Ugly scene here with Governor Phil Murphy and his family.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy confronted while having dinner with his maskless family.

**Language Warning**

pic.twitter.com/6O3Jug0YmS

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 23, 2020

The incident occurred Saturday night in Red Bank.

“I’m a big boy, I have thick skin,” Murphy said on Monday at the War Memorial. He said his wife does, too, but he put his children in another category.

“The stress levels are overwhelming,” he noted. “Too much economic hardship.” He gets it, but “…Let’s leave my family out of this.”

The state this weekend surpassed 300,000 COVID-19 cases total and is nearing 15,000 fatalities total since the beginning of the pandemic.

On Sunday, the total case count was 306,007 cases and the fatality count was 14,949.  The transmission rate is 1.35.

Celeste Fernandez, candidate for Atlantic County Freeholder-at-Large, released the following statement:

“At the moment, Freeholder Risley and I are separated by 0.1 percent. Based on this extremely close margin, I will be filing a recount to ensure that every vote is properly counted.”

Asked at his afternoon briefing to react to criticism that the Democratic selections for the redistricting commission lack diversity, Governor Murphy responded that ‘I’m a big believer in diversity, and I acknowledge and take the question and the point’.

Advocacy groups have decried the lack of a Latina and lack of an African-American woman among the Democratic picks.

He said he was ‘gratified’ to see NJDSC Executive Director Saily Avelenda selected as a lead staffer on the commission, which ‘represents some significant step in the right direction as it relates to diversity’.

Pivoting to the state in general, the Governor said New Jersey is the ‘most diverse state in the nation’ and said his administration has aspired to put a ‘diverse set of folks on the field every day in the history of the state’.

The Democratic picks are:

LeRoy Jones – Essex County Democratic Committee Chair

Gary Taffet – Middlesex County power broker

Steve Sweeney – Senate President

Cosmo Cirillo – West New York Commissioner

Diane Testa – Fairview Administrator

Priorities:

Protecting Sweeney, who resides in a red zone of the state;

Tweaking state Senator Joe Lagana (D-38);

Tweaking state senator Joe Cryan (D-20).

Hard to make significant incursions.

Questions?

Do they squeeze state Senator Ronald Rice (D-28)? Do they squeeze Senator Nia Gill (D-34)?

“Someone,” a source told InsiderNJ, “will draw the short straw.”

The fact that the governor did not have a pick perturbed allies who wanted Murphy to have a stronger hand.

Governor Murphy tweeted that ‘New Jersey could receive its first shipment of vaccines in late December. It’s expected that @pfizer will be applying to the  @US_FDA for an emergency use authorization for their new vaccine – if approved, we’d expect our first shipment of 130,000 doses to arrive around Christmas’

At his briefing this afternoon, Murphy said ‘we can begin to anticipate the arrival of a vaccine’ while urging residents to continue to get tested for the virus.

NJDOH Commissioner Persichilli said the state could have as many as 460,000 vaccine doses by early January, and that the state’s goal is to vaccinate 4.7M residents.

Alex Mendez clung to a nine-point lead over Bill McKoy in the 3rd Ward Paterson Council contest on Thursday evening.

Surely, it’s headed for a recount.

North Caldwell Council Race Final results.

Anthony Floria-Callori (D) 2,260
Matt Atlas (D) 2,241
Cynthia Santomauro (R) (Incumbent) 2,156
John Chiaia (R) (Incumbent) 2,165.

Floria-Callori ran in 2019 and came 29 votes short of winning and that was the first time there was a competitive election in North Caldwell in 20 years. First time a Democrat has gotten elected in North Caldwell (maybe ever) but definitely in the last 40+ years.

Tom Malinowski will survive – probably.

With three counties in CD-7 – Morris, Somerset and Union – all releasing updated vote totals today and this evening, Malinowski is now more than 5,000 votes ahead of Republican Thomas H. Kean Jr.

That may not sound like much, but just five days ago, Kean had trimmed the lead to 4,200-4,300 votes.
Malinowski led by about 28,000 votes on Election Night, but Kean steadily closed the gap in the next 10 days.

However, Malinowski got a big boost Sunday when he gained about 400 votes in Union County from overseas ballots.

Since then, just about every batch of released votes has seen the Democrat’s lead expand further, or basically stay the same.

There is still some counting to be done, but it seems clear that Kean is running out of available votes.

If things hold, this is a big win for Malinowski and the Dems.

They have now held three of the four House seats they “flipped” in 2018. The fourth seat Democrats flipped that year is occupied by Jeff Van Drew, who switched parties and won this year in CD-2 as a Republican.

From today’s Rutgers-Eagleton poll:

Grades for both how one’s local elected officials and Governor Phil Murphy are handling the pandemic are slightly down, each taking a double-digit hit in the number who assign them an ‘A’; 22 percent now give local officials an ‘A’ (down from 30 percent), and 26 percent now give the same to Murphy (down from 39 percent).

Murphy’s overall job approval and favorability have also declined, though both are still in positive territory. Sixty-two percent now approve of the overall job Murphy is doing as governor, while 33 percent disapprove. Fifty-four percent now have a favorable impression of the governor (down from 59 percent); 28 percent have an unfavorable impression (up from 20 percent).

“Despite this decrease, Murphy’s current favorability rating is still one of the all-time highest for a governor in New Jersey, next to Governors Kean, Whitman, McGreevy, and Christie, who have all passed the 50-percent mark,” said Koning. “But it seems the Governor’s rally ‘round the flag moment from last spring is dissipating as the pandemic continues on and as decisions regarding public health and the economy grow tougher.”

Late this afternoon, Chris Mastrangelo withdrew from the race for chair of the Morris County Young Republicans, citing personal reasons.

Mastrangelo, the son of Freeholder Tom Mastrangelo, had been planning to challenge Justin Musella at a convention on Thursday