Insisting on an election that isn’t over, a supposedly unvanquished Steve Sweeney is putting Governor Phil Murphy in a pickle with Republican Jack Ciattarelli.

The Murphy camp this morning called on Ciatatrelli to stop pretending he still has time on the clock and to refrain from throwing nerf footballs into the prime time Election 2021 endzone.

The trouble with that, Ciattarelli and his inner circle gleefully insist, is that Sweeney simultaneously refuses to stop chucking his own after-hours long balls down in LD3.

“The results from Tuesday’s election continue to come in, for instance there were 12,000 ballots recently found in one county,” Sweeney said in an email to the Philadelphia Inquirer last Thursday. “While I am currently trailing in the race, we want to make sure every vote is counted. Our voters deserve that, and we will wait for the final results.”

It’s a quote that might as well has have been uttered by Ciattarelli – and was, in fact. Last week, Ciattarelli, according to InsiderNJ columnist Fred Snowflack, speaking publicly late this afternoon for the first time since Election Night, said Phil Murphy’s victory speech was “premature.”

Murphy since then added to his lead by over 20,000 votes.

Still, Ciattarelli won’t throw up the white flag just yet, noting the discrepancy between Murphy and his minions insisting that Republican Ciattarelli cry uncle, while refusing to level a stand-down command at fellow Democrat Sweeney.

While Murphy has indeed stayed in his own lane and not chastised the senate president for dragging out his contest, this weekend on Meet The Press, in what sounded on the surface like a gracious reflection on the troubled fortunes of his “friend”  Sweeney, the governor simultaneously made sure to ever so carefully sprinkle some dirt on his long time same-party foe by declaring himself “shocked” over the loss.

“Shocked,” Murphy pronounced, “that my friend and partner has lost a race.” Last week, Matt Arco of NJ.com quote the governor’s self-professed mood from the Sweeney loss as “bummed.” 

Murphy expounded by noting the dangers of Sweeney’s replacement.

But the main point resounds: Sweeney lost a race. 

As Sweeney refuses to tap out along with Ciattarelli, the comment appeared to artfully accomplish the political goal of not appearing to dance on Sweeney’s grave (the two have been political enemies through Murphy’s first term), or school marming the long-serving senate president out of the race, while acknowledging – despite Sweeney’s entreaties to the contrary – that he lost.

It amounted to deft and delicate language in a political pickle with Ciattarelli’s message tag-teamed by Sweeney, as the governor branded his GOP opponent’s resistance to a white flag as an “assault on election integrity,” while oratorically bear-hugging the equally results-recalcitrant LD3 Democratic senator.