Power & Politics: NJ falters in Top States for Business poll; opioid settlement funds controversy

Power & Politics: Gov. Murphy signs $58.8B budget – the final of his tenure

Gov. Murphy answers viewers' questions on ‘Ask Gov. Murphy’ program – June 24, 2025

Power & Politics: Hamas hostage returns to NJ, Ex-Sen. Menendez reports to prison

Power & Politics: Sherrill vs. Ciattarelli – a look ahead at November’s NJ gubernatorial race 

Power & Politics: Countdown to New Jersey primary

newjersey

News 12 Staff

RTNJPowerPolitics12282024BBlock230pm

Welcome back to Power and Politics. I'm Eric Laz Kronner continuing with our naughty and nice list today for the end of the year, a year-end show here. Uh, let's get back to John Wisniewski and Jeannette Hoffman joining us. Thank you both so much for joining us and of course for sharing your lists again this year. John, uh, let's get to the naughty list now. Who do you have topping your list? You can't have a naughty list in New Jersey politics for 2024 without putting Bob Menendez at the top of it. He's only think about this in the 235 years of our nation, he's only the second US senator from New Jersey to resign due to a criminal indictment. Uh, that's pretty telling. Hopefully it doesn't happen again, but it really tarnished the reputation of the Senate and the state. I know that he's on your list too. He is. I mean, you can't have a naughty list, as you said, without he's a naughtiest politician around. I mean he was the focus of national political stories this entire year, the scandal just by the way as well, worse and worse, selling out our state, our country to Egypt. with cash and gold bars, he had the nickname Gold Gold Bob Menendez. Frankly, he should have gone away when he was indicted in 2018. Shame on us for re-electing him. Do you think that there's going to be a new trial based on the evidence that should not have been in the jury's computer? I don't think that there'll be a new trial. I think that's going to be an issue that his lawyers bang on, but ultimately the conviction will stay exactly as it is. And let's hope he doesn't get a pardon. All right, your list. What's your Bob Menendez, who is on your naughty list as well? Public pollsters. This one really this one really drove me crazy. I mean if you see a public poll come out in 2025, just just throw it in the garbage. I don't even report on it because they were so far off and I'm talking about records, Eagleton stock in FDU they said Donald Trump was going to lose New Jersey. By 20 points, 30 points. Curtis Basha was going to lose by 20 points, 30 points. In the end, these were single digit races. They were so far off. And let me tell you what happens when public pollsters put out these polls that are so far off. Well, donors aren't going to give any money to the Republican candidates when they see that they're down double digits, and it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So it really has an impact. of stifling these races and it has a chilling effect on the races when the public pollsters are so wrong and then you have these earned media stories that are a result and say well you know Trump is going to lose really badly or the Republican candidates can't win. So that's my naughty list public pollsters and the question goes is will polls be reliable going forward? I mean, is it really possible to have an accurate poll these days? John, next on your list, next on my list, Phil and Tammy Murphy. Uh, they got remarkably bad political advice and having Tammy mount a race for the US Senate seat. When you talk to anybody else about it, the idea of a sitting governor having his wife run for an open Senate seat just didn't seem to wash. They got advice to the contrary, but it didn't pay off. Interesting. All right, so next on your list, yeah, going along with that, the party bosses that went along with the Murphy's and said we're going to anoint you, you know, Tammy Murphy as our US Senate candidate. We're going to block Andy Kim, we're going to block all these other people, and on, you know, the Republican side, party bosses also lost some power, not having that county line and being able to endorse their preferred candidate for the statewide races and also on the local level too, so you're gonna see a lot of primary. Challenges on both sides of the aisle and diminishing power from the party bosses. Jeannette, you have the commuters of New Jersey on your naughty list. Well, losers. Well, I would say they're getting we're not the naughty ones but we're definitely the losers. I would say New Jersey Transit and our politicians are the naughty ones and they're they're delivering a big lump of coal for commuters this holiday season and going forward in 2025 for a lot of reasons. First of all, New Jersey Transit has been unreliable and terrible. We had. Just another summer of hell and no one can explain why it's, it's completely just unreliable and also the gas tax is going to go up once again and again. Congestion pricing is back on the table. So whether you drive or take the train anywhere you commute, you're gonna get hit hard with a lump of coal. John, next on your list, Congressman Jeff Van Drew. Uh, I served with Jeff, uh, you know, personally I think he's a nice guy, but when he had this theory. Of an Iranian mother ship launching drones on New Jersey that really took the cake and uh that's a big naughty list. Well, listen, no one could tell us where the drones are coming from, so there's a lot of theories out there. I still like my Santa one. I think they're Santa's helpers. All right, Jeannette, your next one. Oh, Sue Altman who ran against Tom Kean, she was a terrible candidate. She was someone who said that we should defund the police, and then she changed her mind when she was a candidate for Congress against Tom Kean Jr. in the 7th district. So a lot of flip flopping by her. I think she was just not a great pick to run for a seat in the 7th congressional district, which is a really moderate district and became more Republican. They spent. A lot of money on her House race which could have been spent in other states and actually could have made the difference with Republicans winning the House. But now she has a job working for Congress as Senator Andy Kim. Yes, yes, she does. John, you have the Open Public Records Act on for many years that was really an outstanding element of New Jersey government where citizens could ask their locals. A county government for records and there was an obligation to produce them and if they didn't, there were strong penalties for not doing so. That's all been changed. The revisions of the Open Public Records Act make it harder for citizens, for news organizations to get the information they need to hold elected officials accountable. It's a loss for New Jersey. All right, so Jeannette, I know that you had a couple of items on the naughty list which. Also we're the same or mimicked John's here so uh let's talk about John's last loser here and that would be the New Jersey Democratic Party. Yeah, the New Jersey Democratic Party truly underperformed in the 2024 presidential election. When you look at the margins and you look at the turnout in certain counties, there really wasn't the type of effort and we could go through a lot of reasons why that is, but the Democratic Party needs to recognize, especially in the light of the fact that the county lines are not going to be there to provide assistance, that it's about messaging an organization that's going to get voters out. I would agree. I was gonna say I'm sure I don't need to ask you if you agree. So yeah, I mean, listen, I think affordability, the economy, immigration, those were huge issues, and the Democrats just didn't have the messaging to make voters feel like those were priorities for them. Well, I would even go further that they didn't have the message. But they were also really concerned about how to respond to that messaging and so there was almost no message in response to it, which was probably even worse. All right, so I'm gonna give both of you a chance to get in some final thoughts, but we need to take a very quick break here on power and politics. We'll be right back with more right after this.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/8ca4b9ca-518d-40d2-b96e-2b9ed11addba/8ca4b9ca-518d-40d2-b96e-2b9ed11addba.transcribe

