Incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine.

By: Taskin Rahman

Currently, candidates are in the midst of an intense battle for the New Jersey governorship. Although there are twelve official candidates for the November 3 election, the two frontrunners are incumbent Democrat governor Jon Corzine and Republican Christopher J. Christie. Corzine’s running mate is New Jersey Senator Loretta Weinberg and Christie’s running mate is Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno. Both Corzine and Christie have tried to address the pressing issues of taxes and economic problems in their platform. According to the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research survey, Corzine is in the lead by a mere 3% over Christie, who has 39% of New Jersey’s vote, as of October 22.

Corzine’s platform focuses on improving the economic conditions in New Jersey and ensuring that education still remains a top priority in the state budget despite the recession. New Jersey’s economy has suffered during the current global economic crisis. Unemployment has risen significantly during Corzine’s term and his opponent Christie has repeatedly stressed Corzine’s failure to rectify this situation. Despite Corzine’s rebuttal that the unprecedented high rate of unemployment stems from the economic crisis and not his administration, his platform still promises to create new jobs, especially in the transportation, education, and energy sectors, in order to combat the trend. The creation of new jobs is just one component of Corzine’s plan to improve New Jersey’s economy. With the economic recession, most families have been unable to afford health care. As a result, Corzine has increased funding for children’s health care and is in the process of trying to reduce healthcare costs for all residents. Corzine’s belief in the value of an education is demonstrated by his sustained spending on education despite the continuing economic downturn.

Corzine’s main objective is to ensure the economic and financial safety for all citizens of New Jersey, especially the middle class, by creating a tax policy that is fair to all groups. In order to make sure that there is enough funding for his projects, Corzine successfully decreased state spending, by eliminating unnecessary expenditures. By reducing state expenditure by $1.8 billion, Corzine was able to reduce the deficit without implementing an increased income tax. On the contrary, he provided property tax relief so that homeowners would not default on their mortgages. All of these policies were aimed at ensuring that people were not forced out of their homes due to the inability to make payments and thus ensure a better living standard.

Christie’s campaign addresses the issues of corruption, fiscal waste, taxing policy, government spending, and unemployment. He views Corzine’s administration as being inefficient and unethical. Christie cites Corzine’s inability to prevent the loss of 200,000 jobs during his term and the high rate of foreclosures in New Jersey as key indicators of his failure to deal with the economy. He wants to lower taxes, especially income and corporate taxes, because he believes that this will attract more business to New Jersey. With an influx of businesses, unemployment will decline and people will have more income that can be used to prevent foreclosures of their homes. Also, he plans to create a program called Jersey Partnership for Action in order to retrain unemployed employees and help them find jobs. To make up for the reduced revenues from lower taxes, Christie plans to reduce the size of the state workforce. Furthermore, Christie, just like Corzine, believes in funding education. His platform will provide grants to colleges and universities, especially those with an energy conservatism curriculum.

Throughout the campaign, Christie has used ethics in order to differentiate himself from Corzine. Christie cites the 2009 arrest of 44 public officials in New Jersey during the FBI operation Bid Rig concerning political corruption to highlight the unethical selections that Corzine has made in his administration. During the FBI probe, Corzine’s Commissioner of Community Affairs Joseph Doria was heavily investigated and his house was raided. While Doria was never officially charged, Corzine still asked for his resignation. However, this was not enough to extricate Corzine from the corruption scandal and Christie has used this negative portrayal of the Democratic party in his campaign for the governorship.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have endorsed governor Corzine and have applauded his policies and vision. Momentum from these endorsements and the fact that New Jersey is generally a Democratic state, which has not elected a Republican in a state-wide election since 1997, seems to serve as positive signs for Corzine’s reelection bid. However, despite these historical trends, the close proximity of the two major contenders seems to indicate that Corzine’s victory is not a guarantee. The outcome of this election will help gauge the political climate in a state home to many Cornellians.