Phil Murphy courts senior vote at Cedar Crest

PEQUANNOCK - Many of Morris County's oldest — and youngest — Democrats met with gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy Tuesday night at Cedar Crest Retirement Community to talk about critical elections in both 2016 and 2017.

The only declared candidate for New Jersey governor in 2017, while noting the primary for that election is 41 weeks away, said "We have work to do this year. From the top, most importantly, we must elect Hillary Clinton as president of the United States of America. We must, in doing so, reject the ideology, the words, the actions that Donald Trump represents. This is a pass-fail-test for America. That's job No. 1."

The Middletown resident, who made a fortune as a Goldman Sachs executive but has never held public office, was speaking to a crowd of about 150 senior residents, with several members of the Morris County Young Democrats attending as guests. The former U.S. ambassador to Germany, who also previously served as the finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee, spoke about his humble beginnings growing up in Massachusetts and also took questions during his town-hall-style meeting.

More people listened in on a phone broadcast of the event dialed out to about 20,000 potential supporters.

Focusing his early remarks on 2016, and suggesting Trump's campaign could have a negative effect on down-ballot races, he referred to Nov. 8 as a potential "seat-change election" in Morris County, where only 36 Democrats hold elected offices.

Republican-dominated Morris County has not voted in favor of a Democratic president since Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964, and has not elected a Democratic freeholder since 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon's resignation, according to Morris County Democratic Committee Chip Robinson.

"You don't need to be a math major to know that was a few years ago," Murphy said. "Let's just listen to some of the townships, this is not emotion pie-in-the-sky stuff. This is where real races are at stake for our party. Wharton, Boonton. Mountain Lakes, Chatham, Lincoln Park, Morris Township and Madison. That's seven townships where control is at stake, where we either have to hold it, or get it."

Should Democrats take the contested races they have targeted in Morris County, the party could control 50 elected offices in Morris County come January, Murphy and Robinson said.

Murphy then turned his pitch to 2017 and his own candidacy, where he will compete in a Democratic primary expected to be crowded with high-profile candidates including senators Raymond Lesniak and Stephen Sweeney, and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop. None of those rumored challengers has formally declared their candidacy. Neither has Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the expected front-runner on the Republican side.

"We got out there early, we're still the only candidate out there, folks, and I like what I see," he said.

He outlined a progressive agenda that stressed economic and infrastructure growth.

"There are two pass-fail requirements in the next governor," he said. "A governor  who understands, in his bones, how you build and propel a sophisticated economy in the 20th century. You with me on that? Our economy is stuck in the mud. We need someone who can full-frontally grab that economy, with the right folks around him or her, figure out the path forward and propel it. At the same time, we have an economy that is profoundly unfair. ... We are in that box you do not want to be in, flat as a pancake and profoundly unfair."

The pillars he is basing his solution on include reclaiming the STEM economy — "Science, tech, engineering and math."

"This is part of our legacy," Murphy said. "This is who we are. We were Silicon Valley before Silicon Valley. We had Bell Labs, and Sarnoff Labs, and Thomas Edison and AT&T, and bio and healthcare and life sciences. We used to corner that market, and we let it go."

The other pillar, he said, was to "Own the infrastructure world.Take complete exploitative advantage of our location, our God-given location that 49 other states would die to have. That means an all-in investment in everything from a here-and-now, please God, can we figure out a way to solve the Transportation Trust Fund crisis, all the way over to dreaming again, taking big risks."

With approximately 2,000 residents, Cedar Crest represents a larger voting block in Morris County than the borough of Victory Gardens. Dr. Fred Palace, president of the Democratic Committee at Cedar Crest, said that Cedar Crest, which also serves as its own voting district, produced more than 1,000 votes for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

"Even though older folks tend to be more conservative, we voted about 52 percent for Obama," he said.

Robinson said the Morris County Democratic Committee has yet to endorse a candidate in the 2017 gubernatorial primary.

"Honestly, I can't think past Nov. 8 right now," he said.

"I believe this election for governor is the most consequential election in 70 years in New Jersey," Murphy said. "We are at the edge and we've got to make the right decision to pull us back from the edge, recharge ourselves and go forward."

Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@GannettNJ.com.