RTNJPowerPolitics12282024CBlock230pm_2024-12-28-15-00-09

Welcome back to New Jersey Power and Politics. I'm Eric Glanzkronner uh just about toward the end of our holiday show. I'd like to welcome again Jeannette Hoffman and John Wisniewski. Thank you both so much for being here. All right, we went over our naughty and nice list. Now I want to look ahead at 2025, talk about what we can expect, what you expect for the next year. Uh, Janette, I'm gonna start with you. Well, 2025 is gonna be an exciting year because it is our gubernatorial year. Only New Jersey and Virginia have gubernatorial races, and this. it is wide open because there's no incumbent governor as we know, so there's a ton of candidates running on the Democratic side and there's about 3 or 4 candidates running on the Republican side wide open because we don't have those county lines that we talked about um so I'll talk about the Republican side and then I'll let John get into the Democratic side. This is a great opportunity for Republicans to take back that seat after two terms of Governor Murphy, as we know, New Jersey is usually purple, right? We don't, we, we kind of swing back and forth. We. It would be highly unusual after two terms of Democratic governor that we elected another Democrat and especially the trend of New Jersey trending more Republican. We registered 180,000 more Republicans under the Biden administration. Jack Chittarelli ran for governor against Governor Murphy, almost beat him. Bill Spadia, conservative radio host, he's running in the primary, and John Bram, a really popular state senator, he's running. John Bramnick's kind of running the never Trump lane, not sure that there's a lot. Of Republican primary voters are going to vote that way. Spaia is really conservative, really somewhere in the middle. So how the three dice it up, we're going to have to wait and see. We only have about a minute left. John, talk about the Democrats in the race. So Jeannette was right. You've got a ton of candidates literally running. You've got everybody from former Senate President Steve Sweeney down south to Josh Gottheimer up north, Sean Spiller, Steve Ful up, Ras Baraka. Uh, Mikey, Sherrill, and it's really anybody's game right now and we'll have to wait and see how the primary season turns out and who gets out and who stays in. If you had to bet, who do you think it is? On the Democratic side last person standing, I think it's a jump ball, really, yeah, I'm not making those predictions. Anyone who can tell you what's going to happen is lying to you. Any predictions for the last of the last year of Governor Murphy's tenure? Well, I think what happens is, is when you're the last term, last year of a second term governor, uh, people now start looking what's coming next. They're not as worried about your agenda, so I think the governor is gonna have some trouble dealing with the legislature because they're gonna be thinking about. Their next term and the assembly is also up for reelection. That's the lower house, so they're going to want to have a budget that's very favorable for them and for their re-election prospects, and they're not gonna really want to care what Governor Murphy wants per se. Jeannette Hoffman, John Wisniewski, thank you both so much for being here and spending the entire show with us. It's a pleasure. Thanks Eric. Happy new year. Happy New Year to you guys and thank you for joining us not only this week but year round here on News 12 New Jersey's Power and Politics. I'm Eric Lanzkronner. We'll see you again next time.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/b3b86130-ad4b-4e28-bc83-e5d8a61e93f5/b3b86130-ad4b-4e28-bc83-e5d8a61e93f5.transcribe

A look back at the year's biggest political stories in Connecticut. 

Power & Politics: 2024 year and review – naughty & nice list

A look back at the year's biggest political stories in Connecticut.

More Stories

Power & Politics: NJ falters in Top States for Business poll; opioid settlement funds controversy

Power & Politics: Gov. Murphy signs $58.8B budget – the final of his tenure

Gov. Murphy answers viewers' questions on ‘Ask Gov. Murphy’ program – June 24, 2025

Power & Politics: Hamas hostage returns to NJ, Ex-Sen. Menendez reports to prison

Power & Politics: Sherrill vs. Ciattarelli – a look ahead at November’s NJ gubernatorial race

Power & Politics: Countdown to New Jersey primary

Power & Politics: NJ falters in Top States for Business poll; opioid settlement funds controversy

Power & Politics: Gov. Murphy signs $58.8B budget – the final of his tenure

Gov. Murphy answers viewers' questions on ‘Ask Gov. Murphy’ program – June 24, 2025

Power & Politics: Hamas hostage returns to NJ, Ex-Sen. Menendez reports to prison

Power & Politics: Sherrill vs. Ciattarelli – a look ahead at November’s NJ gubernatorial race

Power & Politics: Countdown to New Jersey primary

More from News 12

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Ad Choices

Privacy Manager