The Final Monmouth Poll on the 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial race, published yesterday, had an implicit message for Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, taken from the seventeenth-century British poet and religious writer John Donne and later famously quoted by Ernest Hemingway: “For whom the bell tolls, Jack Ciattarelli, it tolls for thee.”

The Monmouth Poll, under the direction of Patrick Murray, has earned the distinction of being the most accurate poll in the history of New Jersey politics, particularly in gubernatorial races.  The poll published yesterday, showing incumbent Democratic Governor Phil Murphy with a continuing commanding double digit lead, sent Republicans throughout the state, including Ciattarelli himself, into a frenzy of self-deluding denial.

For the New Jersey Republican Party, however, this Monmouth Poll is only confirming a two-fold inconvenient truth: The combination of the electorate’s approval of Murphy’s performance as a governor, together with the Trumpian toxicity which Ciattarelli embraced and which has destroyed the very soul of the New Jersey Republican Party, has made virtually any GOP candidate for statewide office in New Jersey unelectable.

The one-time Republican Tom Kean message of the Politics of Inclusion is now a distant memory.  If you want a vivid historical contrast, consider this:  In his 1985 overwhelming landslide gubernatorial reelection victory, Tom Kean actually carried the majority of the African-American vote. The Monmouth Poll published yesterday shows Murphy leading Ciattarelli among African-American voters, 83 to six.

Jack Ciattarelli’s forecast that he would do well among African-Americans has all the credibility of the 1936 presidential election forecast of the now defunct Literary Digest.  That long forgotten leading American periodical had predicted that Alfred E. Landon would defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt in his campaign for reelection.  In the 1936 election, FDR carried every state except Maine and Vermont.  Bye, bye, Literary Digest.  Bye, bye, Jack Ciattarelli.

Since the outset of Gubernatorial General Election Campaign 2021, I have been consistently predicting a landslide victory for Phil Murphy.  The Monmouth Poll confirms my belief.  I also hereby renew my forecast that on Election Night 2021, we will get a projection of a Murphy victory by 8:09 pm. Actually, maybe by 8:05 pm.

The gubernatorial race will not be the only news of electoral catastrophe for the NJGOP on Election Night 2021.  As I have previously predicted, the Democrats will win two state senate seats currently held by Republicans: The Second District, comprised solely of Atlantic County municipalities, and the Sixteenth District, comprised mostly of Somerset and Hunterdon County municipalities.

And I continue to predict that the consolation for the New Jersey Republican Party next Tuesday will be Assemblywoman Jean Stanfield.  In the Eighth District Senate contest, she will defeat incumbent Republican-turned-Democrat Senator Dawn Addiego, limiting the net gain for the Democrats in the Senate to one.

Jean is a classic case of the maxim, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  The George Norcross-led South Jersey Democrats have spent millions of dollars in advertising accusing Jean, in so many words, of lacking concern for her constituents.  These commercials have failed to make the smallest dent in her popularity.

The people of Burlington County know Jean well from her years of service as county sheriff and assemblywoman.  Her constituent service in both positions can be best characterized as unsurpassed excellence. Burlington County voters will not give credibility to the ad hominem commercials on behalf of Dawn Addiego. Jean is truly beloved among the grassroots of both parties in her home county.

I can best describe Jean Stanfield as a Bella Abzug in reverse.

One of my leading political heroes was, is, and always will be the late former mayor of New York City Ed Koch.  Ed rejected completely the leftist fringe of the Democratic Party, and he had total antipathy for the leading Democrat advocate of ultra-left radicalism, the late Congresswoman Bella Abzug.  When Bella was trounced in one of her last elections, Koch was asked how she could have lost in her own neighborhood.  He displayed the classic Koch humor again, saying, “Her neighbors knew her.”

The neighbors of Jean Stanfield know her, too, and in contra-distinction to the case of Bella Abzug, they will elect her to the New Jersey Senate next Tuesday.

Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission