There were some early endzone dances among establishment players in Democratic Legislative Primaries who were convinced anemic turnout meant they’d be fine later tonight.

Cruise control.

Public sector allies would be punching into the firehouses and school houses.

There was no wave out there ready to overwhelm anyone.

Patronage would prevail.

“Maybe it would have been different had senators been on the ballot,” one incumbent speculated.

The senate steer-wrestled cannabis down and out. Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) has been openly antagonistic toward Governor Phil Murphy. If his caucus members were on the ballot with time to organize a resistance, maybe Murphy allies would have been able to summon something.

But Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-19) was just coy enough not to put a Democratic Primary target on the backs of his caucus members, who even felt sufficiently comfortable on Election Day to acknowledge their aye votes on a budget that lacks the millionaire’s tax Murphy craves.

There were few clear shots.

Deprived of Sweeney and company, there was no boogeyman.

With just the Coughlin caucus members up against the backdrop of an intra-party war at the statehouse, the evening lacked a distinctly drawn Murphy versus Sweeney battle line to produce a Monitor versus Merrimack election.

It sputtered home.

As if to prove the point, Murphy endorsed a pair of incumbents in LD17 against Ron Rivers, a self-proclaimed progressive whose stated views appear closer to the governor’s than to the lawmakers he opposes.