warriors are brimming with confidence, knowing they didn't have Kevin Durant to help them past year .
Also on Tuesday night, the Lt. Governor criticized Murphy who she says plans to raise taxes and increase spending.
On the Democratic side, there are six candidates: Phil Murphy, former Goldman Sachs executive and US ambassador to Germany; Bill Brennan, a former firefighter and lawyer; Jim Johnson, former USA under secretary of the treasury for enforcement; Raymond Lesniak, state senator and former chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee; John Wisniewski, state assemblyman and former chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee; and Mark Zinna, president of the Tenafly Borough Council. Murphy's campaign, however, said he wasn't involved in the decision to invest in that company.
The 2017 New Jersey Governor race has been narrowed down to two. Incumbent Republican state Sen. Ray Lesniak, Assemblyman John Wisniewski (wihs-NES'-kee), former Teaneck firefighter Bill Brennan and Tenafly Councilman Mark Zinna. "The only way to solve the property tax crisis in New Jersey is with a more equitable distribution of state funding for schools", he said. New Jersey's Legislature already is controlled by Democrats.
Democrats are favored in the general election, in part because of an 800,000-voter registration advantage and because of political headwinds stemming from Christie's and Trump's unpopularity.
The gubernatorial race - like the one in Virginia - is of outsized importance as one of the only two statewide contests in the first year of President Donald Trump's tenure in office.
He has loaned $15 million to his own campaign and has been endorsed by former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as the state's Democratic Party.
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