well for more on the big takeaways and what to expect next now that the election is over I'll turn to two of our go-to analyst Micah Rasmussen director of The rebovich Institute for New Jersey politics and Ashley Koning director for the Eagleton Center for public interest [Music] polling Micah Ashley good to see you both thanks for coming back on the show obviously a long night some races still not decided but let's just talk about the gains made in New Jersey uh by Republicans Micah what was most surprising to you well at this moment it looks like two counties that went for Joe Biden in 2020 have flipped to Trump in 2024 and that is a Somerset County and Morris County Somerset is a little bit more of a surprise and more recent Just Happening Now um it's uh it's you know four points so it's not something that's going to really necessarily bounce back and forth at this point um and those are big surprises maybe the biggest surprise is Passaic County flipping was Passaic County becoming Republican and going for Trump as well so um you know it's just really a wild situation that you're talking about in in a blue State like New Jersey these Three Counties behaving very atypically based on past election results yeah let me stay with you for a minute because you said last night the Democrats are going to have a real Reckoning are they though I mean what what is the talk today well if they if they don't deal with it now then they may deal with it after the governor's race so it's definitely in their interest to figure out what's going on and why now in this cycle they've had the closest presidential race in New Jersey in decades and now they've also they also had the closest governor race in New Jersey in um decades and so you know this is a really tight cycle for them they have had a 2025 gear majority uh in in New Jersey and they need to figure it out before they actually wind up on the losing end with these three four fiveo loses Ashley is New Jersey shifting uh this is the Republican's closest uh presidential margin here anyway in what almost 40 years 35 years 30 years um is the state shifting it really brings into question kind of which path of politics New Jersey republicanism will take for the 2025 gubernatorial uh given that the kind of republicanism republicanism we typically see in the state is more moderate so will the candidates Embrace Trump uh will that be any Factor come 2025 will this once again be a bell weather for the country where maybe there is an ideological mood shift and voters swing back to the left I think you know it's all too early to tell this but it leaves a lot of big questions for the year ahead well okay so then if we were to look at say uh District nine the race with Nellie Pou the state senator um we anticipated that to be called not just last night but early in the night it was left hanging this morning it does appear that she's the Victor but again another example and Micah I mean you're point about uh if you look at the specific voting blocks there within the district um of the margins just not being what uh we have typically seen in the past yeah I you know Passaic County in particular has a problem with turnout and on top and that we have seen over the last couple of Elections we saw that in the governor's race it's one of the reasons why Phil Murphy wound up in such an unexpectedly tight race among other reasons was a very tight margin in Passaic voters in Paterson just don't seem to be coming out um for the most part and so that's um part of it for sure um but uh beyond that it is also um the county in the state with the largest Muslim population and one of the largest in the country so you may be seeing some of them we have to see as more numbers come in and more prings come in you have to dig into it but maybe Harris and the Democrats were having some of the problem that you saw in some of the Muslim areas of uh Michigan uh if we shift over to district 7 uh Tom Kean did pull out the win over Sue Altman the polls were showing uh at the very end anyway um that on the issues the two appeared to be somewhat neck and neck but Kean did pull out the wind um Ashley what were the indicators there um in terms of perhaps the president helping Kean I mean was it the top of the ticket yeah I mean we certainly saw that uh areas like Somerset County flipped to Trump this time around and so certainly Trump may have really helped Kean there um in fact it's as interesting that it was as close a race as it became um given that you know Altman was really an outsider to her party and didn't receive funding until late uh but at the same time Kean's lack of visibility from the media so it was certainly an interesting race to watch um Democrats uh nationally really entering that race late but of course a lot of money spent in that District um so this is again this has National consequences obviously for the house uh this was something that could have potentially been turned back but we know with the seventh that it's often changed hands in the past few election Cycles even before Malinowski so you know this is not necessarily surprising but maybe surprising about how close it was all right now how does this all set the stage for next year for the gubinatorial election we were talking a bit in The Newsroom this morning that New Jersey is tended to go the opposite right of of whichever party um holds power at the in the white house um but it seems like that may not be the case I don't know Micah what do you think well there's there's a lot to to unpack there because first of all there could be a an early midterm penalty as you see in midterm years for the party in power and of course New Jersey and Virginia are going to see that first since we have our elections next year if the honeymoon period has ended if uh campaign promises haven't been met if people are cranky uh at at at the president at the White House then then his party can pay the penalty for that on the other hand uh we want to be careful not to extrapolate too much because there's a difference between voters that vote in presidential elections and voters that vote in all elections or in Governor's elections so we just don't know which voters Republicans will be able to hold on to that turned out this year they're certainly going to do what they can to hold them as many as they can Ashley just a few seconds final thoughts on that yeah I again it's going to come down to the economy we saw it with Sherrill and Murphy uh again this is going to be a prominent issue in 2025 and Democrats have to realize that that is the issue at the top of Voters Minds in New Jersey and across the rest of the country as well all right Ashley Micah good to talk to you both thanks so much thanks thank you [Music]